I asked Brent a few questions about some of the things he is currently working on, namely the “Getting Down to Social Business” event he is hosting in Atlanta on February 3rd, 2012, as well as his annually published top “CRM-ish” list.

It seems as if there is a real merger between mobile, CRM and social media, especially for small businesses. Can you comment on how small businesses can take advantage of this to better market themselves and be responsive to their customers?

From a small business perspective, the integration of social media, smart mobile devices and CRM tools has been one of the most important developments of the last decade. One of the main competitive advantages that smaller companies have is their flexibility and nimbleness, which allows them to take advantage of opportunities as they arise. And as the integration of social/mobile and CRM accelerates, small businesses can leverage them to be even timelier in their response to current conditions. In fact, these tools coming together provide opportunities to create new business models and interaction points for better customer experiences – in a fraction of the time and cost than even just a few years ago. So it is truly critical for small businesses to embrace the combination of these services in order to find and keep more customers.

This means using apps on your BlackBerry® devices to stay connected with customers on social networks like Twitter® and Facebook®, as well as using BlackBerry® Messenger (BBM™). But now, it also means creating content that looks great on BlackBerry smartphones and BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablets because more of their personal and business interactions are taking place there. Just remember: If you want to have customers eating out of the palm of your hand, you have to figure out how to get into the palm of their hand first.

Why would a business benefit from attending the “Getting Down to Social Business” event you are hosting in Atlanta on February 3rd, 2012? Will any materials from that event be made available in a format accessible for those that couldn’t be there in person?

The focus of the event is on the need for companies to transition their approach to “social” away from a narrow, reactionary set of disconnected activities, to a full-fledged business culture strategically aligned to build long-lasting relationships with today’s empowered customer. So instead of thinking of social media as a “Hail Mary” pass or a silver bullet, we’ll be looking at how companies can integrate it throughout the business to create a consistent game plan for creating exceptional customer experiences that keep them around longer over time.

We will be recording the event and making the sessions available to view online. We’ll also make presentations slides available – check out the event web site for details.

Can you explain what the CRM-ish list is and who should be looking for it?

Back before social tools and sites were around, traditional CRM tools focused on three areas: sales force automation, marketing automation, and customer service. The avenues for engaging customers and prospects were limited to few important interaction channels. But now with the rise of social media – and smart devices like the phones and tablets RIM offers – the number of ways to engage customers has skyrocketed. A host of new applications and services are being created to help companies manage the growing number of ways to listen to customers, analyze what you hear, and create content to respond to them. Many of these only address certain aspects of customer interaction and not all the traditional areas. And while these new services are not CRM in the traditional sense, they are definitely related to the areas of sales, marketing and service – which is why I call them CRM-ish.

The CRM-ish list will be comprised of companies creating applications and services helping small businesses to more effectively find, catch and keep customers today. Some companies on the list will be traditional CRM companies, and some will be the newer breed looking to provide help in one or two important areas. But I think any small business looking to understand what kinds of services are available to them – that are made specifically for them – would gain from checking out the list of companies and services that will be included.

Look for the CRM-Ish List to be announced in early March 2012.

Any last thoughts or suggestions that you want to leave the BlackBerry community with?

Now is really a great time to dig in and understand how to best take advantage of tools and services available today that can help you find, catch and keep good customers. But you have to make sure your company is ready from an organizational culture standpoint. It’s not enough to ask people to “like us” or “follow us” – we have to give them great reasons to do so. And that may mean needing to change how we approach them – not just the technology we use to interact with them, but also what we say and how we say it. Using new technology to deliver old messages won’t get you very far today, so it’s important to match social behavior with social tools to really connect with today’s customer.

Lastly, really explore how you can maximize the use of your BlackBerry devices. There are a good number of business apps in BlackBerry® App World™ that can help you be more productive, more social and more responsive to the needs of your customers. Many of these services are free or very low in cost, which makes it even more important to see how they can assist you in building great customer relationships today.

Thanks for joining me Brent! To our readers: how do you use your BlackBerry device for social CRM? Answer in the comments below.

