In the News
2012
February 01, 2012
Master These 5 Remarkable Strategies of Motivation and Go Straight to the Top
Mark Fidelman of Seek Omega shares a few strategies from his discussions with Dr. Michael Wu, Lithium's Principal Scientist of Analytics, about how to minimize dissatisfaction amongst the rank and file while increasing worker productivity.
Read it in Seek Omega
January 30, 2012
The Search for E-Commerce 3.0
The disruptive online world of E-Commerce 3.0 is beginning to invade the world of bricks-and-mortar, and its new driving forces are social networks and mobile phones. For example, US cosmetics chain Sephora, with the help of social media specialists Lithium, has built up a social online experience where female customers share their cosmetics tips - which extends onto the shop floor.
Read it in BBC News
January 30, 2012
Your Six Customer Service Priorities for 2012
Lithium recently surveyed 120+ marketers and 1,300+ consumers globally as part of a research project with the Chief Marketing Officer Council and found there was a clear digital divide between businesses and what consumers expect of brand service on social media.
Read it in MyCustomer
January 26, 2012
The Wide Divide Between Brands And Consumers In Social Media
The CMO Council and Lithium conducted a survey that revealed a wide divide between what marketers think consumers want vs. what consumers really want when it comes to social media. Querying over 1,300 consumers and over 120 CMOs and titled the “Variance in the Social Brand Experience” study, “… the findings challenge marketers to better understand cognitive, behavioral, and attitudinal dynamics as they seek to integrate social media into their overall marketing mix.”
Read it in Forbes
January 26, 2012
New Customers: Retailers Experiment on Ways to Win Loyalty
The internet has changed advertising and marketing for good and digital media, in particular, have transformed the interactions of brands with target audiences from a one-way street of marketing messages to something more akin to a two-way conversation. To start that “conversation”, however, brands need to find a way to break the ice. FT's Jessica Twentyman interviewed Lithium customer, BT, to find out how their Lithium-powered community helps them to engage with their existing customers and attract new ones.
Read it in Financial Times
January 23, 2012
Warning to Toe-Dippers: Being Online ≠ Going Social
Most brands these days participate in social networks. But are they social? There's a huge difference between being online and going social. Some brands say they’re social, but most aren't. Most brands participate in many, many social networks. But they use them purely as a messaging tool, which isn't what social networks are built for. There are six common myths regarding what it means to go social. What are these myths? Find out from Lithium's Dr. Michael Wu as he shares these myths and more from his latest book, "The Science of Social: Beyond Hypes, Likes & Followers", on VentureBeat.
Read it in VentureBeat
January 23, 2012
Book Review: The Science of Social By Dr. Michael Wu from Lithium
Michael Brito, Senior Vice President of Social Business Planning at Edelman Digital, reviewed Lithium's very own Dr. Michael Wu's latest book, "The Science of Social: Beyond Hype, Likes & Followers". Head over to Michael's blog to read the rest of his review.
Read it in Britopian
January 09, 2012
With Fresh $53M, Lithium Aims To Tame Social Media
Lithium Technologies Chief Executive Rob Tarkoff dreams of taming social media for big brands. Now, thanks to a $53.4 million infusion from new investors New Enterprise Associates and SAP Ventures and half-dozen existing ones, Tarkoff has a gold-plated lasso to help him.
Read it in The Wall Street Journal
January 06, 2012
Lithium Technologies Raises $53.4 Million From NEA & SAP Ventures
Lithium Technologies has just announced a $53.4 million Series D funding round led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and SAP Ventures, which also includes existing investors Benchmark Capital, DAG Ventures, Emergence Capital, Greenspring Associates, Shasta Ventures and Tenaya Capital.
Read it in CNN Money
January 06, 2012
Lithium Banks $53.4M to Boost Social CRM
Lithium Technologies gets a $53.4 million cash infusion from New Enterprise Associates, SAP Ventures and existing investors. The money will help the startup boost its social CRM services for large businesses.
Read it in eWeek
January 05, 2012
Lithium Adds $53M In Funding To Grow Digital, Up Marketing Reach
Social marketing firm Lithium Technologies just completed a $53 million round of financing led by new investor New Enterprise Associates, along with SAP Ventures. Emboldened by the investment, Lithium President and CEO Rob Tarkoff said it would help “double our company in 2012.”
Read it in TMCnet
January 05, 2012
News Analysis: Lithium Technologies Adds $53M in Financing
Emeryville, California based Lithum Technologies announced today that it raised $53.4M in financing. The lead round is from New Enterprise Associates (NEA). Other investors include SAP Ventures and investors from previous rounds. Forbes contributor and R "Ray" Wang provides his commentary and analysis on what this new funding means for Lithium, its customers, and the industry.
Read it in Forbes
January 05, 2012
Lithium Technologies Raises $53.4 Million to Joust With Jive
Lithium Technologies Inc., a maker of social-media marketing software, raised $53.4 million in venture capital to challenge Salesforce.com Inc. and Jive Software Inc.
Read it in Bloomberg Businessweek
January 05, 2012
Social Marketing Vendor Lithium Technologies Raises $53.4 Million
Social marketing vendor Lithium Technologies today announced it has raised $53.4 million. The company plans to use the funds to bolster what it calls “social customer experience solutions” that include tools such as the Scout Labs listening platform. Such technology combs social media and the web for mentions of brands and products.
Read it in Internet Retailer
January 05, 2012
Brand Building Start-up Lithium Completes $53 Million Funding Round
Today, Lithium announced that it has raised a new $53.4 million funding round. Lithium CEO, Rob Tarkoff, told Business Insider that he plans to use the cash to expand Lithium's sales methods, working with digital marketing agencies who in turn sell to big brands.
Read it in TMCnet
January 05, 2012
Lithium Raises $53 Million
Lithium Technologies Inc. has raised $53.4 million in a Series D financing round led by new investor New Enterprise Associates. Founded in 2001 by professional video gamers Lyle and Dennis "Thresh" Fong, Emeryville-based Lithium had previously raised $48 million.
Read it in The San Francisco Business Times
January 05, 2012
Lithium Scores $50 Million To Help Big Companies Harness Their Biggest Fans
Lithium, which helps large companies harness the power of their fans for marketing, has raised a new $53.4 million funding round.
Read it in Business Insider
January 05, 2012
Lithium Powers Up With $53.4M Funding
US-based social networking solutions firm Lithium Technologies has completed a $53.4m Series D round of financing, which it will use to increase its sales and marketing team across new and existing geographies, and to invest in engineering and new product development.
Read it in MrWeb
January 05, 2012
Lithium Raises $53.4M Fourth Round To Push For Lead in Social Brand Software
Big consumer brands generate all sorts of consumer interest and expertise, but they’ve generally struggled to capitalize on these relationships to improve themselves. Lithium has been building itself into a market leader at solving this problem over the last ten years, offering white-label community sites and related products that allow brands to let users share ideas with each other — and tell the brands what they’re doing well, or not. The company is now doubling down on its business, raising a $53.4 million fourth round of funding on top of the $39 million that it has previously brought in.
Read it in TechCrunch
January 05, 2012
Social to Change Marketing As We Know It, Says Lithium CEO
Lithium‘s goal is to make your existing customer base like the stands at a Raiders winning home game — crazy about your brand. The company announced a $53.4 million fourth round of funding today, used to create those grassroots marketers.
Read it in VentureBeat
January 05, 2012
Emeryville-Based Lithium Technologies Raises $53.4 Million in Funding
Lithium Technologies, an Emeryville-based developer of software that lets businesses create their own social networks and online communities, said on Thursday it has raised $53.4 million in its fourth round of funding, led by new investor New Enterprise Associates (NEA).
Read it in Silicon Valley Wire
January 05, 2012
Lithium Technologies Completes $53.4M Financing
Lithium Technologies, an Emeryville, California-based provider of cloud-based Social Customer Experience solutions, has completed a $53.4m financing.
Read it in FinSMEs
January 05, 2012
Lithium Technologies Raises $53.4 Million From NEA & SAP Ventures
Lithium Technologies has just announced a $53.4 million Series D funding round led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and SAP Ventures, which also includes existing investors Benchmark Capital, DAG Ventures, Emergence Capital, Greenspring Associates, Shasta Ventures and Tenaya Capital.
Read it in GigaOM
January 05, 2012
Emeryville's Lithium Technologies Snared $53.4 Million in Venture Capital
Lithium Technologies, an Emeryville maker of social media software that helps companies build brand loyalty among customers, is getting the new year off to a bang. On Friday, it will announce a $53.4 million round of venture financing.
Read it in San Jose Mercury News
January 05, 2012
Lithium Reels In $53.4M to Build Social Experiences
Brands have recently woken-up to the trend of user interaction and generated content for the companies that they relate to. One company, Lithium Technologies, is finding some strength in helping companies work together to create strong social customer experiences -- and now they will do so with $53.4 million more assistance. The Emeryville, Calif.-company adds this latest Series D round of funding, announced Thursday, to the $45 million that it has already raised.
Read it in vator news
2011
December 23, 2011
Lithium-CMO Council Study Finds Differing Consumer and Brand Expectations In Social
A joint CMO Council-Lithium study, released in December 2011, found that consumers are positively engaged and highly loyal to the brands they choose to follow and “like” on social networking sites, though what brands themselves think their customers want or are prepared to give is often very different.
Read it in Additional Sources
December 02, 2011
Beyond Badges: The New Rules of Gamification
Gamification isn't just about badges and trophies. Inc. Magazine interviewed experts such as Lithium Principal Scientist, Dr. Michael Wu, to find out what you need to make next-generation customer rewards really work for your business.
Read it in Inc. Magazine
December 01, 2011
Attention Economy and Customer Relationships: Can We Beat the Dunbar Limit?
In the latest part of an ongoing series at MyCustomer.com about the relationship between social networks and communities, Lithium Principal Scientist of Analytics, Dr. Michael Wu, looks at the concept of the 'Dunbar limit' and how we can break it to boost the number of strong relationships we can realistically maintain.
