How do you use social media to sell? This was one of the questions on LinkedIn Answers today (BTW LIA is a great forum for sharing insights with industry experts). Actually, this is the full question that was asked:
QUESTION:
“How do you find business via social media? It can be a full time job, between LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook, to stay updated, checking out what’s happening the with groups you’ve joined, posting questions, answers, etc. How do you increase your revenue/sales via social media?”
I thought it was a great question and am hopeful that some will take time to think about it. I replied with my thoughts and recommendations, and thought it was worth sharing on our blog. So here it is – verbatim.
ANSWER:
In my opinion, it starts w/ understanding the difference between marketing (creating opportunities) and selling (closing opportunities). You also have to realize there is no silver bullet or quick fix. And you need to think of business development as fishing vs. hunting.
Before I share my thoughts on how to do this, here is what you should NOT do:
1. Be overly self-promotional in your posts / tweets
2. DM followers with a sales pitch
3. Talk too much about yourself
Retailers have found that coupons and special offers (communicated via Twitter and Facebook) work well for impulse purchases. But that doesn’t work for everyone.
For the rest of us who market / sell strategic products or services (considered purchases), I believe the best way to use social media as a marketing/sales platform is by building your brand via thought leadership, engaging content or being memorable (in a positive way, of course). The tactics you employ depend heavily on your audiences, market and products.
While I can’t illustrate this for every business, I can provide an example of how professional services firms can leverage social media to develop new business. For a discussion on this please read “Social Media: Killer App or Shiny Object” at http://bit.ly/XUp4c
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