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Twitter has fast become one of the leading online resources for finding, connecting and engaging with customers and prospects. Most organizations and salespeople have Twitter profiles, but only a few percent actually drive sales leads and generate a return on investment from Twitter. With so much potential, why are most Twitter profiles unsuccessful? Like most things online, the general consensus is that most users don’t know what to do or how to optimize their profile pages for success.

Without further ado, here are 5 steps for twitter optimization:

1. Fill Out The “About You” Info (Http://Twitter.Com/Settings/Profile) Making Sure To Set a Location and Fill Out the Bio.

Great way to add credibility and promote trust on first impressions. Not only does having this information make you stand out from other Twitter users, it shows that you are not a controlled bot program. Additionally, if your Twitter page shows up in a search results page, your Name, UserName and Bio are displayed to the searcher.

2. Add a Custom Background With Contact Information

With Twitter’s restrictions on page customizations, it’s hard to fit everything you’d like to in the tiny amount of space they give you. This is why many users and business are using a customized background with detailed contact information. See some great examples from SEOmoz, Michael Gray and HubSpot.

3. Use a Custom Avatar

Another key factor in gaining trust and credibility is a professional avatar. Preferably of yourself or your company logo, your avatar will help familiarize you with your customers and visitors, and only helps to increase your brand awareness.

4. Be Consistent With Your Tweeting Activity

Think of tweeting as a weekly activity just like blogging (Note: it should be a daily activity, but set realistic goals and try to beat them). Think of how relevant a news site would be if it posted 30 stories one day and then did not post again until three weeks later. Try to post at least once a day or a few times a week. Outlining a content schedule with upcoming events is a great way to think of new tweets.

5. Be Attractive To Casual Visitors

Ask yourself this question: Would you read it if it was someone else’s Twitter? Make your content exciting, unique and follow-worthy. Tweet about interesting news stories in your industry – not just your product, give away freebies, have contests and ask questions. Do anything you can to stir up interest and conversation.

By: Christopher Kelly

http://www.toxel.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/cake02.jpg

Yesterday marked the one year birthday of the SalesView Buzz tab.  The Buzz tab launched on May 11th, 2009 as the first Twitter integration for CRM (including Salesforce, Oracle CRM, Microsoft Dynamics, NetSuite CRM.)  While the launch was received with a great deal of enthusiasm by media and analysts (after all, what journalist wasn’t smitten with Twitter in the Spring of 2009?), the benefits of having Tweets about customers and prospects available directly within CRM were not immediately obvious to many B2B sales people.

Similar to the adoption pattern for our Facebook mash-up and LinkedIn integration before, customers and prospects started to identify and leverage actionable sales intelligence from the social media stream.  One of my favorite anecdotes comes from a meeting with the VP of Sales at a key customer account a few months after we launched the Buzz tab.  As part of our regular quarterly account review we walk customers through recent features & enhancements.  This included the Buzz tab at the time so we had him bring up the SalesView Buzz tab (i.e. Twitter & Google blog search) for his own company.

As it turned out, one of the most recent Tweets mentioning his company was a person looking for competitive product recommendations:

  • “We’re evaluating marketing automation solutions – (our customer) vs. (competitor #1) vs. (competitor #2). Thoughts?”

TA-WEET!  Yes, that was a hot lead and yes he was impressed.  The icing on the cake was that within a few minutes the VP of Sales had logged in to see the Buzz tab for himself and by that time someone had already responded as follows:

  • “Definitely (competitor #1)… we went through the selection process over 1 year ago and have been happy since.”

TWUH-OH!  He interrupted our meeting to make sure the right sales rep followed up on this lead immediately, before his competitor (or their fans) could further slant the conversation to their favor.

Now obviously you will not always have hot leads like these land in your lap but this example does speak to how important a customer acquisition channel Twitter has become.  As with other traditional and emerging channels, it provides new ways in which to listen and engage with the new, social customer  (a.k.a. Customer 2.0) .  The nature of Twitter, which is real-time and entirely public, requires that you sales reps keep an ear to the ground at all times, lest your competitors should be the ones to pounce first.

