One of our readers alerted us

Michael McDermott of BashFoo wrote a few days ago:

The leaders in online reputation management services, Ratepoint Inc. of Needham, MA reported this afternoon the abrupt shutdown of all operations.   In an email that was sent out this afternoon to all “partners, customers and friends” they stated:

“RatePoint’s assets and technologies are currently being acquired, and unfortunately this means that all RatePoint accounts will soon be closed. Effective February 2, 2012, all RatePoint services, including Reputation Management, Email Marketing, Surveys, and Product Reviews will be discontinued. Your ability to access your RatePoint account will end at this time.”

Although the date of February 2, 2012 was mentioned as the deadline date that accounts could no longer be accessed by customers to retrieve their data, some RatePoint customers are reporting that they are unable to access their accounts  now.

Poor Communications

According to a thread at the Web Hosting Talk forum, some customers were taken by surprise by the news of the closure.   They are scrambling to find a replacement for customer reviews.

What baffles me is that from the homepage of the RatePoint website, it is still apparently business as usual.  There is no notice of the pending closure on the RatePoint homepage, as of this writing on January 28, 2012.  You have to dig into the Customer Support center to find the notice of operations discontinuing buried deep, with the date of January 4th on it.  Yet over 3 weeks later, there’s nothing on the home page about it.

But here’s the worst part:  RatePoint made the decision to shut down as early as November 2011, according to this item in their Customer Support database.  Yet they seem to have done little to notify customers at that time and — so it would appear — kept accepting new ones in the meantime.

A Venture Funded Company Goes Sour

RatePoint was venture capital funded.  According to a press release back in 2009, the company reported at the time that it had “closed a $10 million Series B round of funding led by Castile Ventures of Waltham, Mass., with participation by existing investors .406 Ventures and Prism VentureWorks.”  Which goes to show … venture funding is no guarantee of business success.

We reviewed RatePoint back in August 2011 during happier times for the company. Since then, Constant Contact acquired the email marketing portion of the business, leaving the reputation management/reviews piece behind at RatePoint.  It’s the reputation management (customer reviews) piece that is shutting down at this time.

What Should You Do if You Are a RatePoint Customer?

So what should you do if you are a RatePoint customer?

• Try to export your existing customer reviews if you can —  immediately.   There are these instructions for exporting your Business Reviews buried in the Customer Support database.
• What if you’ve prepaid annually already?  Buried in the help center is a notice of where to mail your refund request.
• Search for a competitor offering a special deal for a replacement.  Customer Lobby and Shopper Approved are two such that are offering special deals to RatePoint customers left in the lurch.

From Small Business Trends

RatePoint Customer Reviews Service Shutting Down

The day will focus on the need for companies to transition their approach to “social” away from a narrow, reactionary set of disconnected activities … to a full-fledged corporate culture strategically aligned to build long-lasting relationships with today’s empowered customer.

Sessions Include:

• Keynote presentation by Paul Greenberg, author of the best-selling “CRM At the Speed of Light”
• The Consumerization of IT (by Michael Thomas, Customer Success Manager, Microsoft)
• Journey to the Middle of the Funnel – Connecting Inbound Marketing to Sales Conversion (Jeanne Hopkins, HubSpot VP of Marketing)
• The Role of Community in Today’s Business Environment (panel discussion featuring Anita Campbell, Publisher of Small Business Trends and Robin Carey, CEO of Social Media Today – Moderated by Adrienne Graham, Founder of Empower Me)
• The Velocity of Customer Service in the Social Age (Matt Trifiro, Assistly VP of Marketing)
• Connecting the Dots Between PR and Customer Service (Jeff Nolan, Get Satisfaction VP of Product Marketing)
• Next-Level Listening (by Cory Hartlen, Radian6 Product Marketing Manager)
• The Realities of Becoming A Social Business (panel discussion featuring Adam Naide, Executive Director of Social Media Marketing for Cox Communications, Bert DuMars, VP of Interactive Marketing & Ecommerce for Newell Rubbermaid, and Larry Ritter, SVP & GM of Sage CRM Solutions – Moderated by Art Hall, President of the Atlanta Chapter of the CRM Association)
• Closing the Deal – The Impact of Social on Selling, the Sales Organization and the Customer Relationship (panel discussion featuring Graham Clark , Partner of Customer Results and TAG CRM Board Member, and Judy Mod,  founder of the Social Executive Council).

