Customer Profiles: oneforty

The team at oneforty

Organization Profile: The social business hub, oneforty connects businesses, brands, SMBs, Fortune 500 companies and agencies to the tools and strategists they need to use to coordinate and optimize their social media efforts in their organizations. Likewise, oneforty serves as a discovery engine for the tools and talent themselves, generating leads from an engaged and knowledgeable business audience.

oneforty is an online community that rates and shares social media monitoring software and other sites from the web's most extensive listing of such tools. In addition, it drives conversation on topics of social business on its social business blog, Twitter, LinkedIn, as well as its Q&A site, oneforty Answers.

Summary: In 2010 oneforty's Customer Development Manager Jason Evanish implemented Batchbook, the social contact relationship manager (CRM) by BatchBlue Software to help harness the value of CEO Laura Fitton's vast network of thousands of contacts. The web- based software has become a valuable tool for oneforty employees to trace relationships and conversations that have developed over time and help Evanish manage discussions with potential partners and affiliates. He saves several hours a month using Batchbook to update his colleagues, and can more personally focus his follow-up conversations with individual contacts.

Website: oneforty

Social CRM Batchbook Tames Expansive Shared Address Book at oneforty and Saves Company Valuable Reporting Time

In late 2009, oneforty CEO Laura "@Pistachio" Fitton had a personal contact database that was thousands of names deep, and she needed to share the wealth.

Fitton, the co-author of Twitter for Dummies, founder of the first-ever Twitter for Business consultancy Pistachio Consulting and a frequent speaker on the topic of Twitter for business, is social in every sense of the word. The team at oneforty, the company she founded as a social business hub that connects social networking tools, trends and professionals, needed insight into relationships Fitton had developed through the years and a way to easily make note of the company's new connections.

By early 2010, oneforty's Customer Development Manager Jason Evanish implemented Batchbook, the social contact relationship manager (CRM) by BatchBlue Software to help harness the value of Fitton's network. In his role of developing revenue streams for the company, Evanish looked to the software to accurately track and manage his conversations with numerous colleagues, potential partners, acquaintances and other industry players.

"Batchbook is more than just a super address book. You get out what you put into it. It's a tool to trace relationships and conversations that have developed over time. It's so valuable to me to be able to record discussions and how they evolve," said Evanish. "For example, Batchbook helps me better organize conversations that may take place over the course of several months."

Now, Evanish and his colleagues have a better handle on Fritton's immense network. If they need a question answered by a particular friend of oneforty or are seeking and introduction or connection, they can search in Batchbook against specific terms, SuperTags (Batchbook's custom data fields) and names as needed without investing an inordinate amount of time in their research.

For Evanish, the tangible value of Batchbook comes across in time saved from updating his team, in not having to have lengthy meetings or spend time updating reports. They can quickly see who he has spoken with, about what, and when. More importantly, he can personally focus his follow-up conversations with individual contacts drawing on the details he has recorded in Batchbook.

"The ease with which you can bring someone else up to speed, even if they are not a power user, has saved me several hours of work a month updating the team," said Evanish. "I can point colleagues toward the data they need in Batchbook, and they then understand they can look there in the future for what they need. Everyone knows where the information is housed, saving us a ton of headaches from chasing around data."

Evanish says as he and his colleagues track social media applications with which they would like to develop partnerships or affiliate relationships. He then flags these connections in Batchbook using SuperTags including "monetized applications" such as subscription-based, one-time fees or any other designation they desire. Evanish most often uses the Notes field in the Contacts list to track each phone conversation or meeting he has with a person. He also appreciates that he can attach documents, note a Dropbox folder or Google Docs file or link up emails to the Contacts, which helps him establish ties between people and data.

The company of 10 employees, with four to five folks regularly using Batchbook, looks to the software as a shared address book. And, as a web-based tool, they can access the information anywhere they have an Internet browser, like on a business trip. Employees can also sort Contacts into a variety of Lists & Reports to better catch up with and advance conversations with individual people, he said.

"I pretty much have Batchbook open on my laptop screen or iPad all day long. With one search or one click, I can have all the information I need in front of me," said Evanish.

Evanish's future hopes? That more oneforty employees start using Batchbook on a regular basis.

"I could create a Google Docs file for each one of the people we interact with on a regular basis, but that would be insane. Batchbook allows us to be way more efficient," said Evanish.