SalesView Buzz tab - InfoGROUP

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The B2B sales and marketing landscape is shifting, adjusting to the rapid advancements in social networking and online buyer behavior. From start-ups to multi-billion dollar organizations, the industry is facing the hard fact that traditional, old school methods of marketing have become largely ineffective. Traditional online marketing tactics are losing traction at increasing rates. It’s now all about trust and “heartfelt marketing.”

Traditional tactics are being replaced by new approaches designed to catapult prospecting and retention efforts into never before seen realms, connecting with customers while providing more transparent access to information. As part of this shift, marketing must focus on sales enablement, to help sales professionals better communicate with and understand whom they are selling to.

The dramatic changes in online buyer behavior are driving a need for adaptation – as the Customer 2.0 spends more time online engaged with social media and networks, they create more information about themselves and the products they use, which can really help sales organizations engage more effectively with this new type of prospect. The Customer 2.0 will always lead the way, but savvy Sales 2.0 professionals can keep pace with efficiency-driven solutions.

At InsideView, our sales productivity technology allows sales teams to gather real-time insight about their prospects and customers. Information is aggregated and organized from thousands of sites, providing any and all information about a company and the employees within, including new hires, employee transfers (or termination) and news. With this information, the sales and marketing teams can drive sales through social media, tapping into social networks like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook to keep pace and communicate with the Customer 2.0.

The fact is that “old ways” of marketing are dying.

The impact of mass marketing and mindless telemarketing is drying up. Those that will find a way to enter the same playing field as their (increasingly social) customers will thrive. Those that stick with archaic methods will wither.

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As we all know, there is no better way to learn than through failure. And on that note, we’d like to announce our sponsorship of the SalesFail Contest.

We are out to find the most entertaining stories of failed sales experiences. With an award of $2500, this will be the one chance that sales professionals get to earn a commission on their past sales fails.

If you happen to be in sales, or have ever tried to (unsuccessfully) sell anything, enter your story at SalesPop (or see what is being discussed on Twitter or Facebook).

In December, we posted The InsideView 20 – The Top Sales Industry Social Media Users, which highlighted 20 sales professionals who are paving the way for social media use throughout their respective industries. This innovative group of sales execs, writers, trainers and analysts are finding terrific new ways to translate news, intelligence and theory, ultimately driving new trends in the world of sales.

We recently asked the group if they had any advice to share with their peers. What we received was advice, best practices, cautions and words of wisdom that will surely help the remainder of the sales industry dive in to the tempered waters of social media, and navigate the terrain of the traditional sales industry.

Tibor Shanto, principal and founder of Renbor Sales Solutions Inc.

If you have something to say, say it, say it loud! Join LinkedIn and take some time to find groups in line with your interests, then speak up. Share your blog posts, join discussions, answer questions and take advantage of any other way to be vocal.  Once you have contributed to a discussion, Tweet about it. Not only will you be able to get solid feedback about a variety of topics, but you can then take those ideas and blog about it. From there, you can tweet it – a very effective and cyclical cylce.

LinkedIn creates an ongoing opportunity to involve new people, new views and perpetuate your learning and ability to expand your network as people learn about you and your thinking. From there, build relationships and carry the conversation off line – sometimes these people will be sales leads, industry experts or at the least, people you share common interests with.

Chad Levitt, Account Executive at HubSpot, Author of the New Sales Economy Blog

In “Six Simple Steps to Reach More Prospects,” Chad shares his insight about connecting with your target accounts and contracts: “If you are wondering if these 6 steps will work — they do — I use them everyday with success. The beauty of these 6 simple steps is that they are easily repeatable and do not waste your time on unnecessary tasks.”

Identify your target account

Go to Jigsaw.com and type your target account into the search field and click ‘go.’ Select the contacts you would like to connect with at your target account

  • If the company’s main line is the only one listed, call and ask the operator to give you the direct extension. The operator will usually give it to you. If they try to put you through say you will reach out again later and hang up.

Go to Google and type in the name of your target prospect and the company’s name

  • Many times you will find their LinkedIn profile, other social media networks and affiliations. Explore their LinkedIn profile and social networks and get to know your target contact. You may also find related news items that may be relevant.