Read it in MyCustomer.com
November 21, 2011
New Lithium CEO, Rob Tarkoff, Wants to Grow Company Further
In an interview with Customer Talk of the Netherlands, CEO Rob Tarkoff talks about his motivation for joining Lithium and the growth opportunities ahead (article in Dutch)
Read it in Customer Talk
November 18, 2011
Lithium Won’t Let Facebook Discussions Be Silenced
Lithium announced that it will add a discussions feature to its LevelUp suite of Facebook applications starting December 1.
Read it in All Facebook
October 31, 2011
Gamification: It’s a Science, It's an Art… But is it Sustainable?
MyCustomer.com caught up with Principal Scientist Michael Wu on the London leg of Lithium’s Likes to Loves world tour to discuss the opportunities and dangers of gamification.
Read it in MyCustomer.com
October 19, 2011
Game On: New CEO Outlines Taking Lithium To The Next Level
New Lithium CEO Rob Tarkoff tells MyCustomer.com how the social CRM business will avoid growing pains as it scales up to capitalise on the social media revolution.
Read it in MyCustomer.com
October 12, 2011
Using Social Technologies to Co-Innovate Product Evolution
Lithium customer, Stephanie Logerot from National Instruments, shares how the launch of their Lithium-powered LabVIEW Idea Exchange has helped them to listen to their customers and incorporate the best feedback directly into their products—giving customers a clear channel to NI's R&D team to create better, more useful products.
Read it in Loyalty Magazine
October 06, 2011
Social CRM: What is the Purpose of Twitter?
If you want a great how-to (as well as a lot of valid “why” and “what”) on Twitter, Business Computing World's, Chris Bucholtz, recommends a post from Lithium’s Social Media Quarterback, Erin Korogodsky, entitled “8 Ways to Subtly Connect Online.”
Read it in Business Computing World
October 05, 2011
Executive Profiles: Disruptive Tech Leaders In Social Business—Rob Tarkoff, Lithium Technologies
Lithium President & CEO, Rob Tarkoff, sat down with Forbes contributor, R. "Ray" Wang, for an on-going series of interviews with the people behind the technologies in Social Business. Find out more about what makes social computing disruptive and why it's changing the world for brands and their customers.
Read it in Forbes
October 03, 2011
Facebook's Brand of Loyalty
Companies have spent the past few years trying to amass Facebook fans for their products and services. Now, Lithium Technologies, Inc. and other marketing companies are helping large brands like Sephora and others build applications on Facebook in order to better engage with their customers.
Read it in The Wall Street Journal
October 03, 2011
Forget Fans, Lithium Eyes Facebook Superfans
Getting Facebook users to like a brand page is only the first step to marketing success on the social network. The ultimate goal is to “drive deep engagement with customers on Facebook,” and turn fans into superfans, says Lyle Fong, Co-Founder and Chief Strategist at social CRM (customer relationship management) firm, Lithium.
Read it in All Facebook
September 30, 2011
The Relativity and Attention Economics of Customer Relationships
As part of an ongoing series, Michael Wu, Principal Scientist of Analytics at Lithium Technologies, shares research findings on the relationship between social networks and communities. In the latest part of this series, Michael looks at the four components to relationships and how brands can influence trust and reciprocity to build customer relationships.
Read it in MyCustomer.com
September 29, 2011
Lithium Helps Companies Rev Up Customer Support by Deputizing ‘Superfans’
If every company could somehow recruit platoons of super-passionate evangelists to intercept and answer customers’ questions, it would be a compelling way to save money on traditional customer support. Well, there’s a company in Emeryville, CA, that claims it’s possible to build online communities where these “superfans” can be systematically cultivated and encouraged to work their magic. It’s called Lithium Technologies, and it has emerged as one of the most talked-about providers of so-called “social CRM” software (as in customer relationship management).
Read it in Xconomy
September 24, 2011
Getting Under the Skin of the Social Customer - Part I
The traditional customer/brand power balance has fundamentally changed, and today the customer is in charge of the relationship - not the brand manager. We have reached a point where customers have new levels of expectations and have a far greater influence than ever before - and there is remarkable pressure on organisations to respond effectively in order to remain competitive and simply in business. Learn more as Bruno Teuber, Lithium SVP & GM of EMEA, shares the first of his two-part series on Getting Under the Skin of the Social Customer.
Read it in IDG Connect
September 13, 2011
Gamification: Shiny Object or Effective Business Strategy?
Online gaming is big business, with Internet users spending three billion hours a week playing online games. But how can brands best ‘gamify’ their sites to engage with new audiences? New Media Knowledge spoke with Lithium Principal Scientist of Analytics, Dr. Michael Wu, to find out.
Read it in NMK
September 12, 2011
Lithium Technologies: How Funding Supercharges A Business
Andrew Warner from Mixergy sat down with Lithium Co-Founder, Kirk Yokomizo, to learn more about how Lithium used funding to focus and supercharge their business on creating communities of fans for brands.
Read it in Mixergy
September 01, 2011
Marketing to Communities
Today, many analysts agree that social communities should be a top priority for marketers. CRM Magazine's Brittany Farb speaks with Lithium CMO, Katy Keim, on how Lithium is helping brands identify and build brand nations where customer can engage with one another and the company.
Read it in destinationCRM.com
September 01, 2011
6 Questions on Social Media with Michael Wu
Business 2 Community sat down with Lithium Principal Scientist of Analytics, Michael Wu, for a Q&A on social media - learn more!
Read it in Business 2 Community
August 24, 2011
Customer Experience Veteran Tarkoff Takes CEO Seat at Lithium
Software industry veteran, Rob Tarkoff, is to take the reigns as CEO at social CRM specialist Lithium, as the company looks to capitalise on a booming market for social CRM products.
Read it in MyCustomer.com
August 23, 2011
Gamification in Education: Should We Play?
Dr. Michael Wu, Principal Scientist at Lithium, shares his thoughts on gamification, how it applies to education and the We Are Teachers community.
Read it in Huffington Post
August 23, 2011
Adobe Vet Joins Lithium As CEO
Rob Tarkoff joins the social network specialist, Lithium, from overseeing collaboration and digital experience products at Adobe. Lithium specializes in operating customer communities on behalf of big brands like Home Depot, Sephora, Best Buy, and Verizon, as well as smaller companies. It claims to have more than 20 million registered users on these private social networks and is recognized as one of the leaders in the market for external community management by both Gartner and Forrester.
Read it in InformationWeek
August 22, 2011
Lithium Technologies Hires Rob Tarkoff From Adobe to Become CEO
Lithium Technologies has hired former Adobe Systems Inc. (ADBE) Senior Vice President Rob Tarkoff to replace co-founder Lyle Fong as chief executive officer. Fong is staying on the board and assuming the position of chief strategist, the Emeryville, California-based company said today in a statement.
Read it in Bloomberg
August 22, 2011
Lithium Names Rob Tarkoff CEO
Lithium Technologies Inc. has named Rob Tarkoff, senior vice president at Adobe Systems Inc. , to be its new CEO.
Read it in San Francisco Business Times
August 22, 2011
Lithium Hires A New CEO For Helping Enterprises Engage With Customers
Lithium, a company that makes customer relationships more social, is announcing today that it has hired a veteran Adobe executive as its new chief executive. Rob Tarkoff will replace founder Lyle Fong as CEO of Emeryville, Calif.-based Lithium. Fong will become the chief strategist and remain on the board.
Read it in The New York Times
July 30, 2011
Announcing the 2011 AlwaysOn Global 250
AlwaysOn is excited to announce the AO Global 250—top, private companies that are creating a compelling, exciting, high-growth technology marketplace. Lithium was among those honored in the SaaS and Enterprise sector as a top emerging company in the Global Silicon Valley demonstrating significant market traction and pursuing game-changing technologies in digital media, mobile, social media, cloud, and SaaS computing.
Read it in AlwaysOn
July 28, 2011
Enterprise Communications Executive Interview: Bruno Teuber, Lithium VP & GM - EMEA
Bruno Teuber, Lithium VP & GM of EMEA, recently sat down with Enterprise Communications contributor, Mark Dye, to discuss the role of Social CRM for the enterprise and a technology which, although in the infancy stage of its lifecycle, marks a fundamental shift in how brands, companies, and businesses are defining processes.
Read it in Enterprise Communications
July 25, 2011
Cincinnati Bell Launches Online Peer-to-Peer Support Forum
Cincinnati Bell, Inc. (NYSE:CBB) announced today the launch of a new online customer support forum at community.cincinnatibell.com. This online community, powered by Lithium, is a peer-to-peer support channel for customers and other users to ask questions and share information about Cincinnati Bell.
Read it in Business Wire
July 18, 2011
Executive Profiles: Disruptive Tech Leaders In Social Business—Lyle Fong, Lithium Technologies
Lithium CEO & Co-Founder, Lyle Fong, sat down with Forbes contributor, R. "Ray" Wang, for an on-going series of interviews with the people behind the technologies in Social Business. Find out more about what makes social computing disruptive and why it's changing the world for brands and their customers.
Read it in Forbes
July 11, 2011
Brand Strategy: It’s a Changing World
Brand is the starting point for your customers’ experience. It’s not just the look and feel and color and font that a customer perceives but instead is the totality of their experience when interacting with your business. As your company and customers change, you want to make sure your brand reflects their evolution. But where do you start? In the latest issue of Business 2 Consumer, Lithium CMO, Katy Keim, shares how her team recently executed their re-branding and provides a few pointers along the way.
Read it in Business 2 Company
July 08, 2011
Telstra Turns to Crowd-Sourced Support, Launches CrowdSupport
Telstra has rolled out a new customer support forum designed to help Telstra customers assist other customers and foster a community around their services. The launch of the site, powered by Lithium, is the latest initiative by Telstra to communicate with customers on multiple platforms following the success they’ve met using social media such as Twitter to assist clients.
Read it in iTech Report
July 07, 2011
Do Your Customers ‘Like’ You?
