On Friday I wrote How To: Import Contacts Into JibberJobber Without Creating Duplicates, explaining how we do a dup check before you import… it’s a pretty nifty tool/feature.
I want to address a different question from Michael’s original message to us, where he says:
>> … my contacts from [LinkedIn, Outlook, and Facebook] are constantly changing so all of this will then need to be updated within JibberJobber to stay current.
Yes, those three databases will change… but I want to think about this “need to be updated in JibberJobber” idea.
If you add a new friend in Facebook, do they really need to be in JibberJobber?
If you add a new contact in Outlook, or in LinkedIn, do they need to be in JibberJobber?
I would suggest that they do not need to be in JibberJobber.
I have new additions to LinkedIn regularly, as well as new additions to my email contact list. I do not regularly update them in JibberJobber.
I put a lot of people in JibberJobber, adding more contacts there per week than any other place (probably more than my email, LinkedIn and Facebook combined). But I’m not too worried about have any of them in sync.
This is because JibberJobber is my central networking, relationship and tracking tool. When we get serious in our relationship, I’m not worried about you being a “friend” in Facebook. I’m not worried about connecting with you in LinkedIn. I’m not even that worried about you ending up in my email contact list (although just by emailing me you are already in that tracking system).
But I WILL get you into JibberJobber. I’ll track your contact information (as I get it – I might have the email address at first, and eventually a phone number or two), and I’ll track the important conversations we have.
I’m guessing 70%+ of my Log Entries are created with Email2Log. This means that with very little effort, I’m able to keep my central relationship tracking tool (JibberJobber) updated with active contacts, and our email conversations.
If we have an active relationship, I’m likely emailing you. Since it’s so easy to get a new Contact into JibberJobber with Email2Log, and the email becomes a Log Entry, I do a lot of my data entry with that tool.
This means that even though JibberJobber isn’t in sync with my other networking tools, it does have the most important, current relationships in the system.
Don’t get overwhelmed by trying to keep all of your systems in sync… let’s just focus on tracking what we need to track. The beauty of this is, if you do decide to put someone into JibberJobber that is in Facebook, (1) it’s easy to do, and (2) it’s easy to copy/paste whatever data you need from Facebook when it is the right time.