“Nimble is unique when it comes to its market product offering, because it has the only unique social integrated CRM for SMB customers”

Crisantos Hajibrahim

CEO, Viwo Inc.

Industry: Information Technology and Services

Our Focus on Integrations Continues

Today is another step forward for our growing Nimble Apps Marketplace. We  welcome three new technology partners—Zapier, FreshDesk, and Import2.  These integrations further empower our customers to engage across  multiple social networks from their Nimble account.

Our  team is acting on its promise to help our developer community make  Nimble ever more efficient and productive, so professionals and  collaborative teams can accomplish their tasks from one central social  relationship management platform. With  these integrations, Nimble customers can chose to connect with the  exact features that matter to them and their own customers.

Today’s New Integrations

Zapier

Use Zapier to integrate Nimble into your favorite business applications. Connecting web-based apps has  always been a challenge. Either users did it manually themselves or  hired a programmer to sync apps with complicated APIs. Zapier helps  business people, who know their time is better spent connecting with  customers, by syncing the web services they are already using on a daily  basis to increase productivity and results. Think of Zapier as an If  This, Then That (IFTTT) for business users.

With Zapier connected to Nimble you can automatically:

• Send new Salesforce.com leads into Nimble for more effective social selling.

• Send new QuickBooks customers and vendors into Nimble to nurture and manage relationships.

• Send new GoToWebinar attendees into Nimble for more effective customer engagement.

Just  drag and drop the icons for Nimble and your favorite web app into  place, select the information to transfer and Zapier does the rest.  Follow Zapier on Twitter.

Freshdesk

The  Nimble-Freshdesk integration enables agents to see full customer  records from within a Freshdesk help ticket. Freshdesk is a cloud-based  help desk software system that allows organizations to support their  customers through email, phone, website, Facebook and Twitter. Its  simple yet powerful features make Freshdesk a great solution for  startups to enterprises.  Freshdesk  and Nimble work together to create a “social help desk” that keeps  business owners and small teams organized with the most up-to-date,  accurate information available about their customers.

With Freshdesk connected to Nimble you can easily:

• View Nimble contact details from the Freshdesk support ticket
• Import new contacts into Nimble from Freshdesk
• Review Freshdesk customer email and social conversation history in Nimble

For more information, visit the Freshdesk website, Facebook page, and Twitter.

Import2

Import2 for Nimble is a complete data import solution for Nimble. It helps customers  import all accounts, contacts and sales activity history into Nimble  from other CRMs, such as Salesforce.com, Zoho, SugarCRM, SalesLogix,  Highrise and many others. It’s as easy as clicking one button. Import2  believes that users should be able to control the data they store in  cloud apps they use, making moving data in and out of apps simple.  Importing data quickly, accurately and with confidence continues to be  one of the most sought-after items on productivity wish lists. Follow import2 on their website and on  Twitter.

With Import2 connected to Nimble you can easily:

• Transition your entire company’s customer info into Nimble from legacy CRM systems
• Easily migrate new sales reps to Nimble from a variety of contact products

Onward and Upward

We  are committed to giving your business even more ways to close the  marketing and sales loop. Our Apps Marketplace already hosts a  collection of social business tools and applications that extend the  power of Nimble by offering lead capture and analytics, email marketing  support, and more. Current Apps Marketplace partners include HubSpot, HootSuite, MailChimp, Wufoo and Rapportive.

Nimble is always on the look out for cool applications that will add value to our community. If you are a developer with an interest in building into the Nimble social business platform, please check out the Nimble Developer Portal and contact us with any questions.

Please let us know what you think of these additions to the Marketplace. As always, your guidance and support inspire us as we move Nimble forward.

Start your free trial of Nimble today!

Thanks to Alyson @ Nimble Original Post

“Nimble is like my morning newspaper now… it allows me to scroll through and se what’s going on, what conversations are happening out there, what topics pop up. It allows me to have greater reach than I’ve had in the past”

Matthew Kruchko

Managing Director, Applied Storytelling

Industry: Marketing and Advertising

If  you run a small business, you may have accounts on Twitter, Facebook,  LinkedIn, and other social networks. If you haven’t, you’ve probably been  told many times that you should have.

Why?  I bet you’ve been told that, with millions of people in these networks,  it’s a good place to market your business. It is, but maybe not in the  way you’ve been led to expect.

When these social networks started, people joined to network socially.  Then people who spotted the opportunity joined just to market their businesses, but nobody—NOBODY—has ever joined a social network to be sold to.

What  this means is that there are thousands of small business owners on  Twitter lurking anonymously behind their logo and business name and  struggling to get results—because why would anyone follow a business  account when nobody wants to be sold to?

There  are people auto-posting their own blog links in multiple LinkedIn  Groups under the disguise of discussions and displaying desperation by “liking” their own submissions—with the result that members are flagging  them as inappropriate because nobody wants to be sold to.

The Unsightly Landscape of Dashed Hopes

Facebook  is littered with unloved and unseen business pages as (even if they’ve  liked them out of politeness) the posts are invisible because nobody wants to be sold to.

The  problem is that everyone is using the term “social media marketing”  without fully understanding what it means. Social media marketing is an art and a science  used to great effect by big brands and specialist agencies that use  complex tools and algorithms to decide where to place adverts and do  their marketing on social networks. It is not something that small  businesses can dip into on their own.

