How to use Twitter for sales prospecting

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Below are 5 specific tips to start finding more sales via Twitter. You don’t need thousands of followers. And, if you’re just getting started today, every one of these tips still apply.

Follow your prospects. On Twitter, you can create private lists of your prospects, and then follow them on Hootsuite or/and Tweetdeck. Knowing what your prospects are thinking and saying will help you get to know them better, learn quickly what their priorities are; and give you plenty of opportunities to engage at the beginning of their buying cycle.

Have a point of conversation. If you’re monitoring a prospects conversation with Hootsuite, Tweetdeck, Sprout Social, Topsy or any other social media monitoring tool; take note of some of the last tweets that person made. Look for something that person commented on so the next time to talk, bring that up. Social media doesn’t sell… people do.. but it can give you a leg up in prospecting!

Organize the un-organized. One of the quickest way to attract prospects to you via Twitter is to read everything they wish they had time to read, and filter the best content into your Twitter feed. You don’t have to originate content to attract a following on the social web – it’s good enough (and sometimes better) to curate the best content from a variety of sources so that your prospects begin to trust that you’re, effectively, doing their reading for them. There are a handful of tools you can use to further curate information and have a place to keep it. For example Scoop.it, Storify, Delicious Stacks are just a few.

Observe and use hashtags. Probably the best way to track specific/targeted conversations. Prospects may use them to associate themselves with a group, an interest or a need.

Follow those who have followers that you want following you. Very simple but effective. Then do your research on what people are talking about, and then blog and tweet about that.

 

 

 

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HBR: Only 36% of Tweets are worth reading

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Only 36% of Tweets are worth reading

Is anything on Twitter worth paying attention to?

From Harvard Business Review:

To find out, three researchers set up a website and asked 1,443 users to rate the quality of 43,738 tweets. They then ranked a subset (4,220) in eight categories.* Their most striking finding: Only 36% of tweets were “worth reading”—a lower number than you might expect, since Twitter users choose whom to follow.

These results are specific to the tech and news categories, and do not capture the sentiments of the entire Twitter population. However, the ratings provide some useful tips for keeping your followers engaged: Be clear, not cryptic or insidery. Don’t overuse hashtags, and don’t retweet one-on-one conversations.

Want to learn more about how to get retweeted? Checkout the articles below:

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How to make the most of social media marketing

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To make the most of your social media marketing, you need to have a plan. Social media is about having an ongoing conversation with your customers, not droning on about your business while they ignore you. You have to put in the time to cultivate your existing customers and attract new ones. Yes, this will take a little more time and thought, but that’s why it works. If you “set it and forget it,” you are wasting your time. Guaranteed.

So, to get the most of out your time, here are few things to do:

Understand each channel. Should you jump on the Pinterest bandwagon? Should you be on Google+? Are your customers on these channels? You have to know what you want to do on each channel and also understand what that channel lets you do. The only way to know if it will work for you is by doing a short term pilot. You need to be where customers are and where they are talking to each other. And no amount of emarketer, infographic research will tell you if it will work for you. Jump in and test it. That’s the only way to know if you should keep investing your time.

Contribute and add value. Once you get a feel for the channels where your customers are, join them in the conversation. The best thing to do is to act as a person representing your brand, not a logo. People will respect that since they’ll know there’s an actual person behind the logo. But more than anything, add value. If they have questions, participate.

Aim to educate, not spam. Once you’ve started participating and found opportunities to add further value, create content that addresses those opportunities.

Advocate and enroll. You will find that there are people who are passionate advocates about a specific topic. Maybe you already have content that addresses those topics. If you don’t create content to pull those passionate people towards you. Show you are as passionate as they are. This is the beginning of creating advocacy. No one will follow you if you’re not advocating.

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What is the goal of your social media marketing?

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There are many types of goals; for example: traffic, leads, awareness, etc, etc, etc…

But you know what, these are undifferentiated goals; everyone has these goals. What we need to do, then, is look at what social media can let us do, not what others have already done.

Here are a few questions to jumpstart your brain:

  1. How might we change the pricing of our industry through social media?
  2. How might we redefine our service or product through social media?
  3. How might we organize the disorganized through social media?
  4. How might we speak the unspeakable of our industry through social media?
  5. How might we alter the expectations of the market through social media?
  6. How might we change the speed of the industry through social media?
  7. How might we cater to a new group of customers through social media?

This is an unfinished list of questions; so, add your own thoughts.

The goal, then, of your social media marketing efforts should be to reset expectations; to change and redefine the game.

Social media marketing doesn’t work for generic products or services.

Dare to be different.

dare to be differentImage credit: Gapingvoid

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Social media changes the marketing funnel and so must you

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How does changing media affect the way people hear about brands? To answer this question, Facebook commissioned Forrester to study how brands are being built in the connected world.

The result: The connected world has rerouted the customer journey.

This is how Facebook and Forrester interpret this change:

Social media changes the customer journeyIn the analog world, brands take consumers through a funnel all marketers know too well. But in the connected world social media influences every stage of the process. They hear about new brands and investigate said brands via social media. When it comes time to buy something, consumers increasingly consult their friends via social media. Then, they expect to be able to interact with the brands through social media after they buy a product.

This study reflects similar thinking from Google’s ZMOT social media strategy and how marketing is all about winning the Zero Moment of Truth. This is a trend that is affecting retailers, but most notable are electronic retailers like Best Buy.

Consumers have more power because they can try out a product at a physical location, search for the product on Amazon on their smartphone and make a decision. If the price is lower on Amazon, they’ll leave the physical store without making a purchase.

This is what’s changing.

Download the study to read the full report, Mashable has a great write up too.