Send an introduction email that you should have saved in a template to save time

  • Make quick changes to your template to personalize email, and let your target contact know in your email you will be calling shortly

Call back in a few hours to connect with your prospect

  • If they respond to your email before you call them, immediately call back – they are usually at their desk. Leave a compelling voicemail if your target contact does not pick up the phone and mention your email. The combination of your email and calling will greatly increase the chances of reaching your target contact

Brian Jones, president of Industrial Interface, Inc.

Don’t be a business

The Internet allows people in every job to consume information that they find interesting at work.  If you can present relevant and useful information to your potential customers that is also fun and interesting, then you are well on your way to creating a valuable online brand.

It’s not always about marketing

Internet users can smell marketing speak a mile away. Why? Because it’s usually meaningless drivel that conveys no real benefit to anyone. Social media marketing is all about people sharing with other people. You need to personify your brand to compete in this space. If your company is just sharing its most recent product information, then no one is going to care. Don’t be afraid to be personal, funny, controversial and casual when representing your brand online.

Trust your product

If your product stinks, then all the marketing in the world isn’t going to help. If you’ve created a valuable website and clearly share the benefits of using your products, then users will be engaged when they get there. You won’t always have to push your products on customers through these online avenues.

Choose the right medium

There are a lot of popular social media sites that aren’t useful to every brand. LinkedIn is for professional networking and business information, while Facebook is reserved exclusively for fun personal interactions. B2B social media efforts need to be highly targeted to be successful.

Monitor the right metrics

Lots of people are interested in lots of stuff online, so traffic isn’t always a key to success. Look to customer sign-ups, calls or some other action that represents a real prospect doing something on your site. Getting a thousand people to your site is useless if no one takes the actions you need.

Joanne Black, founder of consulting business for Referral Sales, No More Cold Calling

Joanne’s tip is short and simple, but provide a sound perspective about LinkedIn.

Personalize your LinkedIn invitation

When I receive the standard invitation, “Please join my professional network on LinkedIn,” I know the person is reaching out to a list of people. I respond to a personal connection, as do most people. Use your invitation to re-connect, share a few short sentences about what you are doing or comment on their profile. It makes a world of difference. Also, do not accept invitations from people you don’t know.

Despite the economy, it’s been an exciting spring here in San Francisco. Some highlights include the very thoughtful discussions around the continued rapid evolution of what social media and networking mean for sales and marketing at a few recent events we’ve participated in — Sales 2.0 and SaaS Summit. Taking a step back, we are reminded of the umbrella under which a lot of the excitement and innovations in our world lies: Enterprise 2.0.

To quote the oranizers of the upcoming Enterprise 2.0 conference, E2.0 technologies “make accessible the collective intelligence of many, translating to a huge competitive advantage in the form of increased innovation, productivity and agility.”

As the social Web continues to expand and weave into every possible aspect of our lives, the data and content that comes with it poses both great potential and challenge for the enterprise as a whole. For example, as we recently explained, Twitter essentially “ups the ante” in terms of volume and frequency of new data. It’s on us to keep up, and to infuse the specific and relevant portions directly into the place where business is driven.

Any enterprise initiative needs to “embrace the new tools that enable contextual, agile and simplified information exchange and collaboration,” as the E2.0 blog explains.

The recognition of Web 2.0′s importance in business continues to roll out in the tech world; everything from folks “just getting it” (like this blog post at Tech Leader) to others already putting on yearly conferences on the theme. We’re excited to be a part of this tidal wave of change and taking an active role in piecing the many new technological mediums into agents for more productivity, smarter workflows and a more informed enterprise.

Weeks after Paul Greenberg’s thought-provoking post on ZDNet, the debate continues as to whether Twitter could/should evolve into a Social CRM or remain a channel/medium (read: a “non app”).  This on-going conversation in the Blogosphere & Twittersphere, have actually done a lot to bring together the social media crowd and social CRM (“CRM 2.0″) proponents.  There’s also some promising talk of collaboration between industry pundits Paul Greenberg and Brian Solis.

One of Paul’s central arguments here is that Twitter is not (and should not become) an application, but rather remain “just” a channel / medium (albeit it a powerful, extremely trendy, and perhaps transformation one.)  Most of the reader comments agreed (no shocker there… Paul has a pretty loyal following, and he has a nasty habit of being right most of the time.)

