Better Than a Business Card
When you go to conferences or you’re meeting someone in passing, trading business cards is fun I mean, have you seen American Psycho? I love business cards- the feel, the design, the weight, the typography, what’s not to love? Well, they kill trees and get lost. Although I’ll still use business cards, I’ll also be checking out two services that allow users to send your business card via text message so they automatically have each others’ info (talk about lead management)!
DropCard- Business Cards over SMS
With DropCard.com, you sign up and put your contact data into DropCard and when you’re out and about, simply send a text to 41411 to your new buddy with the message newbuddy@newbuddysemail.com and a vCard will pop up in their email! What’s cool is that with SMS business card technology, it’s much more in depth than the simple name/email combo of print cards, it can include your networking info (your twitter name, skype handle, blog, Facebook or LinkedIn links are all options you have when creating your profile). This is a great way to build your network and show clients how inventive you are.
Ooh, RmbrME is so Shiny!
New service rmbrMe (“remember me”) calls itself a “socially networked business card” (bzCard) and notes that you could increase leads AND sales by implementing this free service. Your new contact can send their bzCard back to your address book, CRM or Outlook for follow-up and tracking and what’s cool is that because they instantly get your bzCard, they can be checking out your website and social networks right there on the spot! There are great customization options and there are no compatibility issues between different types of cell phones.
Shake Phones, Not Hands
This is perfect for the tech savvy (or the newly tech interested), germaphobes and scatterbrained! Don’t lose track of cards or ask “wait, who was that guy?” because now you have their contact info in your phone and they have all of your impressive information that goes far beyond a business card. Ah, isn’t technology grand?
Ben Goheen
October 7, 2008 at 11:11 pm
Lani you are SOOOO techie tonight. However, I think there may be a certain topic that needs to be heard…
Jeff Bernheisel
October 7, 2008 at 11:23 pm
I used dropcard at Connect SF to send people my info. It sure beat carrying around 200 cards on me at all times.
But, on the flip side, I like to get peoples cards from them so I can write little notes on the back to help me remember who they were or what they were all about.
I’ll have to check out RmbrME and see how it compares.
-Jeff
Ricardo Bueno
October 7, 2008 at 11:24 pm
Ok Lani, I’m all over this one!
Jason Sandquist
October 8, 2008 at 6:57 am
I started using dropcard a couple of months ago and love it, haven’t tried rmbrme yet but will definitely give it a shot. Everyone has a cell phone now but if they don’t want the dropcard, well here’s my american pscyho cool piece of paper then.
Sometimes a card can get lost, but if your contact info is in their email, they have to look at it one last time and odds are, they will start clicking around on all the different websites that you have links to in the dropcard.
Thomas Johnson
October 8, 2008 at 7:10 am
Doesn’t my circa 1998 Palm OS PDA do that right out of the box? Press “beam”.
Danilo Bogdanovic
October 8, 2008 at 8:50 am
Thanks for the tips Lani! Another thing to consider is if both your phone and the other person’s phone has an infrared sensor, you can just “beam” your information to each other and it instantly goes into your address book. Many newer phones have an infrared sensor though my Blackberry 8830 does not (ARGH!).
Lani Anglin-Rosales
October 8, 2008 at 8:58 am
Beaming is great for cell phones with infrared technology but like Danilo said, you do have to check if a contact’s phone has infrared which stinks if you’re on the phone and saying “no worries, I’ll send you all my contact info right now” without checking their phone type or even being in front of them.
I have a Treo, I feel the excruciating pain of not being able to read QR Codes… doesn’t mean I won’t print it on the back of a T-shirt for fun! 🙂 I’ll be a secret walking billboard for geeks! OOH, or maybe a QR Code tattoo? Hmm…
Benn Rosales
October 8, 2008 at 10:03 am
Thomas, ir is a dead technology, and palm is one of the last of the pile to actually use it. A text message allows your iphone client to recieve your tm even if you’re still using a dinosaur like most agents are.
Thomas Johnson
October 8, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Benn: Please tell that to our MLS-something about Supra lockboxes…. And-our Tempo MLS is not compatible with Safari browser or Firefox for that matter. So this dinosaur is stuck in the Paleolithic age. But, but our HAR president is an Inman technology man of the year.
tm? what’s a tm? thumb massage? Is that what those AIG guys got?