How I Use Social Media to Drive Sales

October 2018

It is hard enough to be successful selling anything - even in a stronger economy. Consumers are faced with an ever changing business model that allows one to buy online. And this is true even in technology hardware and software sales.

For instance, Disaster Recovery hardware was expected to account for $5B in sales in Texas in Q1 of this year. Even for a solution that is a required by almost every company, the numbers fell far short at $4.2B. The only way to successfully sell solutions of any kind is to first establish a need and secondly differentiate ourselves from competitors.

It begins with an understanding of the community of buyers and learning their habits. And for me, a great source is Social Media. Here, we can follow hashtags, forums such as Yahoo or Cisco, Linkedin and even Facebook. In fact, in a report issued in May of 2018, Bloomberg found that social media is one of the top five marketing channels to generate a solid ROI with a swift payback IRR.

Consider this, as a Vice President in Marketing, I receive probably a dozen emails a day from email marketing, content marketing, SEO, and PPC organizations wanting our business. Now it’s time to amplify your social media marketing strategy, and really get those sales rolling.

How important is it to understand Social Media's impact on Marketing in successful business models? According to the WSJ, organizations which have consumer data more readily available, show a greater understanding of consumer pain points and are a create much more personalized marketing strategies.

Even with a knowledge of Community and Social Media, this presents a bit of a logistics challenge. We can assemble a huge amount of data, but what do we make of it all? How do organizations become innovative with the use of all of the data available to them?

In this post, you’ll learn some of the places to go for using social media to drive sales and revenue. While many of these will generate direct revenue, some play an important role in driving indirect revenue as well. There's a good chance you have used one or more of these by now, so I would appreciate hearing from you what's worked and what hasn't worked! In the meantime, here are some of the top places to go to drive sales through social media.

1) LINKEDIN

Of course, Linkedin is the most obvious choice. No application on earth has as many different ways to navigate through the sales process. There are a high number of a methods to acquire new business through the use of Linkedin thanks to its expansion into customer data. In this case, one can do a fairly deep-dive into the employees, possible connections, names and locations, and their latest news.

The key is in knowing the solution your organization provides, and match those with companies in the news relative to that need. For example, suppose your company sells Cyber Security. Your next step would be to search for businesses that have been recent targets to hackers, fraudulent practices, and consumer background. Usually it makes the news because of the size of corporation affected. If that size is outside your target market, go downhill.

'What does 'going downhill' mean? Let's take Target for example. The impact of their Cyber-Attack in 2014 was huge. This particular cyber-attack cost the Target franchise a sudden drop in usage of their brand card. Feeling secure with the brand logo could be because customers infer from the cyberattack that the probability of an attack was higher than they had previously thought, which reduces their demand for the firm’s products. 

''Going downhill'' means going out to Target's corporate website and looking at their partner companies. THESE are the ones to, well, 'target.' Also on their website is a list of their distribution channels as well as carriers of their products. Shipping and transport (logistics) are buried within these names. And ALL of them are listening to Cyber Security offers in the wake of these attacks.

Linkedin will supply the executive team names and who they are contacted with. Clearly, the more connections you have, the more likely it will be that one of your friends his either there already or a secondary connection. Reach out to one of these and begin working your way through the company until you get to the right decision maker, and your proactiveness will speak volumes!

You can also pick up various promotions and information about internal changes within the account. New leadership provides new clues. Consider this, you can go out to the profile of the people you are looking to connect with and be armed with an entire resume with their background. I have been able to utilize this knowledge to create an instant connection with my clients based on the things I have learned from their resumes. After you establish the compelling need, you then develop your value-add statement. A typical conversation might go as follows:

‘’Hello John, I see that when you were at ACME that you were responsible for saving the company over $5M in licensing costs. How would you like to discover how to do the same thing with our product?’’

Having done your homework, you will surely make an impact on the upper management because we still live in a world where good sales people are poorly trained or lack the resolve to dive deeper into a solution oriented sales pitch. Mirroring your client by knowing their background is a great way to close deal cycles and uncover new business as well.

Secondly, follow the blogs of your clients on LinkedIn. Often you can find either a blog from the right person or one that will be relative to your own products and needs. If you are going to comment on these, make sure that you are largely in agreement with the person producing the ideas. That will create a positive impression for you in the beginning.

Aside from LinkedIn, almost every company now has their own Facebook page. Learn to hit the ‘’LIKE’’ button and change your settings so you get news on the company. I have used Facebook to ‘conveniently’ show up at recognition events, parties, and other public occasions where I develop a familiarity with key members of their team.

2) TWITTER

Twitter is a great way to keep up-to-date with the latest changes that are upcoming. Even in short tweets, hashtags and habits are developed. A quick note on a customer acquisition can lead to a deeper-dive into the news and open doors for cutting-edge sales people.

In addition, as with all of these social media platforms, you will make countless connections that will greatly expand your sales contacts. Twitter allows you to maintain a presence within your accounts and even tailoring a presentation around their own goals.

3. FACEBOOK

Facebook was among the first Social Media tools that sales organizations tried to understand how to make use of. In a purely sales environment, this wasn't easy. And let's face it, one can themselves side-tracked on Facebook, costing valuable time and resources.

But nowadays, companies have their own websites within Facebook, and the medium has taken off as a viable source of rich consumer behavior and the latest news.

Companies like McCann-Erickson, Hello-Soda, GSDM, and Lowe Lintas are beginning to realize the value of consumer behavior in a disruptive climate. These organizations aggregate consumer data and insights, and are able to use them to drive the right message to the right customer.

As with Security, Echeck, Verify, Hello-Soda, Cylance and Cloudera can also provide an added service of a robust security platform. These can synthesize all of this data for you, personalize your campaigns, provide solutions for companies that have been victimized by fraudulent practices and match government compliance regulations - all at the same time!

Finally, don’t be afraid to combine all of these with Data.Com. With this application you can get direct dial numbers and emails as well as an organization chart of your customers. Perhaps no other application will serve you better for being able to build mailing lists and customize your message.

Creative organizations can tie ALL of these together with your own Youtube channel, putting together your elevator pitch and sending it directly to those who are decision makers. I did this to help launch Cisco's new UCS platform in 2010. It was a slow adoption rate at first, but quickly caught on and our partner community liked getting their news in a 60-second video rather than another email.

There are so many alternative ways to be creative in sales other than the norm. It is an easy method and requires just a little ‘outside-the-box’ thinking and execution! Leave each customer with the impression you are listening and hear them loudly and clearly. Follow their blogs, press releases and product launches.

By being able to define your audience, you'll set priorities on lists, discover new outlets for sales and even gain insight into your competition. The next years of success are best defined as staying three steps in front of the competition and leveraging some unusual and non-traditional strategies! ###