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The title tag is an HTML title element critical to both SEO and user experience that is used to briefly and accurately describes the topic and theme of an online document.

The title tag is displayed in two key places:

  • Internet Browser – Title Tags display in the top bar of internet browsers.

title tag in browser

  • Search Result Pages – Search engines display title tags in their results along with another less important on-page factor, the meta description tag.

title tag in search results page

Importance for SEO:

Historically, the title tag has consistently been one of the single most important on-page SEO factors. Before search engine algorithms increased their complexity, the title tag was an easy way to try and determine the topic and relevancy of a page. As search engines evolved, their algorithms started to include additional factors such as link data, social media interaction and traffic/performance metrics. The title tag, however, still holds great value for on-page search engine optimization.

According to SEOmoz’s annual Search Ranking Factors survey of 37 influential thought leaders in the SEO industry, 35 of the 37 participants said that keyword usage in the title tag was the most important place to use keywords to achieve high rankings.

Creating Optimized Title Tags

Title tags are one of the best return on investment SEO techniques because they are a low effort and high return task. Most blogging platforms like WordPress and Drupal either provide built in solutions or downloadable add-ons to provide access to create and edit title tags.

Optimization Tips:

  • Be Accurate – Try not to wonder off topic with your title tags as they are used as a relevancy factor to describe a page in search engine algorithms. Stray too far off the path and you may look like you’re spamming, keyword stuffing or other manipulative techniques.
  • Don’t Target Too Many Terms on One Page – A good rule of thumb is to try not to target more than a couple keywords per page. If you could create a standalone article on the topic, it should be its own page. This method allows search engines to more easily determine the topic and relevancy of your page.
  • Optimize Your Length for Results Pages – Search engines standardize their results pages by limiting the amount of characters they show per element of a listing. Title tags are allowed a maximum of 70 characters is the maximum amount of characters before they display an ellipsis – “…” to signify that a title tag has been cut off. Your title tag may not make sense to a user if it gets cut off before the point is made, so be sure to check title tag length. Additionally, don’t go overboard with keywords and use common sense to know what looks too long.
  • Keyword Placement and Order Matters – According to SEOmoz’s survey, the earlier the keyword is used in the placement of the title tag, the more helpful it is for ranking factors. Additionally, because it is near the beginning and likely not cut off at the 70 character limit, the more likely a user will see it and click on your search result listing.
  • Try to Be Enticing – Your title tag is a searcher’s first impression with your page and sometimes brand. Leverage the title tag to not only optimize for SEO but also for user experience. Studies have shown that the message you convey in your title tag can get your more traffic than the search result listing ranked above you. Think of the following example – which one would you click on?:

Option A: Digital Cameras – Company Name

Option B: Buy Digital Cameras and Accessories – Limited 20% off – Company Name

Search Engine Result Pages

One last thing to note is that any keywords in title tags, meta descriptions and display URLs that match the performed search query will be bolded on the search results page. With searchers using title tags to determine which listing they click on, an optimized and enticing title tag can increase click-through rates and greater brand awareness.

By: Christopher Kelly

Engaging with today’s new breed of socially-enabled buyer, or Customer 2.0, has become increasingly difficult for B2B sales and marketing organizations.  Traditional marketing tactics have become increasingly ineffective.  Inbound marketing, which is focused on generating relevant content that results in “getting found” by customers vs. the other way around, has brought new life for marketing.  Similarly, B2B sales organizations are adopting inbound selling (a.k.a. social selling) to drive prospect engagement in the latter stages of the buying process.

Getting found requires not only relevant content but also good visibility on search engines (which is where most customers begin their research.)  Making your content visible to Google and other search engines requires SEO (search engine optimization.)  SEO is often confused with online marketing and inbound selling, but is in fact a very distinct discipline.  As we’ve explained in a previous post, the equation for getting found looks something like this:

SEO + Inbound Marketing = Getting Found (by search engines AND customers)

So without further ado, he are 20 key SEO terms that inbound marketing professionals must understand:

301 Redirect – A redirect is a technique for forwarding one URL to another URL. It’s a useful and dangerous tool to seamlessly forward visitors and search engine spiders to a new URL for one of several reasons including if a website needed to change its domain or a time sensitive page like a contest has expired and is no longer relevant. 301 redirects, unlike 302 redirects, also transfer PageRank and SEO value to the new URL.