Companies are marrying customer service with social media, using the likes of Facebook and Twitter as public and easily accessible avenues for customer support. Is this new movement for every business? And how do you get started? Andrew Collins of Voice & Data Online spoke with Lithium VP Sales - Asia Pacific, Greg Joy, to find out more.
Read it in Voice & Data Online
June 23, 2011
Does Social Media Have A Return On Investment?
Fast Company's, Farhad Manjoo, interviewed Lithium customers The Home Depot and Sephora, as well as Lithium CEO and Co-Founder, Lyle Fong, to learn more about how social media is helping companies revolutionize the customer experience.
Read it in Fast Company
June 21, 2011
Eloqua AppCloud Unveiled
Today at Eloqua Experience Europe 2011, Eloqua CEO Joe Payne announced the "Eloqua AppCloud," a first-of-its-kind online marketplace for B2B marketing applications. AppCloud is a hub for a growing list of B2B marketing applications that connect directly with Eloqua's powerful Revenue Performance Management (RPM) platform. The marketplace includes free connections to Lithium Technologies, Jigsaw, ON24 and more than 20 other leading social, data and conferencing applications.
Read it in MarketWire
June 13, 2011
Influencer Marketing: The Appliance of Science
As Principal Scientist of Analytics at Lithium Technologies, Michael Wu is one of the leading thinkers on behaviour within online communities and social networks, and has spent years exploring the dynamics of social interaction. MyCustomer.com caught up with Michael at the recent European Customer Experience World to discuss the value of influence, and how to identify - and engage with - influencers.
Read it in MyCustomer.com
June 09, 2011
A Dozen Ways to Improve Your Social CRM
Just because you have a customer relationship management (CRM) system, a Facebook page and a Twitter account doesn't make you social CRM savvy — or even mean you are truly connecting with your customers where they socialize (and share feedback and reviews with their friends). To help improve your social CRM, Enterprise Apps Today polled dozens of social media marketing and CRM experts, including Lithium's VP of Product Marketing, Phil Soffer, and put together their top dozen ways to improve your social CRM.
Read it in Enterprise Apps Today
May 23, 2011
Home Depot Puts a New Spin on the Idea of 'Sales Rep'
They've got names like SteelToes, ChrisFixIt and THDiva. And they spend hours each week touting favorite products, sharing home-improvement tips and answering questions about everything from installing ceramic tile to venting a microwave. The Home Depot's so-called social-media store associates are part of a new, hybrid group that spends two days each week managing the retailer's Lithium-powered How-To Community and creating content for use across the company.
Read it in Ad Age
May 19, 2011
Names You Need To Know: Consumer Co-Creation
Forbes' reporter, Quentin Hardy, reports live from LiNC 2011 where Lithium customers such as giffgaff share how consumer co-creation has transformed the way they do business and engage with their customers.
Read it in Forbes
May 19, 2011
Live from the Lithium Party: Building the Enterprise Social Practice
Social Media Today' Editor, Cliff Figallo, reports live from LiNC 2011 about how enterprise companies like Lithium customers giffgaff, The Home Depot, and Sephora are using social media today to transform their businesses and get closer to their social customers.
Read it in Social Media Today
May 17, 2011
Lithium's Social Analytics Starts With Community
When Lithium Technologies talks about social media monitoring, the conversation always comes back to community. InformationWeek's, David F. Carr, spoke with Lithium's CEO & Co-Founder, Lyle Fong, and Principal, Scientist, Dr. Michael Wu to find out more.
Read it in InformationWeek
May 10, 2011
Goldman Sachs Quietly Finding Place In The Cloud
Goldman Sachs hosted a select group of public and private companies and investors, including Lithium CEO & Co-Founder, Lyle Fong, last week to discuss upcoming trends in Cloud Computing. Described as a “who’s who of the new software leaders” Goldman and other top investment banks are scrambling to get a piece of the cloud, a major technology trend that is just now gaining traction.
Read it in Wall Street Journal
May 09, 2011
Sentiment Analysis Can Help Find the Idea in That Pile of Data
The big idea for marketing is to connect customers with a company and create an authentic connection with the audience, but how do you commit to measurement while honoring your spirit, your customers, and the big idea? In the latest edition of AdAge, Lithium CMO, Katy Keim shares how sentiment analysis can help you spot these trends faster than everyone else, and then find meaning in those insights.
Read it in AdAge
April 25, 2011
Making Fans of Customers on Social Media
A combination of social media and traditional customer relations management—social CRM—is allowing large brands to track customer conversations, react swiftly to issues they raise, gain insight into their needs, and interact with them. Siddharth Cavale from Reuters sat down with Lithium CEO & Co-Founder, Lyle Fong, to get his take on recent consolidations in the market and future trends in Social CRM.
Read it in Businessweek
April 18, 2011
Lithium Social Customer Suite Fosters ‘Superfan’ Communities
CRM Buyer's, Maria Verlengia, interviewed Lithium's VP of Product Marketing, Phil Soffer, to find out how the Lithium Social Customer Suite helps companies identify, manage, and reward a group of dedicated customers using social media channels. Referring to these types of social customers as "superfans," Lithium helps brands empower these superfans to be advocates for their products and services.
Read it in CRM Buyer
April 11, 2011
Sequentia Environics and CloudSquads Partner to Help Online Communities Thrive
Sequentia Environics and CloudSquads today announced a strategic partnership to deliver comprehensive, end-to-end community programs, enabling the world’s largest brands to integrate social content from branded communities like those powered by Lithium Technologies, Facebook, and Twitter into their existing businesses.
Read it in BusinessWire
March 30, 2011
Live From the Gartner CRM Summit London: 5 Customer Strategy Trends to Watch
At the Gartner CRM Summit in London, Ginger Conlon of 1to1 Media sat down with Lithium's VP & GM EMEA, Bruno Teuber, and other CRM industry executives to find out their thoughts about customer strategies or trends being overlooked that business leaders should be paying more attention to today.
Read it in 1to1 Media
March 24, 2011
The Fortune 100 League of Extraordinarily Social CMOs
Social Consumers are relying on their social networks and social media to make purchase decisions. As more do, companies caught without a clear and effective social strategy from their leaders will become less competitive. The Fortune 100 League of Extraordinarily Social CMOs list was created with the help of state-of-the-art sentiment analysis technology from Lithium to highlight Chief Marketing and Communication Executives that are not only using social tools, but are being recognized by consumers as positive influencers on their brands.
Read it in Seek Omega
March 03, 2011
Virgin Atlantic's Vtravelled to Introduce Rewards for Travellers Using New Social Gaming Mechanics
Virgin Atlantic today announced plans to re-launch its social travel community site, www.vtravelled.com, with a strategy focused on rewarding their frequent flyers using gaming mechanics. Virgin Atlantic will partner with social gaming experts, Lithium, as they plan to engage with their 1.8 million Flying Club members.
Read it in vtravelled blog
February 23, 2011
Lithium's Lyle Fong Joins Walter Rogers on CBS Radio to Discuss Gamification
Baker Communications President and CEO Walter Rogers will be hosting Lyle Fong, CEO of Lithium - a company that specializes in helping their clients leverage social media and gamification to uncover new business and drive revenue - on this week’s CBS Radio show this Wednesday, February 23, at 11:30 am Central Time.
Read it in Baker Communications
February 10, 2011
Verizon's Website Named As One of the Best Corporate Sites
Leading social engagement firm, ComBlu, has named Verizon's corporate website the top community website amongst wireline and wireless telecommunications companies, citing their strong set of social engagement features and enhancements to the online Verizon Community, powered by Lithium, as enabling consumers to interact easily with Verizon and with one another and offering user-friendly high-value content for consumers.
Read it in Wall Street Journal
February 04, 2011
The Top 30 Most Respected Venture Capitalists
There is a lot of content created by the Venture Capital community that has helped countless entrepreneurs, whether it's strategic help, introductions to customers, joint ventures with other portfolio companies, and just plain fair dealings. To help provide a starting point to the VCs out there, Mark Fidelman at Seek Omega created the Top 30 VC guide with the help of state-of-the-art sentiment analysis technology from Lithium.
Read it in Seek Omega
January 31, 2011
Obama Taps Santa Cruz Entrepreneur Jennifer Zeszut for Startup Initiative
When President Obama launched a new campaign to promote entrepreneurship, he enlisted Jennifer Zeszut, founder of Scout Labs, a social networking company acquired by Lithium Technologies in May, 2010. Currently Chief Social Strategist at Lithium Technologies, Zeszut spoke Monday morning at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building across from the White House during the launch of "Startup America," designed to encourage private sector investment in job-creating startups and small firms.
Read it in San Jose Mercury News
January 31, 2011
Social CRM Case in Point: Giffgaff
Giffgaff avoided many common social media challenges by thinking strategically about social CRM from the company's beginnings. The mobile operator, a subsidiary of U.K.-based O2, hired Lithium Technologies to help develop its online customer community, with the goal of having it serve as a customer service resource, as well as a marketing research tool and a research and development area. The site receives 3 million page views per month; customers post questions, share new ideas, and search its knowledgebase, says Robbie Hearn, head of member experience. "It's our central hub."
Read it in 1to1 Media
January 28, 2011
One on One: Michael Wu of Lithium Technologies
Michael Wu, Lithium's Principal Scientist of Analytics, sat down with Brent Leary of CRM Essentials to discuss the complex dynamics of social interaction and group behavior in online communities and social networks - catch their audio transcript online!
Read it in Business Insider
January 24, 2011
From Bootstrapped to VC-backed
Catch Lithium CEO & Co-Founder, Lyle Fong, on vator.tv as he reveals why he waited until the timing was right to raise funding, from both a market-raising and a market perspective. And, hear how Lithium originated from a consumer-facing gaming company to a social-media software company that allows corporations to engage their customers.
Read it in vator news
January 13, 2011
Using Gaming Dynamics to Engage the Customer
Catch Lithium CEO & Co-Founder, Lyle Fong, on vator.tv as he shares a case study about one Best Buy fan who has answered 4,000 customer service questions for the big retailer, all on a volunteer basis. Lyle also shares how Lithium has helped Best Buy engage with these brand advocates.