Just Be Social

This begs the question: If you run a small business; can you use social networks for marketing? The  answer is an emphatic “Yes,” but you need to adopt different  strategies.  Instead of social media marketing, concentrate on becoming  an expert social networker. I’m guessing that as a small business owner  you are already pretty good at face-to-face networking so you already  know the basics.

The Tragic Faux Pas of Social Networking

You  wouldn’t turn up at a networking meeting with a bag on your head with a  business card stuck to it, so don’t do that in social networks.

You  wouldn’t burst into a room and blurt out a sales pitch—or worse, send  a recording of your sales pitch—to be broadcast at scheduled intervals  at several meetings at once. Don’t do that in social networks.

You  wouldn’t ignore people in the room who spoke to you until you found  time to reply to them a couple of days later, so don’t do that in social  networks.

What You Should Do

Imagine  visiting a prospect in their office. You’d see what books they read,  pictures of their family, certificates they have on their wall. Imagine  taking them out for lunch. You’d get to know their likes and dislikes  and maybe their hopes, dreams, disappointments and achievements.  Connecting with them in social networks can be just as revealing if you  take time to get to know people and make them the most important part of the conversation. As Dale Carnegie said in his book How to Win Friends and Influence People: “You  can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other  people than you can in two years by trying to get other people  interested in you.”

Grab Your Tools and Get Networking!

Speaking  as someone whose business has tripled since I started using social  networking, there are some excellent tools that make it easy for us to  hear what are our prospects are talking about, know when we’re being  talked about, make it easy to respond and generally allow us to do  everything online that we can do in a room full of people. My advice is  to forget social media marketing and use the tools that make it easy to  be great at social networking. Talk about the things that let people get  to know you as a person and when they get to know you and like you,  then they’ll be interested in what you do.

Thanks to Ann @ Nimble Original Post

“Using social media as a customer relationship channel is no longer a luxury, it’s a must-do. I knew Nimble would really help us in this regard – we’d finally be able to grow, nurture and track our social communities through our CRM.”

Brian Butler

Account Executive, Skyline Boston

Industry: Marketing and Advertising

Today,  I’m writing my first blog post for Nimble—the first of what I hope will  be many as I start my new position as Nimble’s content strategist and  newest member of the marketing team, bringing our customers, prospects  and enthusiasts practical, educational and entertaining information as  we explore the evolution and emergence of social businesses.

I’ve  spent the past few years with two small startups and one big company. I  think I was one of the first ten employees at Assistly (a SaaS customer  service startup that was acquired by Salesforce and renamed Desk.com)  and the second on the marketing team. I got busy right away—launching  our social media presence, editing our service-focused blog, and  branching out to develop our product marketing process. Whatever I  accomplished at Assistly—and subsequently at Salesforce—I learned much  more than I contributed, working with a great team.

Assistly  was actually the second startup where I wore many hats. The first was  1000 Markets, a clever online artisan marketplace, with a very dynamic  community of creative people selling their original work in online  shops. It was an inspiring experience to create and curate the best  advice to help them run what we dubbed their “very small businesses.”   At 1000 Markets I got the yen for connecting, celebrating community,  and helping people get the information they needed to succeed.

I  took to calling the artisans “my tribe,” and I miss them to this day.  My favorite market was called “The Village.” The Village was a “real”  virtual place where the members had a map with virtual storefronts, a  gathering place where we met daily for coffee, and a village green where  we held sales and events to engage customers. Such good times.

Over  these past five years, I’ve witnessed truly significant changes, both  in the world and in the world of business. But doesn’t it seem as if  change is coming ever more rapidly? Advice and hot news from a few  months ago is already out of date, and new technologies move into our  lives as if beaming right out of a Star Trek episode. Case in point (see  the photo above) it seems only a minute ago that I was 5 years old,  standing at the head of the line to try out the fire hose, and now I  frequently say I’m drinking from that hose!

Since  I met Nimble’s CEO, Jon Ferrara, I’ve been impressed by his contagious  passion about helping business professionals nurture deeper customer  relationships and turn them into company growth.  His latest venture,  Nimble, and the philosophy it represents—helping business teams turn  social conversations into customers via the strength of meaningful  mutually beneficial connections—is the latest venture after his previous  success with GoldMine, an early pioneering CRM platform.  As always  throughout history, people today are hungry to converse and connect, and  there are more ways than ever to do that. More channels. More noise.  More need for extraordinary tools like Nimble to help make sure those  relationships remain vibrant.

I  was honored that Jon liked what we were doing at Desk.com—providing  thought leadership about the importance of customer focus—and honored  that he wanted me to join his team. He’s asked me to bring a similar  commitment to Nimble—to bring our audience the very best information  about all the topics the term “social business” encompasses. I’m excited  to take that on, with expertise from the many professionals who  recognize and value the promise of Nimble.

I’ll  be counting on our audience for help. What blogs and websites do you  find most helpful? If you’re a thought leader or expert blogger with  knowledge you’d like to share with our readers, let me know so we can  add your voice. We’re also working to assemble a world-class editorial  advisory board (announcement coming soon!) to ensure that we are your  “go-to” resource—the blog you start your day with.

While  I am sad to say goodbye to old friends, I am so looking forward to  what’s ahead and can’t help but follow the lure of the unexpected around  the next bend. So buckle up…the future awaits, and it’s going to be  fiercely exciting.

Let’s learn together.

Thanks to Alyson @ Nimble Original Post