Breadcrumb – A breadcrumb is a navigational trail used on web pages to display where the page sits in the hierarchy of the website. Each level of the breadcrumb is usually a link back to the referenced page. An example breadcrumb looks like this: “Home > Category > Product Page”

Canonical – Similar to the 301 redirect, URL canonicalization is an HTML tag to help eliminate duplicate copies of the same page on a website. Unlike redirects, canonical URL tags are only used for search engine spiders to signal that the duplicate pages have a single source.

Co-citation – Co-citations are links used to establish similarity between two web pages. If sites A and B are either linked to or cited by site C, then they may be related to each other even though they may not directly link to each other. For an example, say your blog about banking is linked to from 1,000 other websites that also link to WellsFargo.com. Search engines will use the existence of 1,000 co-citations to establish relevance between your blog and Wells Fargo.

CSS – CSS, or Cascading Style Sheets, is part of HTML code that outline the layout of different elements of your site such as your header, content area, widgets, etc.

Image Alt Text – Alt tags are used in the HTML code to describe images on a web page. Since search engines cannot see images, the use alt text along with other factors to determine what the image is and how relevant it is. An example of alt text: <img src="image24094.gif" alt=”Latest picture of BP oil spill>

Inbound Link – An inbound link is a link from an external site to your site. An example would be if Site A adds a link to Site B on its homepage. Site B would have an inbound link from Site A. To see how many inbound links your site or page has, use the Yahoo! Site Explorer tool.

Indexed Pages – Indexed pages refers to the number of pages of your site that search engines have found, crawled and stored in their index. A page cannot rank for a search term unless it is in the search engine index.

Internal Links – Unlike inbound links, internal links is a link from one page on your site to another page on your site. An example would be if Site A added a link to the About Us page from the homepage of Site A. Internal links are valuable for SEO, although not considered to carry the same weight as an inbound link from an external source.

Long Tail – Long tail refers to uncommon search queries, generally phrases that are 3+ keywords in length. Popularized by Chris Anderson, long tail refers to the statistical probability distribution that there is a larger share of traffic to be gained by targeting the large number of uncommonly searched queries as opposed to the few, but wildly competitive and highly trafficked head terms.

NoFollow – A link element used in the HTML code of a link to tell search engines to not pass any SEO value or PageRank through the link. It was created to prevent spam in blog comments that the blog author could not control. An example of the nofollow code: <a href=”http://www.example.com/” rel=”nofollow”>discount drugs</a>

NoIndex – Noindex is a HTML tag that tells search engine spiders to prevent storing the page in a search engine index. It can be used for private information that you would not want anyone to find through a search engine. Found in the <head> section of the web page, an example code looks like: <meta content=”noindex” />

Outbound Link – An outbound link is a link from your site to an external site. An example would be if Site A adds a link to Site B on its homepage. Site A would have an outbound link to Site B.

PageRank – Is a link analysis algorithm, assigning a numerical weighting for the total value and trust accumulated by your entire site (all pages) based on the quantity and quality of the links pointed at your site.  Links are used by the search engines as the main factor determining trust, relevancy and the importance of a page and domain based on the quantity and quality of the links that point to it. Every link on the web is treated as a “vote” and that the more votes a page has, the more value its vote’s pass.

Robots.txt – Robots.txt is a protocol that determines the accessibility of specific pages on a domain to search engine spiders. The robots.txt file tells search engine spiders which pages to disallow any crawling or indexing before the spider even reaches the page. Try typing in any domain followed by /robotx.txt and see one for yourself: http://www.google.com/robots.txt

Spider A search engine spider is an automated program, known as a robot or crawler, that navigates through the web, crawling and indexing content from sites into a search engine index.

Subdomain – A subdomain is a domain that is part of a larger domain. An example would be Money.CNN.com is a subdomain of www.CNN.com. Subdomains are treated as separate sites from the larger domain it’s a part of and do not carry over the SEO value from its parent domain.

Subfolder – A subfolder is a folder or path contained within a domain. An example would be www.google.com/adsense is a subfolder to www.google.com. Subfolders are treated as the same site as the parent domain and carry over all SEO value.

