Archive for Twitter
Expanding Into the Twitterverse
Posted by: | CommentsI recently spoke at the Increase Sales with Social Media conference in San Diego with David Carleton (@DavidCarleton) Denise Wakeman 
(@blogsquad) of the Blog Squad, Mari Smith (@MariSmith) of Facebook fame, Paul Colligan (@colligan) – Social Media Strategist, and Warren Whitlock (@warrenwhitlock) of Twitter fame. I’ll write more about what I learned in a future post.
But the thing that sticks in my mind was that the place was "tweeting" like mad.
Now, I had been on Twitter.com for some time. But I had no idea about the power of the platform.
For those of you new to Twitter, it is a micro-blogging platform (you have 140 characters to get your message out) which allows you to follow key people in your networks and to build a following of friends, fans, customers, and partners.
Imagine this – as each speaker was presenting, people from the audience were taking the gems and sending them out to the people in their Twitter network. And a buzz got created out in the real world about what was happening in a conference center in San Diego.
Think about that. People built a following on Twitter, and then fed them with valuable information that they were getting at a conference which their followers couldn’t or didn’t attend. Talk about delivering value & building customer and partner intimacy.
This is something that savvy business development people have been doing for years offline – and now they can do it online – and deliver incredible value to the stakeholders in their success.
I also learned about a few cool management tools to keep up on what was happening in the Twitterverse.
- Tweetdeck – this platform allows me to search for exact terms out in the Twitterverse and respond personally to people who have an interest or ask questions in my area of expertise. I have been steadily building a following by doing just that. One of my students, Anita Leafty, introduced me to it.
- Twitter Search – Search allows you to do much the same as above, but doesn’t update automatically like Tweetdeck. Very powerful, however, to find people who are interested in areas in which you have interest.
- Hash Marks – If you want to be able to easily aggregate information or a flow of information, us the "#" followed by a short moniker. For example, the ISSM conference was #ISSM (go ahead, Twitter-Search it). I’ve started #LinkedInTips, #BizDevTips (go ahead, check them out too)
- Direct Messaging – While some people dislike it, DM, as it is referred to, allows you to send a special message directly to someone on Twitter, much like an email. This helps when you have something private to say and don’t have their email address. Very Useful
- Socialtoo.com – This service allows me to follow the people who follow me and to send them a special thank you message. As my following grows, it can be time consuming to do all the followup. This program automates the process. Now I just go and change the message every few days.
- Mr Tweet – A very cool service that tells me who I should be following given my "tweet" content and the people I follow & who they follow. Very good for network building and visibility.
Results, you ask?
I’ve been booked to speak at several more conferences (I’ll keep you in the loop); I had more sales come through for our LinkedIn Training Webinars from people who have followed me; Jack Canfield is now following me (wow – what an honor!); And with some generous help from Mari Smith and folks in the Twitterverse, I now have close to 300 people following me – in less than a week.
And I’m just starting to get the hang of this.
I HIGHLY recommend that you start to learn about Twitter. It can revolutionize the way you interact with, build, and leverage your network.
Find me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/chiplambert73
Raymond Chip Lambert
Network2Networth
Your Outsourced Business Development Training Partner
Share this post :
Social Networks and Prospecting
Posted by: | CommentsA good friend and colleague of mine, Michael Goodman, posted this question in LinkedIn Answers this week:
"Wtih all the social media available, including linked in, Blogs, twitter, plaxo, second life, et al, what is the best way to utilize all this stuff, stay ahead of the techno-bleeding edge, and really, just find another customer to tell my story to?
I can’t keep up with all the social media, web 2.0 marketing movement. Really, all I want to do is find the next customer. I am hoping someone has figured out the magical answer to taking advantage of technology and simply find new people interested in what I have to offer. Anyone?"
Now what you need to understand is that Michael is a brilliant man. In fact he’s a fantastic resource for the Sales Community as founder of the International Sales Pros Association.
His question, I posit, goes to a fundamental misunderstanding of Social Media, Social Networking and its relationship to sales.
Remember, these tools are there to help you tell your story when you are NOT able to be in front of a prospect. They help your potential prospects have somewhere to go to find out more about you than you will ever be able to disclose to them. Social media tools are a way to "tell your story" not only to the prospects you do know, but the ones you’d never be able to get to in a million years of calling on people.
LinkedIn is especially valuable. Because not only are you putting yourself out there and giving people a chance to check you out, but you have advanced search tools to do some serious targeted prospecting – AND finding a way into said prospect via referral or introduction.
Most sales people who use LinkedIn do not have any true understanding of this. Precisely because they are focused on the next transaction. I spoke about this in a different post.
Network Building, positioning, marketing, and such activities are not Sales. But done well, they position us in front of our perfect client so our likelihood of having a sales conversation goes up dramatically. And, again, when done well, it removes a lot of the barriers that sales people experience when they cold call.
Network development is a medium to long term strategy. Prospecting for sales is something that MUST be done to meet quotas. I don’t argue that either is more or less important.
The important thing here is to have a keen understanding about what you are trying to accomplish with social media, and then go to work building that – via blog, twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.
As a sales person, you will always need to tell your story to another potential client. The point with social media is can they relate to you and interact with you both before and after the sale in a way that is meaningful to them.
That’s the formula for a long-term clientele that grows virally!
Raymond Chip Lambert
Network2Networth
Share this post :