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To be an authority you have to know what you are talking about

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It sounds obvious doesn’t it? But there are people out there on the web who claim to be authorities, when they are not.

Gurus, Ninjas, Jedi’s or any other moniker you can imagine.

First, let’s make something very clear: Authority is bestowed upon you by those you have served.

In other words, if you don’t have anything to back up your claims then you are not an authority. Your clients/customers give you authority because you’ve got something to show.

How do you become an authority?

Do something that shows your competence. Then, do some more. Then, do twice more. Then, do three times more. Then…

If you want to be perceived as an authority, you have to know your topic inside and out; you have to know your industry cold. In this day and age where knowledge is only a click away, this becomes very difficult. I mean, can you honestly say that you are social media marketing guru when everything is changing so fast?

You become an authority by showing competence. You become an authority if people trust you.

With that said, before claiming that you are an authority you should ask yourself: Do people really trust me?

But, don’t stop there. Go and ask your clients or customers if they trust you. Don’t send them an email, don’t ask them to fill a survey. Ask them face to face. If you can ask them face to face, then you should feel very confident about yourself.

Want something concrete to aim for? Take Apple. Half of people who use Apple devices would trust Apple with their savings. Can your customers or clients say the same thing about you?

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Three social media tools you can’t live without

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The Social Media Landscape is full of all sorts of applications. But there are three tools I can’t live without to be able to manage it all.

Hootsuite/Tweetdeck

Tweetdeck is the standard. It works in real-time and is very fast. Hootsuite is a web application, so it’s not as fast as Tweetdeck but it has better management capabilities while also offering powerful analytics (although you’ll have to pay up).

SocialMention

SocialMention is an online solution worth trying. It’s a social media search platform that culls content from social sites that rely on user-generated content, such as blogs, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr, YouTube—more than 80 online spaces in all. Type in a term and, if you like, specify which sites you’d like information from, and SocialMention curates a dashboard showing all kinds of information regarding what’s being said about your term.

Topsy Analytics

Topsy is a real-time Twitter search engine. Type in a term, hashtag, name of a user and it will display all the information related to that term. You then break it down by date, whether you only want links, text, pictures, photos, videos and experts. Yes, experts. As in who’s the most influential user for a related term.

Also, having the biggest and deepest Twitter index on the web gives Topsy a lot of power. With that said, Topsy has an analytics package (limited to three terms) you can use to monitor what the most relevant links are during a specific time period. This is very powerful because you tell right away what links are being most talked about. As a content creator, this gives you an idea as to what people are talking about as well as finding interesting.

There are many other tools, but I use these three tools on a daily basis. They give me everything I need.

What are the tools you just can’t live without?

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16 Questions to help you write great content

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Content, content, content. It’s all about the content. It is also the number one problem with which businesses have a problem.

Here’s a secret: The path to great content is good questions.

To help you improve your content writing ability, ask yourself the following 13 questions provided by Quicksprout:

  • Is what you wrote original?
  • Can you provide practical advice or relevant research?
  • Did you correct any spelling, grammar or factual errors?
  • Is the topic of interest to a reader or a machine?
  • Is the article well edited?
  • Does your site have authority?
  • Are you providing insightful or interesting information beyond the obvious?
  • Would you bookmark your article?
  • Is your article cluttered with call-to-actions, ads or promotions?
  • Would a magazine or journal print your article?
  • Is your article short, weak and useless?
  • How much time and attention did you give to detail?
  • Would someone complain if they saw this article?

To this list I’ll add a few more questions:

  • Would I share this article with my friends?
  • Will people share it with their friends?
  • Does it focus on a single idea?

There will come a time when creating content won’t be that important; it’ll be just be the norm. If you’re struggling with content creation, ask yourself these 16 questions.

What tactics do you follow to create great content?

Credit: Quicksprout

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Focus on the message, not the medium

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What do people really want?

They don’t want content; they want help. And, if your content (medium) helps them do something, then your message will be well received.

But if you’re just churning out content without focusing on customer value, then you’re just adding to the noise of modern-day marketing.

Content that hits the right notes

Every customer really only wants two things from your content:

  • Help overcoming something negative
  • Help achieving something positive

Focus on the positive. Of course, if you can help people get better and better, that helps your cause. It also helps your chances of your customers telling their friends about how you’ve made their life a whole lot better.

Remember: The reason people share is either because you’ve blown them away with the product or service experience, or because it makes them feel good in some form or fashion.

Focus on helping your customers overcome the negatives and inspire them to achieve something positive. If your message does this, the medium doesn’t matter; it only enables the message.

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Booz & Company: Social Media on CEO’s Agenda

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In a new study by Booz & Company and social marketing software developer Buddy Media, nearly all the companies surveyed say they plan to increase their spending on social media, and 39 percent say they’re going to boost spending substantially. In contrast, 38 percent say that social media is on the CEO’s agenda, and 35 percent say they have a senior executive in charge of social media company-wide.

investments in social media

From Fad to Business Capability

This is a sign that social media, as a capability, is maturing. It’s also a sign of how companies are changing, and need to change, because of how fast markets are being disrupted by social media.

One of the mains obstacles of adoption is measurement. How do you measure your R.O.I. on your social media investment?

The R.O.I. question is still being debated. Some companies have adopted a ‘let’s figure it out as we go’ approach, while others have very distinct strategies.

My take is that social media not only affects how you market your products and services but also how you operate your business. This requires new skills. As social media adoption across the enterprise becomes more pervasive, companies must invest in either developing or acquiring these new skills as the study shows.

We still ways to go before we see companies that have an embedded social media capability. Those who treat it less like a function, and more like capability, are in the driver’s seat.

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