How Does Social Media Aid Sales Efforts?

As with any new media, there are varying adoption rates for social media

. Many top executives don't have the time to attend to it, and aren't sure what's in it for them, and aren't sure how it will improve their sales. How can social media effectively enhance sale efforts?

Notes from a conversation with John Lima, CEO, Coffee Bean Technology:

It's important to remember that business is about people, and people are increasingly using social media to connect with others and to express themselves. Platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter encourage us to be ourselves - to take off the business mask that we normally present to the world. This is what makes this media valuable to sales efforts; it enables the savvy company to better know their customers.

First, social media enable you to find your customers more quickly. Almost everyone is somehow connected to one or more of the various platforms - LinkedIn, Facebook Twitter, and so forth. The problem is that it is inefficient to search for them through all of the different platforms. It's a lot more efficient to use software to assist your search. Develop a Social ID that describes your customer. This is a profile of what you believe your customers interests and buying behavior to be. This Social ID is your social media connector.

Second, find people who fit your profile and engage with them through the platforms in which they participate. Let them bring their conversations and interest to you, and refine the customer profile as you gain additional information. This gives you insight into the person and enables you to approach them as a human being. You will better understand who they interact with and what interests them. Envision an open marketplace where people connect first and then tell their stories. This allows them to quickly build empathy and makes the sales process both smoother and more subtle. Business people pursue relationship, but what they're ultimately seeking is trust.

Third, your understanding of your customer's profile and feeds can effectively generate new leads. Once the outline of your customer's Social ID becomes more sophisticated you can develop key words that help you to find similar customers. These key words can be used by software robots to find conversations in Twitter or Facebook around these words. These conversations are flagged for a sales associate or sales person who can then dig deeper to determine whether the individual identified is a competitor or a prospect.

To make all of this work efficiently, you want to have an integrated system with a set of tools that allows you to cost and time-effectively sift through the millions of daily entries logged through social media.

by: Sandy McMahon

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