Read it in vator news
January 12, 2011
Most Vendors Embrace Social CRM
CRM Magazine's, Lauren McKay, interviewed Lithium's Chief Marketing Officer, Katy Keim, on how leading Social CRM vendors such as Lithium are actively using social media to gather information and engage with their customers.
Read it in destinationCRM.com
January 11, 2011
Who's The Social Customer?
Vator.tv sat down with Lithium's CEO & Co-Founder, Lyle Fong, to learn about what corporations are doing differently today to service their customers and how Lithium is helping them tap into social communities to find their biggest fans and advocates.
Read it in vator news
January 07, 2011
The CRM Watchlist Part IV: The Social Mainstream
ZDNet contributor, Paul Greenberg of The 56 Group, shares his annual CRM Watchlist 2011, covering Lithium on the list for the second straight year in The Social Mainstream category.
Read it in ZDNet
2010
December 13, 2010
Online Communities: The Golden Hubs of Customer Conversations
1to1 Magazine's Mila D'Antonio spoke with Lithium's VP of Product Marketing, Phil Soffer, about how the advent of social CRM has forced companies to think about how they engage with customers more effectively online, and how brands like telecom provider giffgaff, cosmetics retailer Sephora, Intercontinental Hotels Group, Starbucks, and Chase are discovering the impact of finding their own unique ways of interacting with customers in company-hosted customer communities.
Read it in 1to1 Magazine
December 09, 2010
Lithium Technologies Helps Companies Thrive Online
Bloomberg's Ryan Flinn interviewed Lyle Fong, CEO & Co-Founder of Lithium Technologies, about how Lithium is using game dynamics to help companies like Sephora, Best Buy, and HP influence online customer conversations as a way to boost sales and manage their brands' reputations.
Read it in San Francisco Chronicle
November 30, 2010
Lithium’s Chief Social Strategist Jenny Zeszut Named Technology Innovator
San Francisco-based venture accelerator, Astia, recently honored Jenny Zeszut as an exceptional woman innovator in 2010. Jenny was recognized for her success as founder and CEO of Scout Labs, a leading social media monitoring platform acquired by Lithium earlier this year.
Read it in Marketwire
November 11, 2010
Lithium's Social is "Suite"
Figuring out what tools work for you from a broad software suite can be like picking and choosing items from an à la carte menu. Especially with social software, departments within large organizations may struggle to find which applications and analytics are truly important to their line of business. Lithium Technologies recently released The Lithium Social Customer Suite, a destination that offers line-of-business solutions tied to market awareness, commerce and customer service. The suite also helps business people keep up with what their customers are doing and saying — both in Lithium hosted communities and on the broader social Web.
Read it in destinationCRM
October 28, 2010
She's a Beauty: Social Customers and Sephora's BeautyTalk Community
Just last week, Lithium customer, Sephora's virtual presence was made more relevant to customers and cosmetics aficionados through the launch of the company’s BeautyTalk community. This community, running on the Lithium Awareness solution, is designed to engage the women and men interested in cosmetics, perfume, and body care, and to complement the conversations they are having across the social Web, including those by Sephora’s 900,000+ Facebook fans.
Read it in Social Customer
October 27, 2010
Sephora Turns To Lithium to Move Conversation Back To Its Own Site
Lithium customer, Sephora, part of the Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy (LVMH) group, has built a community hub on its website called BeautyTalk that aims to move conversation from third party networks back to its own website.
Read it in ReputationOnline
October 22, 2010
Lithium Helped the Penny to Drop
The principle of genuine communities helping each other in a relatively well-bounded manner is well proven and useful. Furthermore, in any customer base, 'experts' exist that probably know more about the real world application of the product or service than the supplier or manufacturer itself. CIO Magazine contributor, Dale Vile, covers Lithium Technologies' Social Customer Suite as a more tangible take on social CRM.
Read it in CIO Magazine
October 15, 2010
How to Build a Booming Online Community
Lithium CEO and Co-Founder, Lyle Fong, cut his teeth in the online community space by driving the development of Gamers.com, which would become the number one independent gaming portal. From Gamers, Fong co-founded Lithium Technologies, which was recently awarded leader status by Gartner in its inaugural Social CRM Magic Quadrant. MyCustomer.com's Neil Davey met with Lyle to discover his tips for developing a thriving online community.
Read it in MyCustomer.com
October 14, 2010
Can You Measure Your Digital Eminence?
How do you tell who has long-term digital eminence from the flash-in-the-pans? For that matter, how do you even measure digital eminence? Social media monitoring is a relatively new category of businesses tools aimed at identifying and measuring the popularity of topics and influencers. Forbes blog contributor, Rawn Shah covers how Michael Wu, Principal Scientist at Lithium Technologies, and others describe these factors of influence.
Read it in MyCustomer.com
October 11, 2010
Giffgaff Proves Communities Respond to Being Rewarded
At Reputation Online Live on Friday, Heather Taylor, Head of Social Media for Giffgaff, and Vincent Boon, Giffgaff's Community Manager, presented some figures that demonstrate that when a brand gives something back to its users, not only does this enhance the power of the community's collective mind, but it reflects users' behaviour in a way every brand can learn and benefit from.
Read it in New Media Age
October 07, 2010
Verizon Idea Exchange a Great Place to Contribute to Improved Products and Services
Today, Lithium customer, Verizon has launched a new Idea Exchange in its online community that offers community members an opportunity to suggest product innovations and enhancements from Verizon, and to comment on suggestions by members' peers.
Read it in PR Newswire
September 29, 2010
Sephora Launches BeautyTalk, an Online Community for the Beauty Obsessed
Today, Lithium customer, Sephora, unveiled the beta version of their interactive beauty space, BeautyTalk, which can be accessed from a tab on Sephora.com called "Beauty Advice," as well as a tab on their Facebook page. The community will merge both professional and real-women advice for clients to engage in the medium they feel most comfortable. Users can trade advice on discussion boards, ask questions to online experts, watch video tutorials from the Sephora Pro Team, get tips from celebrities, and read relevant articles from Sephora's blog, Beauty and the Blog.
Read it in Marketwire
September 28, 2010
Lithium for Social Customer Relationship Management (SCRM) In Development on Yammer "2.0"
Yammer, Inc. today released a new "2.0" version of its site with applications as the centerpiece. As part of the private beta, Lithium for Social Customer Relationship Management (SCRM), currently in development, enables employees to share and discuss feedback from brand influencers and customer conversations that take place in Lithium's leading customer community solutions.
Read it in Marketwire
September 20, 2010
2010 1to1 Customer Champions Revealed by 1to1 Media
Lithium congratulates our customer, Gina Debogovich, Social Strategist & Community Manager at Best Buy, for being recognized as a 2010 1to1 Customer Champion!
Read it in Peppers&Rogers Group
September 13, 2010
Innovative Software Companies Under $100M To Watch 2010
Congratulations to the Lithium team for being recognized in the Social Business Solutions category for IDC's Innovative Company To Watch Under $100M contest. The awards seek to find key vendors that are advancing efforts around the trends in their Top Ten Predictions series of documents each year in the applications, applications development and deployment, and information access markets.
Read it in Enterprise Irregulars
August 26, 2010
Keeping It Close to Home: Giffgaff Hands Over Customer Service Issues to its Own Community
Lithium customer, Giffgaff, entered the already crowded mobile market in June, but the O2-owned virtual network operator's unique selling point rests on its community model, which operates as the company's main customer service function.
Read it in MarketingWeek
August 20, 2010
Influential Leaders: The Statistician
Eight members of the CRM community were named by CRM Magazine as 2010 Influential Leaders, including Lithium's very own Principal Scientist of Analytics, Dr. Michael Wu - congratulations, Michael!
Read it in CRM Magazine
August 02, 2010
CRM Magazine Announces Winners of 2010 CRM Influential Leaders Awards
Eight members of the CRM community were named by CRM Magazine as 2010 Influential Leaders, including Lithium's very own Principal Scientist of Analytics, Dr. Michael Wu - congratulations, Michael!
Read it in CRM Magazine
July 30, 2010
Scout Labs Slices and Dices for Social Web Brand Teams
With an ever-increasing number of social media marketing options, brands and agencies are searching for solutions to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of their campaigns. Social Times', Neil Glassman, interviewed Lithium's Margaret Francis and Erin Korogodsky about how Scout Labs by Lithium Technologies helps brand teams tune in to social media across the Internet.
Read it in Social Times
July 29, 2010
Optimizing the Exhibitor Experience in Virtual Events
As show managers expand into virtual events to supplement existing events or create new products altogether, much attention is paid to constructing the environment and filling it with content and attendees. No less important is making sure the virtual exhibit hall is as vibrant and well-attended as it can be. Part of this responsibility lies on the exhibitor, and with some help from the show's producer, exhibitors can contribute to a dynamic and crowded exhibit experience. Bill Mickey, Executive Editor for ExpoWeb, interviewed Lithium's VP of Marketing, Dan Ziman, about Lithium's Social CRM Virtual Summit and best practices for encouraging participation in the virtual show environment.
Read it in ExpoWeb
July 12, 2010
Lessons From Traditional Online Communications Should Not Be Forgotten
In the midst of the race to 'get into' social media and be seen to be keeping up with the times, more traditional forms of online communication are often forgotten, but they still provide valuable lessons that shouldn't be ignored.
Read it in new media age
July 09, 2010
Building Online Communities with Customers
A growing number of companies are discovering they can exert greater control in online interactions with customers by creating their own online communities. Lithium Chief Marketing Officer Katy Keim describes how companies can use online communities to engage with customers and develop tribal knowledge centers.
Read it in 1to1 Magazine
June 24, 2010
When Marketing Gets Social
Anna Muzio, journalist at Italian publication, Il sole 24, interviewed Lithium's VP and GM, EMEA, Bruno Teuber about how these new forms of online communication can be used to engage a brand's customers and most enthusiastic brand advocates - the superusers.
