Once you’ve added a contact, Nimble will automatically display their most recent Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn activity every time you call up their record and let you send them messages through any of those products or by email. I had an intriguing demonstration yesterday from social CRM vendor Nimble. Since “social CRM” could mean just about anything, it’s important to explain what Nimble actually does: it combines traditional contact management with automated access to social media information about those contacts. Here’s how it works. MORE >>

Its most recent report shows that in the past year, time spent on “community” applications like Facebook and Myspace has more than doubled from 8.8% Summary: Here are links to about twenty studies with statistics on online media consumption and advertising spend. Many are contradictory, but it's clear that marketers need to invest in social media, which might eventually replace search as the primary way that customers find them. m sitting on a panel next week that will discuss long-term marketing trends. You won’t be surprised that there’s plenty of data out there. for email. to 18.5% MORE >>

The company also monitors Twitter, Facebook company pages, Quora, and LinkedIn profiles of people within each sales person’s network. 'There’s nothing new about using public information to identify business opportunities: it’s why lawyers chase ambulances and bankers phone lottery winners. But the Internet has exponentially grown the amount of data available and made it easily accessible. Lattice Engines was founded in 2006 to fill this gap. It supplements this with data from the clients'' own systems including customer profiles, Web site visits, and purchases. MORE >>

create social media posts: deliver messages through social media, such as Twitter posts and Facebook updates. create social forms: create forms that are delivered within a third-party social media system such as Facebook. social sign-on and data capture: recipients can register using third-party social credentials, such as their Facebook ID. I’m getting ready for the next edition of the B2B Marketing Automation Vendor Selection Tool (VEST). This is based on nearly 200 questions to vendors, mostly about product features. We’ll get back to those in a bit. On to mobile. MORE >>

Another key feature is that Spredfast supports multiple “voices” of actual or constructed individuals, each having accounts in multiple channels ( Facebook , Twitter , blogs, etc.). Summary: Social Agency’s Spredfast helps marketers schedule social media campaigns the same way they schedule paid advertising. It seems like common courtesy to listen to an existing conversation before jumping in with a comment. If social media worked the same way, companies would first buy a monitoring system to track what’s being said, followed by tools to respond to comments made by others. Silly me. MORE >>