Join the "Largest Cocktail Party in the World!"
It’s no secret that social selling has been changing the B2B landscape. We know that buyers are using social media networks to guide their buying decisions.
According to SiriusDecisions, 67% of the buyer’s journey is now done digitally. As buyers are spending more and more time using social media to guide buying decisions, we have a real opportunity to shape those decisions.
But unless you are active on social networks you will miss this opportunity. Your customers, competitors and prospects are engaging daily on social networks. A strong social presence will help to not only garner insights from their conversations and interactions but can help you build credibility with them ahead of the game.
This is how you join the party as a salesperson.
One of the things I always like to point out is that when your company gets social, the effectiveness of YOUR efforts are compounded. Read this to learn more: Why Your Company Should Get Behind Your Social Media Strategy
Twitter is one of the most open social networks, allowing you to engage with everyone and anyone. Here are 5 easy ways you can get started on Twitter to advance your social selling.
1. Build your Twitter Persona
The first step may seem basic but Get on Twitter! But before you can become a Social Selling Twitter dynamo you need to have an account. Speaking of your account, this is your representation on Twitter. This will be your first impression. Make it a good one.
Make sure your profile picture and bio represent you and your company. Optimize your bio by including your job title, company and you can even include your LinkedIn profile or website. Consider including a hashtag or two about relevant topics to your business.
Now that you are set up you need to build out your followers and those you will follow. Follow people who interest you, prospects, customers, peers, industry influencers and competitors. People you choose to follow will often follow you back based on your profile, how often you tweet, and how many followers you have.
Remember it takes time to build a presence and connect.
2. Identify Leads
Part of your reason for social selling on Twitter is to identify potential leads. So start identifying prospects that fit the profile of your customers, but also influencers and active users that portray interests associated with your industry/company. These prospects are part of your target. You can also search for relevant Twitter handles.
Connect and continue to consistently follow new people, such as colleagues, customers, prospects, contacts, thought leaders and brands you like and in which you are interested.
3. Engage
Twitter has often been referred to as the "largest cocktail party in the world." When you are “mingling” keep that in mind and interact in a meaningful way. Keep your tweets varied, informative and interesting. Just like at a cocktail party, no one wants to hear you just talk about yourself, so don’t make all your tweets sales, product/service focused. Include articles not published by your company. Offer information that your targets are looking or that may be helpful or of interest to them. Retweet people with whom you’d like to connect. Find the people on Twitter that your prospects follow and share their content to your followers. Find the blogs your prospects are reading and share posts.
Build strong Twitter relationships and remember to post consistently to stay on your followers’ radars and keep them following you. Try to be an active Twitter user by engaging in Twitter at least once a day sharing links, retweets, @mentions, favoriting tweets, asking questions, joining conversations and eventually direct messaging.
TIP: If someone asks you a question, mentions you, asks about you - respond. In fact, try to be among the first to respond. Twitter is an instantaneous art, no one wants to wait for a response.
4. Gather Insights
Finding Twitter profiles of prospects is a way to gain intelligence about the people you're likely to meet with on an upcoming sales call. Look for people who are following key Twitter accounts or who have certain keywords in their profiles that you are targeting. Take notice of and respond to trigger events like mentions among prospects or customers of a problem or goal, a job advertisement by the company, a new hire announcement in a role that typically requires your product or service.
Don't forget to gather competitive intelligence. While your sales targets are tweeting corporate initiatives, product announcements, new hires and the like, so are your competitors.This is a great method to keep tabs on your competitors and stack up the key differentiators.
TIP: You can look at conversation that's being directed toward competitors. By doing a simple Twitter search for replies to their username (@competitor) you can find valuable insight.
5. Tracking and Analyzing
Tracking and analyzing insights provides valuable information about your targets. Twitter offers a free analytics tool that can help you get to know your audience to inform your social strategy for a more engaged following. The more you know about your targets, the better you will be able to craft appealing tweets, share on their feed and use relevant hashtags and trending topics.
Twitter analytics lets you know high level stats and your best performing tweets, metrics for all of your tweets and information on your followers on Twitter.
TIP:Use these insights to become a Twitter powerhouse. Look for your tweets with the highest impressions and interactions and try to replicate their elements. Schedule your tweets for when your targets are online and most active to increase clicks, retweets and comments.
CONCLUSION
Think of Twitter as an ongoing, constantly on networking event. Present yourself with a strong profile and picture.
Engage consistently with your target audience. Stay active and keep your tweets relevant, meaningful and interesting. Use the tool to it’s fullest by gathering intel on thought leaders, prospects, competitors and customers and use analytics to make yourself an even more effective Twitter user. Get your handle set up and reap all the benefits #socialselling can offer!
See how social media contributes to inbound with this guide to getting started:
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