Read it in Il Sole 24
June 21, 2010
Creating a Social CRM Experience
Connecting with customers and prospects online is one of the biggest challenges facing businesses today, and companies are adopting social CRM strategies to help conquer this challenge. 1to1 Magazine Contributor, Mila D'Antonio, spoke with the NHL's Michael DiLorenzo and Augie Ray of Forrester Research about how integrating CRM with social media can lead to more relevant customer conversations.
Read it in 1to1 Magazine
June 16, 2010
Using Game Mechanics to Build Great Enterprise Communities
Blogger, Robert Scoble, interviewed Lithium's CEO & Co-Founder, Lyle Fong, for the Scobleizer YouTube channel. During the interview, they chat about a number of things, but focus in on Lithium's gaming dynamics and how that helps build vibrant communities - check it out!
Read it in Scobleizer
June 14, 2010
SaaS & Customer Success, The (New) Definition of Customer Support
In the past, Customer Support has been about the answer to, "How does it work?" Customer Success is about a much more vital question: "How can I use the application to increase my company's productivity and profitability?" Mikael Blaisdell interviewed Lithium's Director of Customer Success, Amy Kelman, to find out more about how Lithium's Customer Success Program goes beyond plain support.
Read it in The HotLine Magazine
June 02, 2010
Learn Before You Leap
Leapfrog, a maker of educational products, gives its customers something to jump up and down about: an online community powered by Lithium Technologies.
Read it in CRM Magazine
June 01, 2010
Crafting a Community
The best thing companies can do when choosing a community vendor is to look for one that provides hand-holding, best practices, and guidance in finding the voice of the customer. Lithium Technologies, for example, launched a Community Health Index, a dashboard of best practices and benchmarking services, that helps a business chart its progress and to see where it is in comparison with other organizations of its kind. "It gives them a lot of ease of mind," says Lyle Fong, Lithium's CEO and cofounder. "We can tell them, 'You are going to see growth here, and you will see a dip here.'"
Read it in CRM Magazine
May 21, 2010
Tracking Online Conversations helps Vistaprint Cut Customer Service Calls
To determine what consumers are saying about them, online retailer and provider of print-related services, Vistaprint, works with Scout Labs, a listening platform technology vendor owned by Lithium Technologies. Since Vistaprint began working with Scout Labs to break down the positive and negative aspects of online conversations, it has seen a noticeable decrease in the percentage of Vistaprint-related conversations that are negative in tone.
Read it in Internet Retailer
May 19, 2010
Lithium's LiNC - Coming From the Other Side
ZDNet contributing writer and LiNC keynote speaker, Paul Greenberg, attended Lithium's annual conference, LiNC 2010, commenting that "Lithium managed to pull off one of the best events I've seen this year and at the same time, is establishing itself as a serious player...especially with the recent acquisition of Scout Labs and now their partnerships with companies like Genesys. Scout Labs is clearly extending the Lithium functionality and Genesys the reach."
Read it in ZDNet
May 18, 2010
LEAD411 Launches 'Hottest Companies In San Francisco' Awards
Lithium Technologies was recognized in Lead411's Hottest Technology Companies in San Francisco awards. Companies selected demonstrated a 100% increase in revenues over the past 3 years, $5M+ in funding in the past 2 years, 2x traffic gains to their website in the past 12 month, and over 1M unique visitors a month.
Read it in PR Web
May 14, 2010
Lithium Partners With Genesys to Beef Up Community Customer Support
After building out its community insight capability with the acquisition of Scout Labs last week, Social CRM firm Lithium Technologies has moved to beef up the customer support side of its offering.
Partnering with Alcatel-Lucent's Genesys, a supplier of enterprise software, Lithium will integrate its community platform and Genesys' Customer Service Software.
Read it in MyCustomer.com
May 13, 2010
Lithium Technologies Acquires Scout Labs
Lithium Technologies' recent acquisition of Scout Labs solidifies its standing at the forefront of brand marketing and market research. With the addition of social media monitoring tools, Lithium extends the ability for its clients to engage with consumers wherever they are active on the social web.
Read it in CRM Magazine
May 11, 2010
It's Official: Lithium Technologies Acquires Brand Monitoring Platform Scout Labs
It's official. Brand tracking application Scout Labs has been acquired by social CRM company, Lithium Technologies, according to a blog post on Scout Labs' site.
Read it in TechCrunch
May 11, 2010
Lithium Acquires Scout Labs, Dips Toes on E2.0 Waters
As "...the first ones to leverage communities as generators of content, feedback, and insights — and take the first step towards unlocking that power and converging SCRM and Enterprise 2.0." CustomerTHINK contributing writer, Estaban Kolsky, writes about the Lithium's recent acquisition of Scout Labs as "...a terrific move...."
Read it in CustomerThink
May 11, 2010
Social CRM Merger Promises Better Customer Profiles
Social CRM purveyor Lithium Technologies acquires Scout Labs in a merger that will give manufacturers and others deep insight into their customers' activities and influence.
Read it in Managing Automation
May 11, 2010
News Analysis: Lithium's Acquisition of Scout Labs Ups The Ante in Social CRM
Social Media Monitoring Addition Adds Social Customer Insight To Lithium's Community and Social CRM Offerings.
Conversations with Emeryville, CA-based Lithium over the past week highlight the importance of two themes: actionable insight as a foundation for SCRM and acquisition synergies beyond technology fit.
Read it in Enterprise Irregulars
May 10, 2010
Lithium Snaps Up Scout Labs
As more and more companies seem to be jumping on the social media bandwagon, Lithium Technologies is beefing up its services with the acquisition of a startup called Scout Labs. The news was first reported yesterday in TechCrunch, prior to any official announcement. Chief Executive and Co-Founder, Lyle Fong, confirmed the acquisition to VentureBeat today, and also said that the rumored price of $20-25 million is correct.
Read it in The New York Times
May 07, 2010
Lithium Buys Scout Labs for $20M Plus
Lithium Technologies, which helps companies manage online communities and other social media operations, has bought Scout Labs, a social media monitoring service, for somewhere between $20 million and $25 million, said Lithium CEO Lyle Fong.
Read it in SF Business Times
May 05, 2010
Lithium Planning to Give European Social CRM a Boost
European businesses are lagging behind their American counterparts in the adoption of social CRM — but this won't be the case for long if Lithium Technologies has its way, as it ramps up its presence in Europe. Neil Davey, contributing writer at MyCustomer.com, sat down with Lithium's Director of Marketing and Business Development (EMEA), Adrian Bisaz, to find out more.
Read it in MyCustomer.com
May 05, 2010
Announcing Winners of the TSIA Recognized Innovator Awards: Spring 2010
The TSIA Recognized Innovator Awards recognizes innovation in services technology, and are presented to partners of TSIA at the Technology Service World conference. Lithium Technologies is honored to have received the Recognized Innovator Award in the category of Knowledge Management with our Tribal Knowledge Base product - the first knowledgebase designed to be managed and maintained by an organization's customer base.
Read it in Ragsdale's Eye on Service
April 26, 2010
Want Expertise? Just Ask
Want business insight? Ask someone who's been there, done that. Harvard Business Publishing (HBR) jumped into the blog format a few years ago, and reader response was swift. To expand the conversation beyond one-topic-at-a-time blogs, HBR launched an interactive online community — the HBR Answer Exchange — in beta form two months ago. Sonja Carberry, contributing writer at Investor's Business Daily sat down with Paul Michelman, Lithium customer and HBR's Director of New Products to find out more.
Read it in Investor's Business Daily
April 16, 2010
Entrepreneur Profile: Lyle Fong, CEO & Co-Founder, Lithium Technologies
Lithium's CEO & Co-Founder, Lyle Fong, was recently featured with an Entrepreneur Profile in the San Francisco Business Times. SF Business Times' reporter Jason Shuffler interviews Lyle about starting the business, the challenges, changes, and choices along the way, as well as his hopes for the future.
Read it in San Francisco Business Times
April 15, 2010
Juniper Networks Relies on Lithium to Power J-Net Community
Todd Shimizu, Director of Online Communities at Sunnyvale, CA-based Juniper Networks, relies on Lithium Technologies to keep participation active in Juniper's J-Net forum as well as for managing and monitoring other social channels. TechTarget contributor, Sue Hildreth, interviewed Todd about how Juniper utilizes some of the rich features the Lithium Social CRM platform provides, such as ActiveCast and the Reputation Management, to drive member participation and increase engagement.
Read it in TechTarget
March 25, 2010
Swim In The Social Pool
Top firms don't just dip a toe in social media. They take meaningful leaps.Investors Business Daily writer, Sonja Carberry, shares top tips from companies like Lithium Technologies on how to avoid a painful belly-flop and perfect your entry into social media.
Read it in Investors Business Daily
March 17, 2010
Business Success Through Smart Execution
Lithium CEO & Co-Founder, Lyle Fong, and gWallet CEO & Co-Founder, Gurbaksh Chahal, will speak at the "Entrepreneurs — Uncensored" series presented by MIT/Stanford Venture Lab and Draper Fisher Jurvetson. Held on March 30, 2010 from 6-8:30 PM at Fenwick & West LLP, Fong and Chahal will discuss how companies can compete through execution.
Read it in Examiner.com
March 01, 2010
Open Sesame
Twitter, Facebook and other social media are changing the face of traditional CRM, putting customers in the driving seat. CBR Contributor, Janine Milne, interviewed Lithium's CMO, Sanjay Dholakia about how companies should capitalise on this new era of transparency.
Read it in Computer Business Review
February 26, 2010
Third Annual SPIFFY Award Winners Announced: Global Telecom Service Providers Award Telecom Startups for Innovation and Impact
The Service Provider members of the Telecom Council of Silicon Valley awarded Lithium Technologies The Edison Award for Most Innovative Startup at the annual SPIFFY Awards, held February 25, 2010, in Palo Alto, California.
