We recently launched ContactZilla, an easy to use Contact Management system, and we thought it was time to get some feedback. The good, the bad and the ugly, we wanted it all!  And who better to help us on our journey for continuous improvement than Nigel Legg, social media and social CRM consultant.

“It does not have a traditional CRM system look and feel (white screen, grey boxes, spreadsheets of history). It’s very clean, clear, simple, easy to use, easy to find your way around the screen.”

“I mean what I say on my website, I really think it is the best product around of its kind.”

Click here to read the full interview.

We’re getting ready to launch a new product; very exciting and nerve wracking at the same time. We’ve been working really hard on getting everything in order technically and visually. The branding process has been interesting for sure and we’re very happy with the outcome so far.

We want to go for something fun and memorable, with a Studio Ghibli feel. Serene colouring and simple outlines. We’re happy so far.

Below you can see the process that we’ve gone through to get to the final ContactZilla character… A lot of fun has been had, with more to come.

We’ve recently updated the Media Genius Company Tweet application to add another useful feature. You can now convert any URL that you paste in your tweet box into a bit.ly short URL with a single click.

And not only that, once you tweet it, the URL will be saved to create statistics for clicks on the link.

The system even reports the global bit.ly clicks, which are clicks to other bit.ly URLs that point to the same long URL that you used.

The application is called Company Tweet and is one of many social media apps available to all the members of Media Genius. Sign up and install the application to your workspace to start using it.

Media Genius now gets more results for searches from Facebook groups and pages, as well as Digg, Linkedin and a variety of other sources.

The team has been busy adding loads of new sources to the Media Genius suite of apps. Getting information from Facebook has been traditionally difficult as it’s hidden within Facebook’s “walled garden”. As they begin to open up their data we can get more and more value about what its users are talking about.

The average search within the media, microblog and blog monitor now returns nearly ten times as many results as it did before.

As well as these new sources we’ve also tweaked the way that the app store looks to make it just that little bit nicer to look at and use.

You’ll notice the new sentiment app in the bottom right hand corner… You can install this now for free while we test it out. We’ll be officially launching this soon with a shiny new name… We’re pretty chuffed with this app.

We’re excited to introduce a new feature in SWM: notifications are a new way for you to keep up-to-date with the latest news from the SWM ecosystem. Notifications are now enabled across all accounts in SWM. This means that over the coming weeks you will begin to see notifications appearing throughout the system in various guises.

We have designed the notification system to be flexible and adaptable for future needs, but initially we will be using them to make announcements about new features to SWM users, from within the SWM interface, and to provide extra help and information to new users of SWM.

When you visit a page with a notification attached, you will see a box at the top of the page with the content of the note, once you have read and absorbed the information, you can close the notification using the small cross in the upper right corner, when a notification has been dismissed it will not be displayed again. There is one exception to this rule, when we decide that a notification needs to be sticky, you can’t dismiss sticky notifications. But don’t worry, we’ll only be using these on rare occasions where we deem it necessary, if you forget to pay your bill for example!

This feature is still in its infancy, and I’m sure we’ll find more exciting uses for it in the future. We’re always keen to hear feedback from our users, so if there’s anything you think we could improve or change to enhance this (or any other) feature, then please get in touch with us and let us know.

This is our first screencast giving an introduction to Media Genius. It’s an overview of installing an application and setting up a workspace.

Click the full screen icon for better resolution.

The two main wishes for Twitter are managing multiple clients and letting multiple users manage a single account. All while knowing who’s posted what and when, and to which account.

We’ve created a FREE Twitter client for Media Genius (our social media toolbox) that lets anybody manage multiple Twitter accounts with multiple users and keep track of everything. Every company needs accountability when they are saying anything in public so we’ve built “Company Tweet” to do just that.

After creating your account with Media Genius, setting up a workspace, and installing the “Company Tweet” application you can start to see its power.

Writing a Tweet in Media Genius

On a basic level you can use Twitter’s essential functions; posting tweets, seeing replies and seeing the stream of tweets. It becomes really useful once you’ve added other people into Media Genius. You can do this for your company or even your clients companies.

Twitter updates from people you follow

Any user will now have their name logged in Media Genius’s activity stream along with the message and the date and time. If you install “Company Tweet” into another workspace you can add another twitter account and manage that as well.

Checking the activity

After installing into a clients’ workspaces you can give them access; giving you a centralised way to manage your clients’ Twitter usage…

There’s a lot of possibilities for anyone managing multiple Twitter accounts and multiple users.

See a video on Blip.tv for a quick introduction. Or go straight to Media Genius and get it for free.

Header image courtesy of www.hollyspringtradingco.com

The payment process that we’ve implemented into Media Genius is really pretty clever; although there’s a simple problem that we’ve found by tracking user responses.  We are losing potential customers before they’ve had a proper play with the applications.

As soon as a user installs a paid application in Media Genius and they want the free trial, they have to put in their invoice and credit card details – FIRST. The problem with this is that most people won’t put in their credit card details online until they know exactly what it is that they’re getting…

So we’ve “fixed” it. In Media Genius now, a free trial has no barriers, no “buy before you try”. You install the app, play with it for as long as it states in its trial period and then if you want to continue using it, you need to enter your card details if you haven’t already (which you might have done when trialling a different app).

If you’re going to make a mistake, make it quickly, fess up and move on; which is probably a post all in its own.