It used to be that if you weren’t a teenager, you could avoid the phenomenon of social networking. No longer. Social networking has penetrated business communications (think LinkedIn and other sites that allow business contacts to network). Many companies have started examining the concept of social networking and applying it inside the business as a way of harnessing the power of unstructured knowledge and casual company relationships.

 

On-demand e-marketing solutions provider Marketbright this week launched Brightsite, a new product that uses aspects of social networking to “create a stronger bond between sales, marketing and the customer,” according to the company. Brightsite creates the equivalent of a business-to-business shopping cart for enterprise Web sites.

 

"While many companies use landing pages and microsites to interact with their client companies, it is often difficult to maintain such sites as vital collaborative communications tools," said Erik Bower, president of Marketbright. "By using Facebook (News - Alert)-style collaboration and Amazon-like recommendations, Brightsite enhances the customer experience by managing their experience and touch points with your company seamlessly."

 

Brightsite provides a plug-and-play membership management tool for any enterprise Web site. It provides the customer with a member account page with links to all events and offers they have accessed in the past, their account team and other account-specific information, helping to create an easy-to-access history for new team members. Customer members also can invite their colleagues into a private, shared collaborative space. The new, interactive and personalized widgets can be easily introduced into existing Web sites.

 

Brightsite also allows greater, seamless cooperation between sales and marketing teams, allowing a customer's microsite to become a branding tool with enhanced collaboration opportunities and fresh content, says Marketbright. With Brightsite, the marketing team will be able to blast new content, but it will look customized for the sales person's named accounts. Sales personnel will be able to review beforehand to ensure appropriateness of offers/content, to block the content, or to put a personalized note and pick and choose which items get forwarded on to their customers.

 

"Many microsites fail to keep pace with the evolving relationship between customer and vendor," Bower said. "Do you wish your customers spent as much time on your site as they do on Facebook? That's what we're aiming for."

 

For more information, visit www.marketbright.com.