One particular blog comment from “kotharia” struck a chord.  The gist was that while leveraging Twitter as a listening & communication channel is a good start, “these emerging channels have a potential to generate a huge volume of conversations (unstructured data) which cannot be harnessed easily.”  Hmm, this problem sounds familiar.  They went on to suggest that “One would need effective tools to harness & synthesize the data to enable better decision making.”

BINGO!  One thing is guaranteed… just like all other media, traditional and social, Twitter will exacerbate information overload. We happen to focus on solving this problem specifically for sales & marketing professionals but really the principles are applicable across all knowledge workers.  You need a layer of intelligence / analytics operating on top of Twitter (along with all other potentially useful data sets and information sources) if you want to make it relevant and actionable.  SalesView is focused on doing just that for sales/marketing/support professionals, WITHIN their CRM.  Call it social CRM, CRM 2.0, socialprise, or just plain cool… the bottom line is that it has a huge impact on sales productivity.

Twitter ups the ante in terms of volume and frequency, but the challenge is not a new one. Before our current love affair with Twitter, most organizations had not yet figured out how to filter & analyze the thousands of online news sources, much less the hundreds of thousands of business blogs out there. So we can’t assume that Twitter is “noisier” (as measured by signal to noise ratio, not volume) than any previously available media. It’s just a bigger fire hose!

Here’s the approach we’ve taken to date with the InsideView Smart Cloud platform.

Basically we look at channels / media / content as plug & play. Blogs come along, plug it in. Twitter comes along, plug it in. Rest assured that in the next 6-12 months, some OTHER shiny new thing will capture the hearts & imagination of sales & marketing so what then?  Just plug it in. After all, the next-next-big-thing promises to accelerate the commoditization of content and worsen information overload. Unless, that is, you have tools that can filter & analyze data in the cloud to identify only the relevant & actionable information.

That’s where we think things are going. What do you think? Reply here or Tweet us at http://twitter.com/insideview.

This week, CRM expert Paul Greenberg continues the Twitter/sales discussion in his recent ZDNet post “Is Twitter Social CRM? Nope.” In the piece he argues that while folks like Jeremiah Owyang and Brian Solis are claiming the micro-blogging tool will become a very useful too for ‘social CRM,’ in reality it can’t be due to the “M” — management. If Twitter were to allow the management of conversations around brands and businesses, then it would simply no longer be the freewheeling communication platform it has become.

Paul does conceed though that Twitter can be used as “a channel for finding the customers to engage with and to get data from” and a means for developing “richer customer insights.” How does he differentiate this from Social CRM? We recommend reading the article.

‘Social CRM’ relates to the ability of CRM technology to monitor, engage, and interact, on a social-Web level — essentially, to do its job in a social-Web context. This technology is evolving, from mash-ups to becoming part of CRM offerings out of the gate. The idea that CRM is getting social is hardly new, but it is exciting to see the ways that it keeps getting social. Twitter is latest ingredient in a cornucopia of information that the social Web offers up and we are curious to see what role it can play in the future of sales intelligence. One can observe the limitations that the service currently has for sales prospecting, but as Twitter evolves, we may be singing a different tune.

Update April 8th:  The Twitter + Social CRM discussion continues on ZDNet –  and there’s promising talk of collaboration between industry pundits Paul Greenberg and Brian Solis.  Check out the full discussion thread here:

http://talkback.zdnet.com/5206-17933-0.html?forumID=1&threadID=62379

A lot of interesting blog posts have popped up on the effectiveness of Twitter as a sales tool. This was also a topic covered at the Sales 2.0 Conference in San Francisco during the panel discussion, “Accelerating Productivity: New Sales 2.0 Tools.” The value of Twitter to salespeople is clearly debatable, which is not surprising as the value of the service is probably being analyzed by the majority of tech savvy businesses right now.

One thing that is clear is that the popularity of Twitter is exploding, which means that increasingly more prospective sales targets are going to be using it regardless of what vertical you target. But is that enough to make it worthwhile for salespeople to use Twitter as part of their research? Do professionals share enough information within the 140 character limit to give a salesperson true insight to the company? Only time will tell. In the meantime, checkout these other posts to see what other Sales 2.0 bloggers are saying about Twitter:

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