1.1 how social media can help you close more sales.

There has never been a better market research tool than social media.  So tracking down prospective buyers is the cornerstone of social selling.  To do so, you must of course find communities who need what you are selling.  Fortunately, people use social media to broadcast their needs. 

So use programs like Tweetdeck, Google Alerts, and social media-integrated CRM software to track hashtags and keywords of relevance to your industry.  Research the interests and demographics of your current customers and followers.  Understand who is most interested in your product, and then reach out to them. 

conducting prospect research

Once you have identified the individuals, companies and communities most likely to buy, it is time to launch the second crucial phase of social research: prospect research. Find out everything you can about your prospects. The better you know them, the better able you will be to appeal to their interests and provide tailored solutions to their needs. By following your prospects, you can monitor their activity and watch for opportunities to sell based upon what they say.

never make another cold call

Social media offers many ways to casually approach prospects based upon common interests. You can respond to their posts, answer questions they have asked, converse with them via groups you are both members of, and even ask mutual friends to introduce you. Long before you contact them directly to make your pitch, you can demonstrate the value you have to offer and prove your relevance. By using social media effectively, you can open a casual dialogue and meet prospects on common ground.

Social media is a notoriously frustrating tool for many sales professionals today.  It is constantly evolving and its results are difficult to quantify.  What’s more, for those who lack experience working with social sites in a professional capacity, these platforms can become tremendous distractions in the workplace.  So how can professionals leverage social media productively and tap into the vast networking potential these websites hold?  And what tools can we employ to streamline our efforts and maximise results? 

To take your social media skills to the next level, you must first learn to utilise these powerful, yet all too often overlooked, apps and features. 

For those not utilising the right tools and features, Twitter can be a chaotic place.  So it is vital for sales professionals to organise and track their leads in the most streamlined way possible.  To that end, Twitter Lists are invaluable.  They allow you to create a one-stop, targeted feed that only features Tweets from the users you are interested in.  You can create many different lists according to the specific categories you want to follow, and populate them with the leads you need to keep tabs on.  This way, when your prospects broadcast challenges they are facing or obstacles they are struggling to overcome, you can seize the opportunity to offer a solution. 

tracking hashtags

Using a service like Hootsuite or Keyhole, you can efficiently track trending topics in your industry via Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. These programs allow you to monitor specific hashtags and phrases to see the activity being generated around them, thereby keeping a finger on the pulse of your business. Hashtag and keyword tracking gives insight, for example, into the way customers are responding to your products, your competitors’ products, or the recent developments in your marketplace. When you know what is important to your leads, you can craft pitches that are more relevant and compelling.

Quora is a place people go to ask questions.  So if your leads are using it, Quora is a brilliant place to learn about the challenges and problems they are encountering in their work.  You can browse through a list of previous questions they have asked, and see how other users answered them, which will allow you to offer them new solutions and deeper insights. 

Quora is also a great place to establish yourself as an informational resource and expert in your field.  By answering questions posed by those in your industry, you can inspire gratitude, raise your public profile, and demonstrate your relevance.  

Having the right tools for the job makes all the difference.  So make the most of social media, and streamline the process of generating leads and forging connections by using these powerful features. When you see the impact it has on sales, you’ll be glad you did.

LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter (not to mention the dozens of other social sites out there) are very different platforms.  Each has its own style, ethos, advantages, and shortcomings.  So it is foolish to try to use them all in the same way or lump them all together into one strategy.  Rather, each site should be used to achieve an end best suited to its strengths.   

In practice, this means utilising the tools for search, connection, outreach and expression on each site to their full potentials.  Advanced search on LinkedIn, for instance, allows users to search for leads by company size and seniority level, while Facebook provides a broad range of promoted post options and Twitter allows users to Direct Message other users.  So research the tools, tricks and tips you can use to get the most out of your social platforms, and boost your sales by putting them to work for you today. 