Read it in PRWeb
February 23, 2010
Social Media Sock Puppetry - Lessons from Failed Practices in Social Media Marketing
Forbes contributor, Dan Woods, spoke with Lithium's Director of Customer Marketing, Paul Gilliham, and Chief Community Officer, Joe Cothrel, on how reputation systems, a key part of most large Internet communities, are a proven method for increasing engagement and ferreting out the gamers. In addition, they discuss the benefits companies can reap from social media when they sincerely listen, engage, and participate in conversations about their brand.
Read it in Forbes
February 03, 2010
ON24 Honors Best Virtual Events
Webcasting and virtual events vendor, ON24, has announced the winners of its first-ever ON24 Virtual Event Excellence Awards. Among the winners was Lithium Technologies for Best Attendee Engagement. Nominee evaluations were based on ROI, "immersiveness," branding impact, achievement of business objectives, and overall quality, ON24 said.
Read it in Folio Magazine
January 15, 2010
The Lesson of Gaming: Why Do We Have to Pay People to Work?
GamesBeat contributors and Co-authors of Total Engagement: Using Games and Virtual Worlds to Change the Way People Work and Business Compete, Byron Reeves and J. Leighton Read, highlight how leading-edge companies are extending funware (the use of game-like ideas in non-game applications) even further into the enterprise.
Read it in VentureBeat
January 15, 2010
Lithium Goes Mobile, Brings Customer Service Back to Customers
Lithium is clearly a big league player less than three years after its first round of funding. Now, they have another component set to tear up CRM: Lithium Mobile. With Lithium Mobile, announced in October and just released at the end of Q4 2009, Lithium has developed a site design for their customers that brings full service to a variety of mobile devices.
Read it in VentureBeat
January 05, 2010
Companies Turn to Virtual Trade Shows to Save Money
With travel budgets deeply slashed across Corporate America, more companies are turning to virtual trade shows to connect with customers and suppliers.
Lithium Technologies turned to the virtual format in November for a show on customer relationship management, drawing over 2,200 registrants, with about half signed on live for the 10-hour event.
Read it in USA Today
January 05, 2010
Outsell, Inc. Predicts 2010 Will Usher in the "Age of Experience" as Publishers Compete for Fewer Dollars
In Outsell, Inc.'s new report: "Information Industry Outlook 2010: A New Dawn, New Day, New Decade.", the research and advisory firm offers its top 10 predictions along with key themes and recommended actions for publishers.
Additionally, Outsell names its "30 to Watch" -- companies that are innovative, disrupt the status quo, or are creating unique experiences. Companies include Lithium Technologies, Apple, Blackboard, Bloomberg, Kaplan, National Public Radio, TechCrunch, and more.
Read it in Business Wire
2009
December 19, 2009
2010 SPIFFY Award Nominees Announced - Nominee List Catalogs Telecom Startups to Watch
Lithium Technologies nominated for Edison Award for Most Innovative Startup
The Telecom Council of Silicon Valley announced today the 2010 SPIFFY Award nominees. Nominees were selected by the Telecom Council's Service Provider Forum (SPIF) from among all the telecom startups who presented in Telecom Council meetings over the previous year. SPIFFY nominations indicate a startup has innovation, opportunity, and a quantifiable interest among the Council's 20 Global Service Providers.
Read it in Business Wire
December 11, 2009
Lithium Technologies Selects Ogilvy PR
Lithium Technologies, a provider of Social CRM solutions, has selected Ogilvy PR as its global PR AOR. Ogilvy will provide Lithium services centered on strategic consulting, thought leadership, and brand enhancement programs, as well as traditional media and social media relations. AT&T, Sony, Best Buy, and Univision use Lithium to create its customer communities, it said. Lithium is looking to Ogilvy to further accelerate its brand recognition. Led by Ogilvy's technology practice, the client relationship will be serviced from Ogilvy's San Francisco office.
Read it in PR Week
December 02, 2009
Squeezing Web Sites Onto Cellphones
As people spend more time on their mobile devices, many brands such as HP, AT&T Inc., Pitney Bowes, and Best Buy are considering tailoring their message boards, user forums, and blogs to wireless users. That's where companies such as Lithium Technologies Inc. come in.
Read it in The Wall Street Journal
October 28, 2009
FICO's Online Consumer Community Wins Prestigious Social Media Award
Lithium congratulates our customer, FICO, the leading provider of analytics and decision management technology, who announced today that their myFICO® online community has received a 2009 Forrester Groundswell Award for excellence in achieving business goals through social networks. Established by Forrester Research, Inc., the Forrester Groundswell Awards recognize achievement in 13 categories of customer interaction via social applications. FICO won its award in the Business-to-Consumer (B2C) Support category.
Read it in FICO.com
September 25, 2009
Trusting the Community
Unless you've been living under a rock or still using a rotary phone, you'll know how obvious it is that the business world is starting to take a serious look at the promise of social media in general, and communities in particular. Forrester Research is tracking more than 90 community-forum providers — all vying for a piece of the growing pie — and estimates user adoption of social networks and online communities grew 25 percent in 2007 to 35 percent in 2008. Amid the hubbub, one vendor keeps popping up: Lithium Technologies.
Read it in CRM magazine
August 27, 2009
More Marketers Use Social Networking to Reach Customers
Social-media services, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and countless other websites, have had a profound effect on how millions of Americans — especially those under 35 — interact with others (or don't), shop, and view brands. It's a real-time digital lifestyle, powered by smartphones and netbooks, that often colors what products they purchase, how they view brands and where they spend most of their waking hours. Marketers have noticed, and social-networking services are increasingly indispensable business tools to help mobilize a company's best advocates — their customers. Best Buy and MyFICO, the consumer division of Fair Isaac, which invented the FICO credit-risk score used by lenders, have built specialized online communities where their customers freely evaluate products and services. Those who visit MyFICO's community website are spending 41% more than other customers, says Lyle Fong, CEO of software company, Lithium Technologies, which helps build online communities for more than 150 companies, including MyFICO. Nine in 10 consumers trust their peers more than marketers, according to a recent survey of 25,000 by Nielsen.
Read it in USA Today
August 09, 2009
3 Questions for Lyle Fong
The SF Chronicle sat down with CEO Lyle Fong for an interview to discuss how companies can benefit from communities; why integrating online gaming mechanisms with communities works; and what has triggered demand for communities despite the economic downturn.
Read it in the SF Chronicle
August 09, 2009
SaaS Business Profile: Lithium Technologies
As part of their SmartSaaS Business Profiles Series, Montclair Advisors, Kevin Dobbs invited Lithium Technologies CMO, Sanjay Dholakia, to share his thoughts about the company and views of the SaaS market in 2009.
Read it in Montclair Advisors
July 18, 2009
Lithium Reinvents Itself as Social CRM
Lithium has changed its game. Once limited to customer communities, the company has moved to become a complete social CRM for the enterprise. Lithium’s new approach creates a flow of information from the social web into your community. The result is the creation of valuable content, community-driven support, and the identification of engaged customers.
Read it in ReadWriteEnterprise
July 15, 2009
Lithium Floats a Social CRM Balloon
Lithium Technologies, a provider of on-demand community solutions, today unveiled its latest offering, the Lithium Social CRM Suite. The suite comprises three products that the company claims will support a network of customer-advocates across the social Web by integrating customer conversations into social media channels and existing CRM business processes and systems.
Read it in Destination CRM
June 25, 2009
Pitney Bowes Branded Community Reduces Customer Support Costs
During the 2007 postal rate change Pitney Bowes, which provides postal equipment and services to businesses, received more than 415K support phone calls on the rate change alone, all in under a month. This was in addition to the company's usual flow of customer calls, so its support teams were moving fast and furious. Jennifer Leggio of ZDNet delves into how Pitney Bowes implemented an online community, provided by Lithium Technologies, to proactively provide answers to presumed frequently asked questions about the latest rate change — and also empower users to help each other.
Read it in ZDNet
June 12, 2009
Brand Aid: Creating Opportunities in Your Customer Community
With the aid of its online customer community, Pitney Bowes, which provides mail and document management products to more than two million customers globally, saves thousands of dollars in customer phone support costs each year.
Read it in PRSA
June 02, 2009
Lithium Acquires Community Moderation Know-how from Keibi Technologies
Today, Lithium Technologies, a major provider of enterprise community platforms, announced their acquisition of Keibi Technologies, developer of automated content discovery, analysis, and moderation for online communities. While Keibi may not be a particularly large addition to Lithium, the melding of the two is something of a match made in heaven.
Read it in ReadWriteWeb
May 19, 2009
You're Not Social (Enough)
Sam Hunter can't point to a defining moment that convinced him of the power of a user community — but there's no denying that power today, he says. As the senior vice president and general manager of ACT! by Sage for North America, Hunter says his team had long considered the notion of a community, but it took a series of events to finally prompt the company to jump into the social networking world. The vendor turned to Emeryville, Calf.-based forum builder Lithium Technologies to create the ACT! by Sage Community for its consultants, customers, developers, and employees. Just a year later the company was on the receiving end of a 15-point boost in customer loyalty, a 300 percent increase in beta-program participants, and more than 8 million page views.
Read it in CRM Magazine
May 19, 2009
Everything's Social (Now)
Adam Sarner, a Gartner analyst, contends that, in getting social, "CRM is where you are going to see an ROI in the business mode as opposed to anywhere else." ...Sarner suggests that while there's not yet an uber-social-computing technology, it's clear that CRM has embraced the possibilities, whether partnering with standalone social sales applications such as Insideview or with community forums such as Lithium Technologies.
Read it in CRM Magazine
May 19, 2009
A Community Gives Pitney Bowes the Stamp of Approval
Pitney Bowes' community, designed to address the problem of postal rate changes, evolved into an enterprise asset for the company. Rudy Chang, Vice President and General Manager of e-Commerce and Shared Services shares his insights with CRM Magazine about what drove Pitney Bowes to take the next step in supporting their customers.
