How Dreamforce Demonstrates Salesforce’s Success

The first Dreamforce, the Salesforce user conference occurred in 2003, showcasing 50 exhibitors and drew 1,130 attendees. My first thought in seeing that was…really? Dreamforce has only been around for 8 years? It feels like much longer...in a good way.

This year, Dreamforce will have 270+ exhibitors and I'm guessing will exceed last year's 23,000 attendees. I did the math for you. Last year's attendees exceeded the first year's by 19x. And what’s important about that is it reflects how much bigger Salesforce has grown over the same period.

In 2003, Salesforce had 6,400 customers. Today, the company has almost 98,000 or about 14x more than in 2003.

Eloqua and Jess3 teamed together to create a nifty infographic about the rise of Dreamforce.

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Social Strategy: How to Offer Great Service and Still Achieve ROI

Dr. Natalie Petouhoff and I spoke this week at a Focus roundtable about social customer service. We shared success stories and offered suggestions for offering stellar customer service via social media, while still achieving ROI. Discussion topics covered:

  •  Key tenets of successful social customer response strategies 
  • The best social media channels for customer services 
  • Metrics used to determine & measure ROI

Click here to hear the event replay.

We didn’t plan it this way, but this is also an unofficial run-up to a new eBook we'll be releasing on Kindle and PubIt in the next week or so.

 

How to do Google+ messaging

I’m loving using Google+ and am looking forward to it coming out of beta so more people can get involved. If you’re new and need help with understanding how to do messaging, then Gord McLeod over at GeekBeat.tv has what you need.

For example, I wanted to figure out how to send a message to one specific person, like a Twitter DM. As much as I enjoy reading the conversation streams, I wanted to make personal connections with folks too. Gord has the answer -- and he's now my new best friend.

Check out:

How to Take Advantage of Google+ Messaging

How to Use the Advanced Secrets of Google+ Messaging

 

SCRM Interview With Thought Leader Kathy Herrmann

All Things CRM just interviewed me for an article on Social CRM. Questions included the evolution of SCRM, it's future, what companies are doing SCRM well, and the ROI of SCRM.

Check it out!

 

Defining SCRM

There’s some variation across different thought leaders about what SCRM means. Here’s how I look at it.

I start with the idea of the social business model which centers on engaging, collaborating, and connecting with customers, partners, employees, and other interested parties. It refers to the holistic corporate adoption of activities that occur both internally and externally to the company and incorporates all of a company’s business ecosystem.

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