Description: There’s no doubting the impact social and mobile technologies are having on all facets of human interaction.  But what impact is it having on the sales process, and on the expectations customers have on sales professionals as they move through their buying cycle?  And how are sales organizations leveraging new tools to help sales professionals close deals and grow strong relationships with social customers?

These topics and others will be addressed by a panel of experts as they take on the important question of how to leverage social tools and strategies

Date:  Friday February 3, 2012,  8:30-4 pm

Place:  Georgia Tech Research Institute Conference Center

                250 14th Street NW, Atlanta GA, 30318

Cost: FREE, with online registration

Registration Link: http://gettingdowntosocialbusiness.eventbrite.com/

Contact: Brent Leary, brent@socialbizatlanta.com

A Production of Social Biz Atlanta, organized by Brent Leary, partner of CRM Essentials (who is also our Host of the One on One interview series here at Small Business Trends, sponsored by BlackBerry).

From Small Business Trends

Join us in Atlanta for “Getting Down to Social Business”

This all day event includes a “who’s who” of successful entrepreneurs prepared to share their insight on how to grow your business with the right marketing, hiring, leadership and more.

What You Can Expect

• Insights from Scott Hintz, co-founder of Tripit and founding team member of Hotwire. He’ll share how he grew and profitably sold his companies.
• Eventbright‘s Tamara Mendelsohn will give you the low down on what it takes to grow a scrappy startup into a national brand and more.
• Jim Fowler, who sold his company Jigsaw, to Salesforce, for millions will share the lessons he’s learned in hiring, firing and building great teams.
• Participate in a fast-paced and engaging clinic with Ramon Ray of Smallbiztechnology on how to get publicity for your business through media coverage.

When

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

9 am to 4 pm (PST)

Where

Hyatt Regency, 5 Embarcadero Center, San Francisco, CA 94111

Registration:  Register now and save $40  (Special discount for Small Business Trends readers!)

Small Biz Big Things is an interactive forum – what better way to learn than from business growth experts who have built, or are currently building, successful companies. The experts will share their lessons learned, their success stories, their growth challenges and even their victories with you.

Join them at Small Biz Big Things for some good ole’ fashioned, enjoyable networking and education. Come have a great lunch and learn to grow your business.  Don’t wait – register now!

From Small Business Trends

Join Tripit Co-Founder at Small Biz Big Things

Or at least, that is the way it initially sounded.

However, that announcement was made at the same time as another announcement:  the President proposes combining fives agencies, including the Small Business Administration, into one.  He proposes merging the SBA with the Commerce Department, the Office of the United States Trade Representative, the Export-Import Bank, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation and the Trade and Development Agency.

The President said: “We’d have one department where entrepreneurs can go from the day they come up with an idea and need a patent, to the day they start building a product and need financing for a warehouse, to the day they’re ready to export and need help breaking into new markets overseas.”

The concern with that idea is that the mission of the SBA would undoubtedly get diluted.  Up to now the mission of the SBA has been clear:  ensure a lending source for small businesses.  By combining it with other Federal agencies, that mission would have less visibility.  It would be buried in a larger agency.

A lot of small businesses aren’t buying this proposal.

We’ve been fortunate that we’ve had an independent Federal agency focused primarily on small businesses and particularly small business lending.   The SBA was founded by President Eisenhower in 1953.  Its intended function?  ”Aid, counsel, assist and protect, insofar as is possible, the interests of small business concerns.”