Title Tag – Title tags are HTML tags in the code of a web page that define the title of the page. Title tags are displayed in the menu bar of internet browsers and on search engine results pages with a short meta description snippet. They are one of the most important on-page factors for SEO.

WHOIS – WHOIS is a query protocol to determine who the owner of a website is. Many resources are available to search WHOIS records such as Network Solutions. Private registrations can be used to hide contact information for WHOIS records.

By: Christopher Kelly

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With healthcare reforms under way in the US, saying that the healthcare industry is undergoing a sea of change is an understatement! Bottom line – many companies across the healthcare value chain are impacted – be it insurers, technology providers, or benefits firms. For healthcare providers, like others,  focusing on finding new growth opportunities and improving profitability through higher productivity are both critical.

Recently, we’ve been seeing tremendous interest in InsideView from companies across the healthcare sector, as they look to boost sales productivity and pursue new market opportunities created by healthcare reform – these include firms in the Fortune 100 as well as emerging technology leaders.

We’d like to thank these healthcare firms for choosing InsideView, and are excited about doing our part for the healthcare industry.

Twitter has fast become one of the leading online resources for finding, connecting and engaging with customers and prospects. Most organizations and salespeople have Twitter profiles, but only a few percent actually drive sales leads and generate a return on investment from Twitter. With so much potential, why are most Twitter profiles unsuccessful? Like most things online, the general consensus is that most users don’t know what to do or how to optimize their profile pages for success.

Without further ado, here are 5 steps for twitter optimization:

1. Fill Out The “About You” Info (Http://Twitter.Com/Settings/Profile) Making Sure To Set a Location and Fill Out the Bio.

Great way to add credibility and promote trust on first impressions. Not only does having this information make you stand out from other Twitter users, it shows that you are not a controlled bot program. Additionally, if your Twitter page shows up in a search results page, your Name, UserName and Bio are displayed to the searcher.

2. Add a Custom Background With Contact Information

With Twitter’s restrictions on page customizations, it’s hard to fit everything you’d like to in the tiny amount of space they give you. This is why many users and business are using a customized background with detailed contact information. See some great examples from SEOmoz, Michael Gray and HubSpot.

3. Use a Custom Avatar

Another key factor in gaining trust and credibility is a professional avatar. Preferably of yourself or your company logo, your avatar will help familiarize you with your customers and visitors, and only helps to increase your brand awareness.

4. Be Consistent With Your Tweeting Activity

Think of tweeting as a weekly activity just like blogging (Note: it should be a daily activity, but set realistic goals and try to beat them). Think of how relevant a news site would be if it posted 30 stories one day and then did not post again until three weeks later. Try to post at least once a day or a few times a week. Outlining a content schedule with upcoming events is a great way to think of new tweets.

5. Be Attractive To Casual Visitors

Ask yourself this question: Would you read it if it was someone else’s Twitter? Make your content exciting, unique and follow-worthy. Tweet about interesting news stories in your industry – not just your product, give away freebies, have contests and ask questions. Do anything you can to stir up interest and conversation.

By: Christopher Kelly

dwight-schruteLeads are coveted. Leads are adored. We score leads and we nurture leads. Leads are measured in meticulous detail, and continue to keep many, myself included, up at odd hours of the evening. Leads are made famous in movies and television alike. My favorite all time sales guy, Dwight Schrute, spent one entire Office episode asking one question:  ‘When are the leads getting here man?’

At best, the lead qualification process energizes and enables fruitful sales engagements which delivers prized funnel into the forecast. At worst, lead qualification is a cycle dialing, canned email popping machine who slowly beats prospects into submission.  If you are seeking ways to improve your ability to accelerate lead qualification, and aren’t interested in beating your prospects into submission, here are a few things to consider:

