More

    New Fliptop Release Applies Analytics to Social Profiles

    While there is a lot of talk being generated this week about the evolution of the social enterprise at the Dreamforce 2012 conference being hosted by Salesforce.com, there remains the practical issue of actually trying to establish and the correlate identities across multiple social networks. People tend to have different “handles” on different social networks, so knowing for certain that a person on one network is the same person on another network can be a little tricky.

    To address that issue within the context of customer relationship management (CRM) applications, Fliptop this week released Fliptop Social Profiles for Salesforce, which automatically adds Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn profiles to the Leads and Contacts modules within Salesforce.com.

    viz20120920-01

    According to Fliptop CEO Doug Camplejohn, the company’s software essentially applies analytics against all the information people put into their public profiles to determine the identity of people on multiple social networks. Because it’s now possible to affordably aggregate all that information using APIs provided by social networking vendors, Camplejohn says Fliptop can provide this capability for as little as $17 per month, per seat. While Camplejohn applauds the efforts of Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff to promote the business value of social networking, he says that without tools to address such a fundamental issue as identity, most organizations wind up struggling with establishing a social relationship with customers that is anything more than superficial.

    As activities such as marketing become more targeted on social networks, knowing what is being said to whom at different times is becoming more critical. Enterprises, however, can’t really have a social relationship with people if they wind up saying the same thing over and over again to the same person on different social networks or, worse yet, saying completely different things to the same person on two different social networks.

    While Fliptop doesn’t solve all the complexities and nuances associated with making enterprises social, that old adage about needing to know your audience before speaking certainly still applies now more than ever.

    Mike Vizard
    Mike Vizard
    Michael Vizard is a seasoned IT journalist, with nearly 30 years of experience writing and editing about enterprise IT issues. He is a contributor to publications including Programmableweb, IT Business Edge, CIOinsight and UBM Tech. He formerly was editorial director for Ziff-Davis Enterprise, where he launched the company’s custom content division, and has also served as editor in chief for CRN and InfoWorld. He also has held editorial positions at PC Week, Computerworld and Digital Review.

    Get the Free Newsletter!

    Subscribe to Daily Tech Insider for top news, trends, and analysis.

    Latest Articles