Over the years some people (most recently, under President Bush’s administration) have complained that the SBA doesn’t contribute enough, and that we don’t even need the SBA.  But that is an equally short-sighted view.  We need one agency with the words “Small Business” in the title to remind everyone of the commitment to small businesses.

We need it focused not on the so-called high-growth startups that so many policy-makers are so enamored with, but on the mainstream small businesses that keep body and soul together in the United States.  It’s not the Startup Administration — it’s the Small Business Administration.

And we don’t need it diluted and distracted with Commerce Department concerns.  Just take a look at this statement on the Commerce Department website, to see what the Commerce Department is responsible for.  That department is responsible for ALL industry, here and abroad.  It’s responsible for such things as conducting the Census and monitoring the weather. Small business would soon be a mere footnote.

The SBA has been a role model the world over for how to support small businesses.  Let’s not change that now.

Big cheers for raising the SBA head to a Cabinet position. That is a great move.  But small businesses would be much better off by ditching the idea of merging it in with other Federal agencies.  Let’s keep a separate SBA.

From Small Business Trends

President Obama Elevates SBA Head to Cabinet, Sends Mixed Signals

The book is a collection of essays from 30 people who are active online and who have experience building communities, along with a foreword by CC Chapman, author of Content Rules.  Contributors include Brian Clark, Natalie Sisson, Evan Carmichael, Kristi Hines, Derek Halpern and Ana Hoffman — to name a few.  ”Yours Truly” (me, Anita Campbell) is also a contributor, so you can expect this review to be a bit biased.

What’s Inside

The contributions range from big picture strategic … to detailed and tactical.  The contributors represent communities  numbering in the millions, to those that are compact and relatively new.

The types of communities include:

• blogs
• paid membership communities
• forums and discussion boards
• email mailing-list communities
• communities built on social media platforms such as Twitter, Google+ and Facebook
• communities that are multi-faceted and loosely defined — they fluidly cross over from blogs to Twitter to Google+ to Facebook, and back again.

Each essay has the contributor explaining his or her own experiences.  Each speaks with a “been there, done that” authenticity.  The contributions are thoughtful and analytical.  Most are written in the first person to describe the contributors’ own experiences of what worked … and what didn’t work.  Where else can you get so much expertise in a single package?

There’s also Danny Iny’s (@DannyIny on Twitter) own story.  He writes about building Firepole Marketing, and the painful realities of their first big promotion of marketing services.  They ran a huge contest as a promotion — and in the end got zero buyers.  He faced up to why the promotion failed — the company had no community to tap into.  As he writes,  ”A loyal and strong audience is much more than a bunch of readers — its a living and breathing entity that ties real people together.  In other words, it’s a community.”

When you buy the book, you also get a link to a website with access to a template for requesting guest blog opportunities,  checklists and infographics about community building.

An Example of Two Trends

There are two trends in book publishing that we’ve seen emerge recently, and both are reflected here:

• Sponsors:  Like an increasing number of self-published books these days, Engagement From Scratch has sponsors.  In this case they are Photos.com, WebFaction hosting, and Firepole Marketing.  At the back of the book are special offers from them.
• Proceeds to Charity:  Giving a portion of proceeds to charity is age old, but we’re seeing this occur with more frequency among books by entrepreneurs.  It’s part of the larger “social entrepreneurship” trend.  In this case, 50% of profits will go to the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship.

What I Liked Best About Engagement From Scratch

I like the fact that the book is set up as a series of individual essays.  You get to hear from a wide variety of  people.  Each has different experiences building different types of communities. Each essay reads as a stand-alone piece.  That means you can pick up the book and read one essay, set it down, and come back to it a few days later and read another essay — without missing anything.