  • Knowledge is Power – It is critical to provide timely and relevant sales intelligence at the fingertips of your lead qualification team, and in many cases this falls right within your CRM. When I say sales intelligence, I don’t mean employee counts, revenue, URL, and geographic location which is typically what lead qualification teams leverage. I am talking about surfacing social profiles and social connections, presenting the climate of the prospects business and uncovering what is being said and about that prospect in the online world. Customers, particularly Customer 2.0, will appreciate this knowledge on the front line and will become more open to meetings and demonstrations and allow you to accelerate more leads into the funnel.
  • Speed, I am Speed – Speed is also extremely critical in terms of engaging with leads. Study after study shows the material degradation of leads as the seconds fly away. Without providing a tightly integrated sales intelligence solution to your sales team, those resources will waste critical minutes attempting to uncover some form of intelligence. Lead qualification team members will run to LinkedIn, Google, legacy data providers like Hoovers and Onesource to hopefully extract something meaningful. That wastes valuable time and will not provide a complete and relevant profile of your prospects.
  • Call Around the Lead – The ability to profile contacts and executives wider and deeper in an organization is paramount to improving lead qualification since let’s be honest, your decision makers are not out filling lead forms all day. The fact that someone came to your website or attended a campaign event demonstrates that at least someone believes there is a need for your solution. Through a comprehensive sales intelligence solution, such as SalesView, your sales team will be able to uncover additional contacts and easily find a credible message to have a better conversation.

As the buying process continually evolves and the competitive landscape becomes more and more crowded, differentiating yourself on the very first engagement has become more critical than ever. Using real time and accurate sales intelligence to improve your conversations and quickly engage with multiple contacts in a credible fashion will drive many more leads into opportunities and ultimately allow your Inside Sales managers get a better nights sleep.

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Information is not knowledge, knowledge is not wisdom, and wisdom is not foresight. Each grows out of the other, and we need them all. — Arthur C. Clarke

About 32,000 years ago, French cavemen started drawing on their walls to help each other solve the crucial problem of the day: Where can I find big meaty animals, and how do I kill them?

Since then, our communication tools have advanced beyond bone chisels and ochre paint, but the central objective hasn’t changed so much. We’re all still looking for that woolly mammoth.

For most salespeople, the search involves gathering data, from which to glean insights, enabling a conversation to begin, in the pursuit of a sale.

It’s a multi-step journey. Unfortunately, too many data providers act as if the first part – amassing raw information about a prospect – is all you need to close a deal.

At a basic level, any piece of data is just a fact. This company had $50 million in revenue last year, for example, or that CEO’s name is Pat Paterson. No matter its size, any database is simply a compilation of facts, and nothing more.

A dictionary is not a great novel just because it contains all the words of a great novel.

Smart. Fresh. Complete.

Awhile back, we condensed InsideView’s product goals to a catchphrase: Smart. Fresh. Complete.

Roughly translated, it means we’re aiming to provide the information you need (Complete), in real-time (Fresh), cleverly parsed into unique, relevant analysis (Smart).

Smart comes first in that mantra, and it’s not a coincidence. To us, it’s the key differentiator between InsideView sales intelligence and Old-School Data. Facts are common; intelligence is rare.

A fact is the news that Company X plans to acquire Company Y. Intelligence is the proper interpretation of how that event will affect operations at the two firms, as well as how the merger will shift the landscape of its industry.

Deeper intelligence is to demonstrate the ways you can benefit from it all, by detailing how the acquirer’s goals dovetail with your own product’s features, and pointing out that the CEO sits on a charity board with your own boss.

Old-School Data companies want you to believe that “data” and “intelligence” are synonyms. That’s why their marketing pitches always emphasize quantity over quality, as well as the horsepower of their data-gathering engines.

More data does not mean better data. Even if it did, it would not make those vast accumulations of facts more useful in-and-of themselves. Analysis is what turns information into knowledge, and intelligence is what turns that knowledge into wisdom.

Smart companies know that.

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http://www.toxel.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/cake02.jpg

Yesterday marked the one year birthday of the SalesView Buzz tab.  The Buzz tab launched on May 11th, 2009 as the first Twitter integration for CRM (including Salesforce, Oracle CRM, Microsoft Dynamics, NetSuite CRM.)  While the launch was received with a great deal of enthusiasm by media and analysts (after all, what journalist wasn’t smitten with Twitter in the Spring of 2009?), the benefits of having Tweets about customers and prospects available directly within CRM were not immediately obvious to many B2B sales people.

