Thanks for the kind words!

Preamble: We understand the value of social media / social CRM concepts and in particular how our clients can benefit from integrating that information into their Solve database to gain even more insight into the people they are working with.  Stay tuned for more on this…

When compared to the alternatives Facebook proved to be an ineffective medium to directly market a business application like Solve.  My perception that folks hang out there to play and not to work.  Okay that might come off as a bit extreme, maybe I’m putting up an excuse because i) we just don’t have the time to give it the attention it deserves, and ii) I personally believe that SM is based on user-user conversations and while companies can and should particulate in some of those conversations they should not poison that wonderful experience by pushing their agendas.

The secret-sauce of our marketing strategy is old school: deliver a system that is easy on the eyes and delivers amazing benefits so that clients love using it and will refer it to other people i.e. our marketing strategy hinges on referrals (currently the majority of all our new clients are referred to us by an existing client).  When you get to the point “you can’t live without it” I’d love it if you shared that fact with all your FB friends and get a conversation going

I hear ya.

I definitely wouldn’t “direct market” through Facebook, for reasons you are clear on. However, letting users do their own marketing (but you control the interaction) is a pretty simple thing to set up. Set up the venue (make it official - there are too many knock-off groups on FB as well) and let the users start talking about you for you….

Throw up your preferred branding/logo on the groups there (if you did indeed create them - if not, create your own and brand them) so that when guys like me search for them, it’s your stuff that will be found and not something else.

Cheers!