Read it in CRM Magazine
May 18, 2009
Bay Area Economy Shows Signs of Life
In the Bay Area, even as major tech players have slashed thousands of jobs, promising young companies continue to add them — it underscores why small business is so often cited as the nation's job-growth engine. For example, Lithium Technologies, with a payroll of 115, hired 50 of those workers last year, another 15 in the first quarter, and plans to add 30 to 40 people by year-end to meet the growing demand for its services. Last year's revenue, in the range of $10 million to $20 million, doubled over 2007. The Emeryville company works with clients such as Best Buy, AT&T and eBay's PayPal to create online communities for a client's customers.
Read it in SF Business Times
April 25, 2009
Customer Service? Ask a Volunteer
Verizon superuser, Justin McMurry, is part of an emerging corps of Web-savvy helpers that large corporations, start-up companies and venture capitalists are betting will transform the field of customer service. A look at the customer community that Verizon Communications began in July, powered by Lithium Technologies, suggests that company-sponsored online communities for customer service, if handled adeptly, hold considerable promise.
Read it in New York Times
April 10, 2009
Emeryville Startup Lithium Hiring as Sales Double
Emeryville-based Lithium Technologies Inc., with revenue between $10 million and $20 million, was a pioneer in the space and is in expansion mode. It saw revenue double from 2007 to 2008, according to CEO Lyle Fong, a former professional video gamer who cofounded the company with his brother, Dennis "Thresh" Fong, also a famous gamer. Lithium has 115 employees, 50 of whom were hired last year, and another 15 hired in the first quarter of this year. The company will likely add another 30 to 40 people this year, Fong said.
Read it in SF Business Times
April 10, 2009
Combining Gaming and Social Networking into Community Forums is Reinventing Customer Service
Especially in an economic downturn, customer service is one area where companies are not cutting costs. Instead, many companies are adopting a gamers' mindset to customer service and putting the power in the hands of the community — and it's paying off.
Read it in Telephony
April 09, 2009
Carriers Combine Social Networking with Customer Service
Verizon's Community Forums have generated more than 10 million page views since they were introduced last July, but it's not the only company that's seeing the benefits of merging social networking with customer service. While there is still little documentation to support the business case for community forums, Forrester Research analyst Natalie Petouhoff, for one, is sold on the opportunity. Social media can provide a large return on investment in a short period of time while delivering superb customer experiences, she said.
Read it in Telephony
April 05, 2009
Web 2.0 Entrepreneurs Learn to Do More With Less
With money tight everywhere in today's economy, Internet companies are trying to show they can do more with less. At this week's Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, KRON4's Brian Shields found out that many of those companies who create the blogs, wikis, applications, and other technologies that continue to make the Internet easier to use and more useful for all of us see this as period of great opportunity. Shields talked with nearly two dozen visionaries and entrepreneurs during the conference, including Lithium's VP of Client Services, Iain Grant. Listen to what Iain and others have to say about the future of the Internet, and explore links to some of the people and companies creating the next generation of the Internet today.
Read it in KRON4.com
March 05, 2009
Should Marketing or Customer Service Manage Your Social Networking Efforts?
With the effects of social networks and Web 2.0 technologies transcending departmental areas, how do companies best incorporate and manage them within their business? At Bedford, Mass.-based company, iRobot, although there is a formal structure for the monitoring and oversight of its own online communities in Support, there are different parts of the business monitoring the oversight of the wider Internet such as Marketing and Public Relations.
Read it in SearchCRM.com
March 04, 2009
Lithium Diagnoses the Community
How do you determine the health of an online community? Well, it depends on whom you ask. With this issue at the forefront, Lithium Technologies, an online community platform provider, has sought to measure what makes a successful community and has introduced a means to do so with the Community Health Index.
Read it in destinationCRM.com
March 03, 2009
Putting ROI Numbers on Communities
By now, most of us can see the value in communities, both for users and for the companies that facilitate them, but going into your CFO's office and explaining how neato communities are is not going to get it done these days. In this economy, it's not enough to articulate the value of a community; you need to be able to point at a spreadsheet and speak in terms of dollars and cents. Apparently, Lithium gets it. Last week, the company released Lithium Insights, a set of analytic tools to benchmark the "health" of online communities. While the release is geared toward providing companies with a way to gauge the state of their communities, it's also able to provide some figures that marketers can use to justify the investment in a community.
Read it in InsideCRM
February 27, 2009
Robot Lords Rule the Roomba Rooms
Even if you are not a cat, you may be one of the many happy Roomba users, one of the world's most popular robots. But if you have a problem with your Roomba, or any of the many other consumer robots made by iRobot Corp. of Bedford, Mass., you may get your best support from robot lords and not necessarily iRobot customer support staff. Computerworld's Mark Everett Hall find out more about these robot lords that reside on iRobot's Lithium-powered customer community, and how they have decreased iRobot's call volume to tech support while providing iRobot staff with an integrated view of the customer's profile through Lithium's integration with RightNow's CRM service.
Read it in ComputerWorld
February 23, 2009
Building Online Communities by the Numbers
When building an online community, there are three important planning milestones to track to assess your community's initial growth trajectory. Joe Cothrel, Chief Community Officer at Lithium Technologies, presented them at the recent Forum One Communications Online Community Unconference in New York.
Read it in ClickZ
February 04, 2009
Off-The-Hook Customer Service
Calling all CIOs, your customers are communicating digitally but is your customer service? From phone, to email, to live chat, as customers embrace new forms of communication, businesses must evolve along with them if they want to keep up. To address changing customer needs, platforms like SaaS promise to trim budgets by making the support process more efficient and agents more productive. Companies like Lithium offer community-based solutions to augment customer services. With communities in place, companies can deflect calls and reduce costs by allowing customers to help each other.
Read it in Forbes.com, or view the video
February 02, 2009
How to Increase Business Value in 2009
Lithium's CEO & Co-Founder, Lyle Fong, shares his thoughts with the Sand Hill Group on how driving customer engagement with social web technology and online customer communities can help software companies maintain and expand their customer ranks.
Read it in Sand Hill.com
January 28, 2009
Sprint Dials In ROI Tracking Of Social Media Buzz Via Omniture, Lithium Mash-Up
While marketers have been struggling to find ROI around social media, Sprint recently partnered with Omniture and Lithium to demonstrate the tangible benefits of its online community. "Turnkey integration between Lithium and Omniture lets us easily and cost-effectively combine socially driven community data with our corporate Web site data to gain greater insights and ultimately deliver a better customer experience," said Jason Lorei, senior manager, Sprint.com research & analytics. "The integration Lithium and Omniture have built is what we would have built ourselves, but now we don't have to. I've been impressed with the partnership between these two best-in-class solutions," said Lorei.
Read it in DemandGen Report
January 27, 2009
Business Starts to Take Web 2.0 Tools Seriously
Oliver Young, an analyst with Forrester Research, cites public-facing communities as a key area of Enterprise 2.0 that is likely to grow due to the advantages they offer in supporting two-way conversations. "Customers are talking about your organisation and its products online anyway. A social networking community offers corporates the chance to participate in these conversations and have more control over them," says Lyle Fong, CEO of Lithium Technologies. "Those that do are discovering the benefits of reduced customer service costs," he adds.
Read it in Financial Times
January 22, 2009
Customer Communities that Drive Business Results
eBizQ blogger, Phil Wainewright, discusses with CMO of Lithium Technologies, Sanjay Dholakia, how Lithium's community platform serves as an effective way for retailers, technology companies, and other brand owners to interact with their customers and drive real business results.
Read it in eBizQ, or listen to the podcast
January 20, 2009
Enterprise Customer Communities: Hot Topics for 2009
Lithium's Chief Community Officer, Joe Cothrel, weighs in on his top five predictions for what lies ahead for enterprise customer communities in 2009.
Read it in Community 2.0 Blog
2008
December 26, 2008
Online Communities: Private vs. Public
For companies looking to develop a consumer community around their brand, choosing a type of community depends on your company's goal, advises analyst Cindy Commander of Forrester Research. For customer communities, CEO & Co-Founder Lyle Fong of Lithium Technologies, believes that the openness and transparency of a public-facing community can be seen as a great asset to companies, as they actually drive interactions not only between the customer and the enterprise, but also interactions between the customers themselves. "I can see why some companies who are afraid of social media may want to start there (with private communities), but in the end I think it's just a transitional thing," says Fong. "To create a customer community that is internal where you only handpick a few customers doesn't resonate with this world we're in today."
Read it in Internet Evolution
November 17, 2008
A CRM Insider's Views on Social Media and Web 2.0
David van Toor, senior vice president and general manager for CRM solutions at Lithium customer Sage Software, recently sat down with Customer Interaction Solutions to share some advice on creating online communities. van Toor discusses the importance of understanding how your customers want to communicate with you, so that you create an effective, ongoing dialogue that nets mutual productivity for customer and vendor in time and cost savings.
Read it in Customer Interaction Solutions
November 17, 2008
Gadget Survey Finds Many Bugs Can't Be Fixed
Gadget makers love to sell us on all the things their devices can do, whether it's letting us chat with distant friends at any time or watch movies on our commute. But can anyone fix this stuff when it breaks? As providing technical support becomes more complicated, some companies have started tapping online communities to offer help, taking advantage of tech-savvy customers who enjoy trading tips online. This method can be best for solving problems that involve multiple devices made by different companies, said Lyle Fong, chief executive of Lithium Technologies Inc., which sets up such customer forums for businesses.
Read it in Associated Press
November 12, 2008
Leading Provider of Enterprise Social Media Platform Selects SuccessFactors Professional Edition for Small Businesses
SuccessFactors, Inc. (NASDAQ:SFSF), the global leader in on-demand performance and talent management solutions, today announced that Lithium Technologies has implemented SuccessFactors' Professional Edition for small businesses. The company is using SuccessFactors to manage performance reviews, goals, compensation and 360-Degree Reviews to drive continuity and objective-focused processes to deliver bottom line and top line business success.
Read it in BusinessWire
November 05, 2008
Turning Customers into Advocates
The greatest achievement a company can have in customer relations is to turn its customers into loyal advocates of its service or product. With the help of Web 2.0 on-demand platforms, leading brands have opened the lines of communication with customers and put a premium on listening and analysing their interests and needs. Lyle Fong, chief executive of Lithium Technologies, contributes his thoughts on the benefits of listening to your customers online.