Similar to the adoption pattern for our Facebook mash-up and LinkedIn integration before, customers and prospects started to identify and leverage actionable sales intelligence from the social media stream.  One of my favorite anecdotes comes from a meeting with the VP of Sales at a key customer account a few months after we launched the Buzz tab.  As part of our regular quarterly account review we walk customers through recent features & enhancements.  This included the Buzz tab at the time so we had him bring up the SalesView Buzz tab (i.e. Twitter & Google blog search) for his own company.

As it turned out, one of the most recent Tweets mentioning his company was a person looking for competitive product recommendations:

  • “We’re evaluating marketing automation solutions – (our customer) vs. (competitor #1) vs. (competitor #2). Thoughts?”

TA-WEET!  Yes, that was a hot lead and yes he was impressed.  The icing on the cake was that within a few minutes the VP of Sales had logged in to see the Buzz tab for himself and by that time someone had already responded as follows:

  • “Definitely (competitor #1)… we went through the selection process over 1 year ago and have been happy since.”

TWUH-OH!  He interrupted our meeting to make sure the right sales rep followed up on this lead immediately, before his competitor (or their fans) could further slant the conversation to their favor.

Now obviously you will not always have hot leads like these land in your lap but this example does speak to how important a customer acquisition channel Twitter has become.  As with other traditional and emerging channels, it provides new ways in which to listen and engage with the new, social customer  (a.k.a. Customer 2.0) .  The nature of Twitter, which is real-time and entirely public, requires that you sales reps keep an ear to the ground at all times, lest your competitors should be the ones to pounce first.

SalesView Buzz tab - InfoGROUP

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Social media is changing hundreds of industries and professions, and sales is no exception. To recognize those members of the sales industry who in their use of social media are bringing together important news, sales intelligence and theory, we are pleased to announce the full list of the ‘InsideView 20.’ This list of sales industry leaders is composed of sales executives, writers, trainers, analysts and more, all of whom are making savvy use of many of the social media tools available today and helping usher in the renaissance we like to call Sales 2.0. These are the folks, who like InsideView itself, are doing their part to deliver us to the future of the sales industry – one that is highly connected, informed and efficient.

1. Mike Damphousse, CEO/CMO of GreenLeads
@damphoux
Company website: http://www.green-leads.com/

GreenLeads is a B2B company specializing in marketing strategies and leads. Mike has over 20 years of experience in sales, marketing and technology in an array of industries. He consistently tweets helpful links on the topics of lead generation, demand generation and a variety of other sales-related topics and regularly engages with his followers.

2. Anneke Seley, author of the book, Sales 2.0, CEO and founder of Phone Works
@annekeseley
Anneke’s blog: http://www.sales20book.com/wp/blog/

Anneke brings her expertise from the sales and technology industries to the masses through her books, articles and savvy use of social media. Her role as the CEO of Phoneworks, a sales strategy and implementation consultancy, and experience designing OracleDirect provide her with a uniquely informed insight into Silicon Valley. Anneke is a true Sales 2.0 leader.

3. Jonathon Hewitt, founder of SEO Sport
@gohewitt
Company Website: http://seosport.com/

Jonathon is founder of SEO Sport, a search engine marketing company. He has over a decade of internet marketing experience and is an unstoppable tweeter. John is constantly sharing tech and social media stories, providing his followers with a constant stream of smart, handpicked information on these areas.

4. Josiane Feigon, CEO of Telesmart, author, blogger
@josianefeigon
Company Website: Telesmart

Josiane started Telesmart over 15 years ago and has over 25 years sales experience in the technology sector. She is also the author of a couple of books the latest of which, Smart Selling From the Inside Out, came out this fall. She blogs on a very regular basis through the Telesmart company website and updates twitter all the time.

5. Trish Bertuzzi, President and Chief Strategist at The Bridge Group
@bridgegroupinc
Company website: www.bridgegroupinc.com

Trish Bertuzzi has over 27 years experience working in technology and more than 11 as president of The Bridge Group, a Sales Consulting company. She tweets frequently, sharing tips on sales, marketing, technology news and other interesting life tidbits. If you have an inside sales team you need to follow Trish.

6. Jill Konrath, Jill is the CEO and founder of Sales Shebang and the Chief Sales Officer and CEO of Selling to Big Companies
@jillkonrath
Company Website: http://www.sellingtobigcompanies.com/

Jill is not only CEO of the company Selling to Big Companies, she is also the author of a successful book by the same name. She tweets often and blogs on her company website about smart selling strategies. She has over 20 years of experience working in the B2B sales industry.