[ YouTube link for mobile viewing ]

Social Media and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) are walking hand-in-hand in the current digital landscape of business. In New York City at the SMB Influencer Awards event, I had a chance to chat with Brent Leary, an expert in this space, to chat about mobility, CRM, and social media – not only the complex relationship between these three concepts, but the impact that they have on small business today. Check out the video above for the full scoop!

Does your business leverage social media to engage in CRM? Share in the comments.

The BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet browser is far more than a simple application for viewing web pages. It has been carefully designed to provide an enhanced tablet experience, complete with options for customizing the browsing experience, private browsing, bookmarks management, HTML 5.0, Adobe® Flash® and JavaScript® capabilities, location-aware features, and so much more. Consider this powerful tool to be a window into not only viewing and interacting with a variety of web sites, but to also access powerful enterprise web applications.

There are a number of complete and secure web app solutions that you and your business can take advantage of – apps that are designed to offer new ways to collaborate in real time. Access to your internal enterprise network may also be possible from your BlackBerry PlayBook tablet through supported VPN suppliers.

Research In Motion® (RIM®) has a large number of enterprise software partners in the mobile industry, and we are constantly working with them to deliver apps and access to web-based hosted solutions optimized for the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. This means that employees will be able to use existing tools while on the go.

I’m sure at this point you’re looking for examples. Well, here are seven of our favorite enterprise apps that are BlackBerry PlayBook tablet browser-ready!

IBM® Connections (IBM®)

IBM Connections is social software for business that is designed to allow you to “access everyone in your professional network, including your colleagues, customers, and partners” (via IBM Connections overview). IBM Connections was designed to be supported on a wide variety of platforms, including the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet browser. Through this interface, you can engage with communities, files, wikis, profiles, bookmarks, forums, and much more. It’s as good as it sounds, especially through the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet experience.

BusinessObjects Dashboard (SAP®)

SAP offers a web tool called BusinessObjects Dashboard, which is designed to allow you to create interactive analytics and dashboards with connections to SAP backend data sources among others. These interactive dashboards can be shared via Microsoft® Office, Adobe® PDF, web sharing, and SAP sharing solutions. You can then create, view, and share these dashboards using the the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet browser with Adobe Flash support.

Chatter® (Salesforce®)

Salesforce.com offers a private, and secure social network for your business called Chatter. This service allows you to increase collaboration within your organization as well as assist with planning and project management. Not only did I test this service using my BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, I actually completed the entire registration process using my BlackBerry® 7 OS smartphone.

Basecamp®, Highrise®, Backpack®, and Campfire® (37signals®, LLC)

Back when I was running my own small business, the 37signals services were a huge relief to find. This suite of HTML5 web apps allows you to manage projects, contacts, communications, and collaboration – all through extremely user-friendly web apps. While testing this one on my BlackBerry PlayBook tablet this morning, it was hard to put it down. Check out an overview of the suite on the 37signals web site.

Zoho®

On-demand CRM software is available from Zoho, among other services, and is widely used by businesses large and small. The entire Zoho Suite, interacted with via the dashboard, is available as a mobile web application designed for tablet use and is easily accessible using the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet browser.

Confluence® (Atlassian®)

The tagline for Atlassian’s flagship product is “More Than Just a Wiki”. This statement is true, as I’ve had personal experience working with the Confluence product, which allows for contribution, discussion, collaboration, and indexing of a wide variety of content within an organization (among other great features). Want an efficient workforce? Pool the knowledge and make it accessible. Speaking of accessibility, this one is also available via web interface using the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet browser. Have Confluence set up on internal corporate servers? No problem – use the BlackBerry® Bridge™ browser.

So as you explore all that the BlackBerry App World™ storefront has to offer, don’t forget to take advantage of the wonderful world of web apps. As you can see, the sky’s the limit with the award-winning BlackBerry PlayBook tablet and its unique browsing experience, which opens up a whole world of possibility for engaging in enterprise apps online.

Are you using enterprise apps, either native or web-based, on your BlackBerry PlayBook? What apps do you find particularly useful?

Salesforce.com, Chatter and all associated logos are trademarks of salesforce.com, inc. Other names and logos used herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.