Of course, the “separate essay” structure of the book may be disconcerting to some.  Each contributor has his or her own voice and writing style.  And while there are common themes that the contributors universally agree upon, there are also some points, especially tactics, that may seem contradictory from one essay to the next.  I am not bothered by that, because there’s always more than one way to do things.  I like a variety of input.

Here’s an analogy to maps and directions:  Engagement From Scratch is not one set of directions for you to follow to get from point A to point B.  Rather, think of it as a map that shows multiple routes you can take to get to the same destination.  You get to pick which roads and highways to follow.

Who This Book is For

It’s ideal for entrepreneurs starting literally from scratch to build communities.  While you may have a dream and good natural instincts, your dream will be easier to achieve if you can tap into others’ ideas and how-to tips.  Even if you’re on a tiny bootstrapped budget, you will find plenty of insights that don’t cost much other than your time.

This book is also useful for those in small businesses that run existing online communities.  No matter how thriving your community, there’s always something to improve.

Finally, Engagement From Scratch will also be valuable to marketers and executives in a large company tasked with building a community for your company.

Bonus:  Danny Iny has made the book available to download at the Engagement From Scratch website.  Download Engagement From Scratch.

From Small Business Trends

Review of Engagement From Scratch

This is the 4th year we are holding the Awards.  They recognize business books of special interest to small businesses and entrepreneurs.  Last year there were 106 books nominated and 41,000 votes cast by the community.

This year, over 100 books have already been nominated with over 2 weeks to go.

Books published between November 1, 2010 and December 31, 2011 are eligible.

You can nominate one book – or as many books as you like. Anyone can nominate. Authors, you are encouraged to nominate your own book. Publishers and publicists can also nominate books.

Or if you just happen to be a fan of a book and would like to recommend it to the world, please nominate it and make some author happy.

There are no fees to nominate — it’s completely free.  See Official Rules.

Click on the “Nominate a Book” button and fill out the form. It’s short and takes just 2 or 3 minutes. You’ll need a link from Amazon or some other Web page dedicated to the book, along with a couple of sentences’ description (just look it up in Google to find the Amazon page).  That’s all you need.  If you have more information fine, but it’s not necessary.

We will be reviewing all nominations to make sure that they are eligible. We may also edit book descriptions to make sure they are informational in nature and to eliminate obvious sales hype.

Nominations first, then voting later

Right now we’re in the nominations phase. You have through January 31, 2012 to nominate small business books.

The second phase is voting. Voting will be from February 1, 2012 through February 16, 2012.

Picking the winners

Winners will be picked by popular vote. The top ten vote getters overall will be the Best Business Books of 2012. In addition, the top five vote-getters in each category will be the Category Winners.  And what do the winners get?  Lots of recognition!

The Book Awards are an outgrowth of the weekend business book reviews we do.  

Each weekend we review at least one small business book.  We’ve been doing in-depth book reviews regularly since 2007, and have over 250 in-depth reviews in the site.  We started the book reviews because most small business books don’t get the recognition they deserve and get lost among the popular best sellers or the “Wall Street type” business and finance books. Our goal is to bring to the attention of small business owners those books that provide practical information to help them run their businesses  better.

Follow #BizBookAwards on Twitter

Want to know which books are being nominated? Be sure to follow the Small Business Book Awards hashtag on Twitter #BizBookAwards.

From Small Business Trends

Attention Authors, Publicists, Book Lovers: Small Business Book Awards Now Open

Up Your Sales in a Down Market: 20 Strategies from Top Performing Salespeople to Win Over Cautious Customers is by Ron Volper, a business development consultant to the Fortune 500.

Whoa!  Wait a minute!  You’re thinking, “Did she say Fortune 500?  What could a Fortune 500 consultant possibly say that would be relevant to my business with 12 employees?”

A lot, surprisingly.  I received a review copy of this book in the mail, and I almost set it aside when I saw the cover blurb about the author’s experience with large corporations.  After all, we focus here on books for small business owners and entrepreneurs.  We tend to avoid books that target a corporate audience — that world is so different from the way small businesses operate.