Read it in Financial Times
November 05, 2008
New Tools Helping Some Firms Use Web 2.0 Data to Boost Business
"The rise of user-generated content has really forced brands to [seek a way] to monitor what consumers are saying about them across all the pages of the Web," says John Lovett, senior analyst at Jupiter Research, a unit of Forrester Research Inc. "The ability to measure those comments and what is happening with the brand has become an important part of ensuring the integrity of the brand." Computerworld's Heather Havenstein cites Sprint's BuzzAboutWireless website as an example of a brand that has seen real results from their usage of the integration between Lithium's enterprise social media platform with intelligent web analytics from Omniture's SiteCatalyst.
Read it in Computerworld
November 04, 2008
Your Questions Answered About Online Communities: Part 1
Paul Gillin, author of Secrets of Social Media Marketing and guest speaker of Lithium webcast, "Using Online Conversations to Turbo-Charge Your Business!", provides answers to some of the questions received from the audience during the live event.
Read it in Paul Gillin's Blog
November 03, 2008
iRobot Cleans Up on Customer Service
iRobot integrated activity on its Lithium-powered customer forum into customer interaction records managed using RightNow Technologies to help create a complete "view of the customer." As 1to1 Magazine's managing editor, Mila D'Antonio, found out, only does having this integrated view help save customers' time and iRobot costs, but it ensures that the company's business decisions are customer driven.
Read it in 1to1media.com
October 15, 2008
Where Is the SaaS Industry Headed?
It's a broad and open-ended question during volatile times. To find where the SaaS market is headed and how it will confront an uncertain economy, the Laurel Group interviewed CEO and Co-Founder, Lyle Fong, amongst other SaaS industry veterans, for his insight and opinion.
Read it in the Laurel Group
October 14, 2008
Who's Keeping You in Line Online?
As companies embrace social media and launch online forums that allow customers to share opinions about their products and services, they're realizing that simply creating website is insufficient. The savviest managers are paying close attention to what transpires on those sites as well, because they understand that user comments have the potential to influence other consumers and, sometimes, even investors. ABC News reporter, Ki Mae Heussner, goes behind-the-scenes to interview some of the moderators who manage some of the largest online communities in the web today.
Read it in ABC News
October 10, 2008
A Perspective on Social Networking and Unified Communications
In the connected world of the 21st century, social networks take forums to an entirely new level. The social network is now able to truly leverage the "wisdom of crowds," where everyone has an opportunity to contribute. IT World's Martha Young learns from CEO and Co-Founder, Lyle Fong, the key differentiators between enterprise social networks and unified communications.
Read it in IT World
October 09, 2008
Linksys Ends Email Support, Successfully Migrating the Traffic to the Community
This year Linksys stopped supporting customers through email with surprising results: not only were there no customer complaints, but the majority of email volume was transitioned to an unassisted channel - discussion forums - with zero impact on phone volume.
Read it in SSPA News
October 06, 2008
It's Not Just What Bloggers Are Saying, It's Who They Are
As PR becomes an increasingly important part of an organization's social media strategy, marketers are discovering the importance of striking up key relationships with individual customers and bloggers, the insights gained from monitoring and measuring both brand and customer reputation, and the benefits that building communities of influencers can bring towards bridging the gap with their customers.
Read it in AdvertisingAge
September 25, 2008
How Sprint Nextel Cashes In On Its Social Buzz Analytics Data
Turnkey integration capabilities between Lithium and Omniture enable retailers like Sprint Nextel to analyze the impact of communities, blogs, and other social features on customer behavior such as online buying or customer retention.
Read it in InternetRetailer
September 16, 2008
Harnessing Online Customer Feedback
BusinessWeek's Karen E. Klein interviews CEO and Co-Founder, Lyle Fong, to find out how companies can learn from their feedback, build a loyal customer base, and harness enthusiastic clients through the use of social networks and communities.
Read it in BusinessWeek
August 25, 2008
How Social Data Mining Can Redefine PR's Role
Bernaise Source taps Lithium's Joe Cothrel for his perspective on harvesting insights from communities, and coaches marketers that it's time to stop focusing on negative comments and start focusing on social media's strategic value.
Read it in Bernaise Source Blog
August 13, 2008
Advice for Gaining Momentum in Year One
Cadence's Social Media/Web Community Manager, Tom Diederich, turns to advice from Lithium's Joe Cothrel for the launch of their user community and to assess the community's first year momentum.
Read it in Conversations Matter Blog
July 31, 2008
The Essential Guide to Building a CRM Community
Creating a CRM community takes work, but it could cement your bond with profitable customers. Properly done, a CRM community is one of the most valuable forms of social networking for CRM.
Read it in InsideCRM.com
July 15, 2008
The Best Way to Build a Community Around Your Brand
Nicole Ferraro interviews CEO and Co-Founder of Lithium, Lyle Fong, about deploying community tools in the enterprise and best and worst practices for establishing external communities around enterprise brands.
Read it in Internet Evolution
June 30, 2008
Lithium Technologies Scores Money to Revitalize Community Support for Enterprises
Lithium Technologies has raised $12 million in venture capital today and that's a big boost for the Fong family dynasty.
Read it in VentureBeat
June 30, 2008
Lithium Technologies Raises $12 million; Social Network for Enterprises Will Invest in Innovation
Lithium, a provider of enterprise communities driven via software as a service (SaaS), joins LinkedIn, Twitter, Jaxtr and others, which all this month created a splash with their respective financial news.
Read it in ZDNet.com
June 11, 2008
Letting the Customer Inside
The Enterprise 2.0 Conference featured innovative solutions that provide numerous avenues for retailers to engage their customers in ways previously unimaginable.
Read it in eWeek.com
June 09, 2008
Big Businesses Taking a Cue From Gaming
Online games may be banned in Corporate America, but they have actually proven fairly useful for building customer loyalty. How? Well, companies need to find ways to cater to their power users, who are often similar to gamers.
Read it in BloggingStocks, AOL Money & Finance
June 01, 2008
Linksys Gets Shaken, A Community is Stirred
Credit Lithium Technologies' online community-based CRM solution for saving some users' holiday seasons: When an earthquake struck the South Pacific on Christmas Eve 2006 and brought down contact centers for Linksys (a Cisco Systems unit), customers turned to the new online support community for answers.
Read it in destinationCRM.com
May 23, 2008
An Online Video Strategy That Hits the Mark
FutureShop (a division of BestBuy Canada), Canada's largest consumer electronics retailer, is using online community not only to learn more about its customers, but to help sell products and support customers.
Read it in Paul Gillin's Blog
April 25, 2008
The Power of Play on the Internet
Game design and social networks are merging into one of the most persuasive forces on the internet.
Read it in BBC News
April 25, 2008
How Gaming Pros Help Big Companies
What does zapping aliens have to do selling more phone services, computers or even books? Lyle Fong, co-founder and CEO of Lithium Technologies, describes how hardcore customers share many of the same characteristics of hardcore gamers.
Read it in internetnews.com
January 21, 2008
You Need New CRM Solutions To Keep Pace With the New Social Consumer
In his post about the next generation of CRM solutions, vice president and principal analyst of Forrester Research, William Band, cites Lithium as a solutions provider to "help customers to solve each others' problems with solutions that support customer forums."
Read it in Forrester Business Process & Applications Commentary
2007
October 26, 2007
Social Networking Insiders Build Your Brand for Free
Lori Deschene of BNET blogs on enterprise social networking. "The same spirit that drives individuals to spread the word also motivates others to contribute to company sponsored social networks."
Read it in BNET
September 28, 2007
Future Shop Taps SaaS to Open Virtual Presence
Canada's largest retailer of consumer electronics is employing virtual agents and online communities through a software-as-a-service model to improve customer service on the Web.
Read it in IT World Canada
August 24, 2007
Best Practices: 10 Tips to Online Community Success
Well-defined structures and roles are key to maximizing community involvement in Web 2.0 initiatives such as forums, blogs, and chats; a destinationCRM2007 exclusive.
Read it in CRM Magazine
August 20, 2007
Q&A Versus Forums: Selecting a Support 2.0 Format
Lithium Technologies is one company with plenty of experience building communities. They have designed enterprise software platforms for companies like Salesforce.com and Dell. And Joe Cothrel, vice president of community management has extensive knowledge of online community dynamics.
Read it in Bernaise Source Blog
August 19, 2007
NYSE-listed CEO's say Customer Focus Drives Growth
Chief executive officers of companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange believe that meeting and exceeding customer expectations will help drive sustainable growth in the future, according to a new report.
Read it in Reuters
July 30, 2007
Technology (A Special Report) - Companies expand online support
More and more, companies are sending people to the Web for customer support. But most companies don't make it easy for people to find answers once they get there.
Read it in Wall Street Journal
June 19, 2007
Service Research & Innovation Initiative (SRII) Turns to Lithium to Power New Online Community
Lithium Technologies, Inc., a leading provider of on-demand community solutions, today announced that the Service Research & Innovation Initiative (SRII) has selected Lithium's on-demand technology to build a new online community. The SRIINet community, located at http://forums.thesrii.org, is the focal point of the organization's initiative, and brings together technology service-based "seekers" and "solvers" to drive innovation initiatives for technology services. The SRII was founded in March 2007 by the Service & Support Professionals Association (SSPA) and the Technology Professional Services Association (TPSA), IBM and Oracle in order to increase the amount of targeted and funded service research, development and innovation in the technology industry.
Read it in Market Watch
April 24, 2007
Lithium's Spring 2007 Edition Brings Today's Consumer Web Features to Enterprise Communities
Lithium Technologies, Inc. today released the latest version of the Lithium InterActive product suite, the company's Web-based software for developing
Read it in Forbes
April 17, 2007
Lithium Technologies Raises $9 Million
Lithium Technologies Inc. has closed a $9 million Series A financing round, the company said Tuesday.
Read it in Bizjournal.com
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