7. Alen Majer, Founder and Owner of The Science and Art of Selling, author
@alenmajer
Company Website: The Science and Art of Selling

Alen’s company, The Science and Art of Selling, trains, coaches and consults with executives and sales teams on sales strategy. His sales expertise also extends beyond domestic borders, as he speaks internationally and is the co-founder of the Sales Academy-Croatia and Sales Institute of Croatia. Alen is a prolific writer in both the analog and digital mediums; he is the author of several books including the most recent, Selling is Better Than Sex, and is constantly tweeting and adding content to his company website.

8. Joanne Black, founder of consulting business for Referral Sales, No More Cold Calling
@referralsales
Company Website: No More Cold Calling

Joanne has over 30 years experience in sales training and consulting. She is the founder of Referral Sales strategy-based business No More Cold Calling and has worked in a range of industries including retail, technology, finance, etc. She tweets, blogs and creates podcasts regularly on the secrets behind referral sales.

9. Chad Levitt, a sales associate at Hubspot and author of the New Sales Economy Blog
@chadalevitt
Chad’s blog: New Sales Economy Blog

Chad is not only involved in the business of sales during the day, but he writes on the topic for two highly regarded sales 2.0 sites, salesgravy.com and sales2.com. Chad stays up to date on anything relating to sales 2.0 and shares tons of information on this space via his blogs and Twitter.

10. Tibor Shanto, principal and founder of Renbor Sales Solutions Inc.
@renbor
Company Website: Renbor Sales Solutions Inc.

Tibor started Renbor Sales Solutions Inc. which helps businesses increase and better their sales by focusing on Objective Based Selling. Tibor has over 20 years experience ranging from leading global sales teams to telemarketing. He was very quick to join the online information revolution and continues to stay on the pulse of sales and technology, follow him on Twitter for a steady flow of great sales advice and news.

11. Chris Powell, VP of sales and founder of Industrial Interface
Twitter: @TechSalesLeads
More: Industrial Interface home

If you work in sales, you need to follow Chris on Twitter. His feed is chock-full of sales industry insights and links to relevant articles and studies.

12. Randy Ferrell, VP of Sales at Care2.com
Twitter: @randyferrell
More: Care2.com

Need another reason why Twitter is a brilliant service? You get to regularly see what is on the mind of a VP of Sales for a forward-thinking organization. Randy frequently tweets links to really interesting articles that are related to the issues his company works on, such as the environment, health, human rights and animal welfare.

13. Paul Cummings, VP Sales and Marketing for Impression Management Professionals
Twitter: @paul_cummings
More: Impression Management home

Paul is VP of Sales at a sales training and leadership development organization, so following him is like getting a double dose of what you need in the Sales 2.0 world. From Webinars to articles – great stuff, Paul!

14. Helene Zemel, Senior Regional Sales Director for AmeriPlan

Twitter: @hzemel
More: Health Plans Plus blog

Helene tweets and blogs regularly, keeping her followers entertained and informed on both her personal interests (she’s a classically-trained pianist) and the issues shaping her professional world (healthcare reform and industry trends).

15. Megan Heuer, Research Director at SiriusDecisions
Twitter: @megheuer
More: Sirius Blog

Meg is a regular contributor to her company blog, examining topics like what sales really needs, and an active tweeter, sharing links and constantly joining the conversations she finds important. As part of the research team at her firm, she’s no doubt gathering a cornucopia of insight from the social Web.

16. Brad Trnavsky, President of Sales Management 2.0

Twitter: @bmtrnavsky
More: Sales Management 2.0 profile

In addition to tweeting about the latest sales and marketing resources, Brad has created an entire social community for the sales management profession at Sales Management 2.0 with more than 1,100 members. If you’re not tapped into that conversation, we highly suggest doing so now.

17. Maurice Cheeks, Apple Educational sales executive
Twitter: @MoCheeks
More: MoCheeks.com

Maurice is a frequent blogger, Twitterer and general social media force who shares thoughts about a wide range of subject from media to sales to philosophy — sounds about right for an Apple employee.