Luckily, I took a few minutes to thumb through the book.

The first section I saw was a 2-page question and answer session between a patient and a  doctor diagnosing the patient’s ailment.  The author used this analogy to illustrate how salespeople must ask a lot of questions before presenting a solution to meet the customer’s needs and trying to close a sale.

Now… that same point about asking questions has been made in countless sales books before.  But somehow, seeing the point presented as a doctor making a diagnosis drove it home. Instantly the point clicked.  Next time you are in a sales situation, think of yourself as a doctor trying to make a diagnosis.  It’s not precisely like that  – for instance, in sales you have to ask more open-ended questions.  But still, the point about asking questions is memorable and it sticks, all because of the way the author presented the information.

What I Liked Best

This book is filled with practical bits.  For instance, you’ll find a concise 10-page chapter on how to give a sales presentation.  It covers everything from the best font size for PowerPoint slides, to the need to practice your presentation in advance, to using body language effectively.

Another gem of a chapter discusses the sales proposal.  It tells you when (and when not) to write and deliver a sales proposal.  But the best part of this chapter is the detailed outline of what should be in your sales proposal, along with the most common mistakes to avoid for each section.  Example: did you know that one of the most common mistakes on a proposal cover page is misspelling the customer’s name?

One of the things I especially liked about this book is the way each chapter begins with a hard-hitting sales statistic.  The opening statistic makes a point about what you should remember from each chapter.  Here are some examples:

• “Top performing salespeople ask four times as many questions as their less-successful colleagues.”
• “If you call prospects cold there is only a 2 percent chance you will speak to them, if you have a referral your odds jump to 20 percent, but if you have an introduction they jump up to 60 percent.”
• “Top salespeople write out and practice their sales presentations three times more often than less successful salespeople.”
• “Seventy percent of salespeople said they failed to close business because of price, whereas only 45 percent of their customers said price was their main objection.”

Who This Book is For

About 70% of this book is relevant to small businesses with small sales teams, and even to sole proprietors.  For instance, if you are a business owner who doubles as your company’s primary salesperson, you can learn a lot from this book, particularly if you personally lack a sales background. The information is practical, not theoretical.  It doesn’t use corporate-speak,  but instead uses everyday language.

That said, the primary audience for this book is sales managers and salespeople in large corporations who want to be top performers. Small businesses, you will get benefit — just don’t be surprised if you find certain chapters less useful than others:  the chapter on sales contests and motivations; and the chapter on realigning sales territories, to name just two that are more relevant to large corporations.

Up Your Sales is not about retail or eCommerce sales.  Also, if you sell small-ticket items or services, the selling techniques here will be less relevant, mainly because the economics won’t let you devote the time and effort to each sale the way this book describes.  Mostly this book will be best for those whose minimum sale is north of $1,000.

What I Would Have Liked to See

I feel this book has value for small businesses.  However, it isn’t up to date on the ways that small businesses today must sell if they want to survive.  For instance, most small businesses must make heavy use of email, phone meetings, online meetings and other long-distance selling techniques.  Many small businesses don’t have the time or money to send salespeople long distances to make in-person sales calls.  The techniques in this book are definitely geared toward the in-person sales call or meeting.

Also, the book is very light on using networking, word of mouth, and social media as part of your sales prospecting.  The section on social media consists of merely a half page that mentions using LinkedIn and Facebook to recruit salespeople to hire.  But savvy small businesses and entrepreneurs today are using social media to fill their sales funnels or as key marketing stages.  Word of mouth referrals and networking are huge in the world of small business.  Yet those are not really covered in this book in the ways that small businesses use these techniques.

But as long as you understand these limitations, Up Your Sales has value, particularly if your company sells products or services to large corporations.  This book does an excellent job telling you how to be more effective at selling to large companies.