Distraction is the greatest danger of using social media in a professional setting.  It is all-too-easy to follow useless tangents or sink hours into unproductive browsing.  So in addition to forming a clear plan and using a methodological approach in your outreach, it is also crucial to employ monitoring and automating services to streamline your efforts. 

Use CRM software to store the valuable information you learn about prospects and implement tools for tracking progress, automating time-intensive tasks, and monitoring key businesses and contacts.  Invest in the tools you need to stay productive. 

network expansion

Because LinkedIn is a dedicated professional forum, expanding your network as widely as possible is far more important here than on any other social site. To this end, you should regularly browse the “People You May Know” listings, hunt through the connections of your 1st degreeconnections, and add everyone you meet on a day-to-day basis. The wider your network, the better. So dedicate time each week to finding new connections.

InMail

InMail is a tremendously effective paid messaging service LinkedIn offers, which is 30x more likely to receive a response than a cold call.  It allows you to bypass the notoriously difficult call screeners most executives rely upon.  It puts a message in a personal inbox that receives few messages, and—crucially—LinkedIn allows you to send InMail even to those you haven’t connected with yet. 

introductions

Apart from InMail, there are also a few free tools you can use to forge connections.  (This is where having a huge network comes in handy.)  When you look at the profile of a non-connection, LinkedIn shows you if you have any connections in common.  If you do, don’t hesitate to ask your mutual acquaintance to introduce you.  If you don’t, groups are your next best resource. 

Join the groups your prospect is in (or would be likely to join) and LinkedIn will allow you to see more information about that person.  You can also attempt to engage them through groups by answering questions they have posed or by responding to comments they have left. 

watching for opportunities

Follow the companies and prospects you are interested in.  Monitor their feeds for opportunities to sell, and use Twitter Lists to create filtered feeds that focus in on particular groups of your prospects.  Then, when these users post about challenges or needs they have, you will be ready to step in which a timely pitch. 

launching dialogue

The more engaged you can be with your community, the more likely you are to forge a productive relationship with its members.  So not only should you follow and comment on relevant posts from your prospects, but you should also go the extra mile and set up Twitter Chats to bring people together in a dialogue.  Facilitate conversations and provide learning resources.  When you provide value, value returns. 

buying signals

Seek signals that users are ready to buy.  Do hashtag and keyword research for phrases like “does anyone know” or “can you recommend” or “I need advice.”  When people present challenges, you should be poised to provide solutions. 

Social media is a powerful sales resource - but only for those who can effectively use it.  By employing these potent techniques, you’ll drive your social media skills to the next level and start seeing the results you need.

Using social media in the workplace without a clear strategy is a mistake.  Having a clear plan and concrete goals is the only way to ensure that social media consumes minimal time and produces maximum results. 

All sales people using social media need to be appropriately trained and fully versed in their role in using it in the workplace.These platforms do invite distraction and lend themselves to hours of unproductive browsing.  Professional users must be careful to define goals, and

Professional users must be careful to define goals, and log on each day with a set of intentions: X amount of time will be dedicated to responding to customers, X amount of time will be used for scouting new prospects, X amount of time will go toward updating content, and so forth. Any sales person following an effective strategy will soon see results.

Social media is only a small part of your role as a sales person and therefore you need to maximise the effects of your work without allowing it to take over and eat into the time dedicated to other elements of your day’s schedule.

Effective social media marketing and management requires scheduling tools and built into your social media strategy should be a choice of tool for scheduled posts and messages. Tools such as Hootsuite and Sprout Social are designed to improve productivity and also deliver the core brand message of your company.

The modern sales person probably uses social media every day in their personal lives and transferring these skills effectively for the workplace doesn’t have to be a struggle. With a head start due to their personal experiences, almost every sales person can pick up and effectively work with social media alongside their other job requirements, as long as there is a strategy in place to guide them in the right direction.

Ignoring social media will limit the development of your career and stunt your growth in your industry whilst embracing means you have another string to your bow and are a highly employable and primed to be a successful sales person in any modern firm.