18. Alden Mills, founder of Perfect Fitness
Twitter: @aldenmills
More: Perfect Fitness blog

You’ve probably seen the Perfect Pushup device in stores and on TV, now meet the man behind the muscle by following him on Twitter and checking out his blog, which gives you extra tips and clearly written posts on how to get the most out of your workout. This former Navy SEAL is not only tearing it up in the gym, but is also active on the social Web. Great stuff for advancing his goal of “perfect fitness.”

19. Kendra Lee, President and IT sales expert at KLA Group
Twitter: @KendraLeeKLA
More: KLA Group

Following Kendra on Twitter is not only a way to get insight into the latest sales and marketing events, but also a clear answer to issues such as the best way to follow up with leads and why you should take a long, hard look at your actual sales processes.

20. Bill Rice, founder and CEO of Kaleidico
Twitter: @BillRice
More: Better Closer blog

In addition to founding a company that provides a CRM solution to the mortgage industry, Bill writes regularly on smarter marketing and social selling at his blog, and keeps his Twitter followers in the know on the latest tips and tricks for the best sales strategies.

Weeks after Paul Greenberg’s thought-provoking post on ZDNet, the debate continues as to whether Twitter could/should evolve into a Social CRM or remain a channel/medium (read: a “non app”).  This on-going conversation in the Blogosphere & Twittersphere, have actually done a lot to bring together the social media crowd and social CRM (“CRM 2.0″) proponents.  There’s also some promising talk of collaboration between industry pundits Paul Greenberg and Brian Solis.

One of Paul’s central arguments here is that Twitter is not (and should not become) an application, but rather remain “just” a channel / medium (albeit it a powerful, extremely trendy, and perhaps transformation one.)  Most of the reader comments agreed (no shocker there… Paul has a pretty loyal following, and he has a nasty habit of being right most of the time.)

One particular blog comment from “kotharia” struck a chord.  The gist was that while leveraging Twitter as a listening & communication channel is a good start, “these emerging channels have a potential to generate a huge volume of conversations (unstructured data) which cannot be harnessed easily.”  Hmm, this problem sounds familiar.  They went on to suggest that “One would need effective tools to harness & synthesize the data to enable better decision making.”

BINGO!  One thing is guaranteed… just like all other media, traditional and social, Twitter will exacerbate information overload. We happen to focus on solving this problem specifically for sales & marketing professionals but really the principles are applicable across all knowledge workers.  You need a layer of intelligence / analytics operating on top of Twitter (along with all other potentially useful data sets and information sources) if you want to make it relevant and actionable.  SalesView is focused on doing just that for sales/marketing/support professionals, WITHIN their CRM.  Call it social CRM, CRM 2.0, socialprise, or just plain cool… the bottom line is that it has a huge impact on sales productivity.

Twitter ups the ante in terms of volume and frequency, but the challenge is not a new one. Before our current love affair with Twitter, most organizations had not yet figured out how to filter & analyze the thousands of online news sources, much less the hundreds of thousands of business blogs out there. So we can’t assume that Twitter is “noisier” (as measured by signal to noise ratio, not volume) than any previously available media. It’s just a bigger fire hose!

Here’s the approach we’ve taken to date with the InsideView Smart Cloud platform.

Basically we look at channels / media / content as plug & play. Blogs come along, plug it in. Twitter comes along, plug it in. Rest assured that in the next 6-12 months, some OTHER shiny new thing will capture the hearts & imagination of sales & marketing so what then?  Just plug it in. After all, the next-next-big-thing promises to accelerate the commoditization of content and worsen information overload. Unless, that is, you have tools that can filter & analyze data in the cloud to identify only the relevant & actionable information.

That’s where we think things are going. What do you think? Reply here or Tweet us at http://twitter.com/insideview.

Last week, amidst continuing news of the Madoff scandal, the thought crossed our minds: This seemingly distant national headline sensation is directly related to what sales folks unfortunately experience regularly: Lost deals and customers. Simply put, they are the result of poor intelligence. And on the bright side, while we can’t turn back the clock on Madoff, every day we have new opportunities to compete for customers.

This is the theme of a recent post featured in Sales and Marketing Management, penned by our CEO, Umberto. Want to read more? Check it out here.

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