From Small Business Trends

Up Your Sales in a Down Market Is a Crash Course in Selling

Peace on Earth, Goodwill to All

At this time of the year, we reflect on the many people who read this site, who follow our updates on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, and who we’ve met at events.

Thank you for your support. You make it all worthwhile.

Thanks to our staff — Staci, Leland and Amanda.  And thanks to the Small Business Experts who devote so much of their time and expertise to this community.  You’re outstanding!

I want to thank our sponsors and advertisers — especially American Express OPEN and Infusionsoft — as well as the many advertisers who have made it possible to run this site.

A special greeting goes out to our readers from non-English language countries. Please let me extend a holiday greeting to those of you from other countries — at least the countries that I know of who visit:

Feliz Navidad; Buon Natale; Froehliche Weihnachten; God Jul; Boas Festas; Craciun Fericit; Joyeux Noel; Nollaig Shona Dhuit; Mele Kalikimaka; Nadolig LLawen; Kung His Hsin Nien; Glaedelig Jul; Kung Ho Hsin His; Vrolijk Kerstfeest; Pozdravlyau s prazdnikom Rozhdestva!

(Languages respectively: Spanish, Italian, German, Swedish/Norwegian, Brazilian Portuguese, Romanian, French, Irish Gaelic, Hawaiian, Welsh, Mandarin Chinese, Danish, Hong Kong Chinese, Dutch, Russian.)

And to all our readers who do not celebrate Christian holidays, we extend a warm winter greeting:

Shalom; Namaste; Salaam; Pleasant Winter Solstice.

We’ll be back tomorrow bright and early with more small business news, advice and tips for you.

From Small Business Trends

Merry Christmas and Thank You

And then there are the sites that don’t exactly look suspicious (and may in fact be legitimate).  But still … you don’t have enough information to be sure.  No big brand name backs the site to give you confidence.  The site has no contact information on it.  And there’s nothing to indicate who or what company is actually going to fulfill your order or perform the services.

You’re not the only one who doesn’t trust these sites.  In fact, lack of trust may be wider spread than you think.

Kikscore, a company that has created and provides an online trust seal for small business websites, recently conducted a survey.  The survey found that a whopping 90% of online shoppers have abandoned a shopping cart  at one time or another, because they were worried about being defrauded on a site.

According to Rajeev Malik, CEO and Co-Founder of Kikscore:

“[People] hear almost monthly about large data breaches, they hear stories of ID theft, credit cards being stolen and service providers scamming customers.  As a result, there is really a culture of fear that shoppers need to get over prior to either buying online or trusting information about service providers enough, to call them.”

Another interesting point from the Kikscore survey:  ”… over 60% of website visitors are more likely to buy from a site that posts information and details about the management of a small business.”  So those About Us pages should be more than an afterthought.

What should you do if you have a website and want to instill credibility?   Here is a checklist of elements to give your small-business website credibility to online shoppers:

• Company full name (not just your Web domain name)
• Your own domain name – Don’t have your website reside as a subdomain off a bigger site (e.g., NOT: companyxyz.cheapwebsites.com).   Instead, you want your Web address to be something like: CompanyXYZ.com.
• Complete address and phone number – Ideally this information should be at the bottom of each page.
• Contact Us page or form
• About Us page – This should contain enough information so that it is clear yours is a business here for the long haul. When possible, include the founder’s or owner’s name.  Show your business is REAL. For more information, read: 5 Must Haves for Your About Us Page.
• Photos – Include high-quality photos of some of your products. Or, if you’re a solo professional such as a consultant or Web designer, then a picture of you.
• Description of your business, products, services – Be crystal clear on what your business does and products/services you provide. The clearer and more specific you are, the more you convey that you know what you’re doing and your business is competent.  And remember — shoppers research before they buy!  Even if they’re “just looking” that’s the first step toward buying.
• Customer testimonials – Even one testimonial from a real customer is helpful. If you have just one, put it right on the home page. Over time you can add more as the business generates a track record.
• Trust seals and seals from industry associations – Trust seals (Kikscore, Truste, Trusted Business, McAfee Secure) and Web seals from associations such as the Better Business Bureau, are a further sign that yours is a credible business.  Make sure you have permission to use any seals.
• Media mentions – Mention any publicity your company has had. Also, publish your own press releases on your site, in a section called “Media” or “Press.” A company that publishes press releases shows that it expects to grow.
• Lack of typos / grammatical errors – Proofread your site’s copy! Twice!
• Logo – While you don’t need the most beautiful logo in the world, having a logo (even just  professionally drawn text of your company name) says your company has brand value.
• The best design or template you can afford – Let’s face it:  you only have a few seconds to make a great impression. If your website appears amateurish, confusing or unprofessional, what does that suggest about the attention you give to the rest of your business?
• Social media follow buttons – If you have social accounts such as Twitter and Facebook, put follow buttons on your website. It’s proof of social validation when they see your followers and see you interacting with the public.

[Editor's Note: The above list is adapted from a Q&A session the author did on the D&B Credibility Insights blog, on the topic of website credibility.]

Online Shopping Photo via Shutterstock

From Small Business Trends

How to Give Online Shoppers Confidence in Your Website

Roost, based in San Francisco, allows you to update your social media accounts (currently Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook) from one dashboard.  There’s a built-in calendar to schedule and publish updates in advance.

While there are other tools out there that do similar functions, what’s interesting about Roost is that you can schedule  social media updates like marketing campaigns.  In a campaign, you can schedule updates to go out over a specified period of time — up to 40 updates over a period of  30 days.  So, for instance, if you wanted to promote a special offer with a series of informational tweets and also discounts, you could set that up in Roost.

Roost also gives you some analytics about your social media impact.  For instance you can measure engagement with your social media updates.  You can also see where your Facebook fans are located geographically, as well as some other features.  Roost announced its analytics features a few months ago.

Back in August of 2011, we did a review of Roost.  At that time, Roost reported that it had a customer base of 30,000 small businesses.  TJ McCue, who conducted the review for Small Business Trends, wrote what he liked about Roost, noting:

• I liked that Roost summarized my audience for me. I could see… where my fans/followers are located. Yes, I can do some of that in Facebook, but it is not easy, so I was glad to have Roost do it for me.

• On a busy day, you could pick from a list of links and Web stories that might appeal to your audience from already popular online media destinations. Roost pulls in a feed from each of the Web’s most popular sources and allows you to choose a story, and then post a comment about it (just like when you click the share or like button and comment from the Web).

The product still offers a free version, along with a premium plan that appears to target real estate businesses.  As of this morning, you do not have to be a user of Vertical Response to get value from Roost.  You can still use Roost as a stand alone tool.

There’s no mystery why an email marketing system provider would purchase a social media tool.  For too long now, email marketing and social media marketing have been separate.  But when you think about it, a company is losing out on opportunities to better understand and serve its target audience when the two activities are siloed.  According to Janine Popick, CEO of Vertical Response:

“We look at social media as the perfect complement to email marketing. If you take a specific example, a small business more often than not has historically built their customer base and much of their business around a customer’s email address, which they’ve likely been emailing for quite some time. Now they’re using a new channel to communicate with some of these people who get their email offers and others who prefer to hear from the business through social channels.

With the acquisition of Roost, we’re looking to finally combine what our small businesses and non profits are doing on multiple sites under one roof. Sending email marketing campaigns, extending those campaigns to their social networks, and the ability to publish single posts or full social campaigns will make the marketing life of our customers simpler and save them time.”

Vertical Response, also headquartered in San Francisco, has been adding tools to its stable.  It added an event marketing tool, and before that a survey tool.

From Small Business Trends

Vertical Response Acquires Social Media Platform Roost