Using social media can suck your time, suck your resources, and provide zero in return.
The Social Media experts tell us to listen and engage our audience across the many social platforms out there. How is that going to happen and at what cost? There seems to be new platforms every other month and they keep changing.
Their advice is not wrong it is just not practical. It may be practical for large companies or companies with high gross profit margins that can afford the staff. But for the rest of us, that approach won’t provide a return on our investment.
In my efforts to reconcile my own personal struggle - between social media being a valuable tool and social media being a waste of time - I have stumbled on a way to use it that is enormously valuable for B2B sales and requires little to no effort. And - it also follows the principles laid out by the social media experts. So that is pretty cool - right?
I am focusing on B2B because there is a common misconception that social media is really only effective for B2C. That is just not true. I might argue the opposite - that it can be even more effective for B2B companies especially those with longer sales cycles.
Let me illustrate why:
For most of us business owners, social media is something that goes on outside of our companies and outside of our sales processes. It is foreign to us and a little scary.
As Business Owners We Have Lost Control Of Our Marketing Messages
Why scary you ask? Because as business owners we have lost control of our marketing message. Let me share an example of this.
Recently my company was in need of some project management software. Now in the past I would have done a Google search for project manager software. I would have visited the top sites that turned up in my search results, browsed their websites and made a choice.
If I had taken that route can you see that the marketers would be in complete control of the message at every step? From the SEO/inbound marketing company that got them listed on Google to the website copywriters that told a great story about their software.
This is how it has always been. Until social media screwed it all up for us marketers. Do I sound bitter?
Our Prospects and Customers Are Taking Control Of Our Marketing Messages.
Let’s go back to my example of needing project management software. Here is what I did. I posted a question on a LinkedIn group and asked a bunch of liked minded strangers what software they used and why. I got some great responses. I then made a decision on what package to use completely based on one of my peers recommendations. I bypassed all the marketing messaging on the internet and instead used the internet to get advice from my peers - whom I never met.
This goes on all the time. Our prospects and customers are taking control of our marketing messages and social media makes it very easy for them to share it. I want you to understand that I am addressing small and mid-sized B2B companies not the big brands everyone knows. By the way, the project management software we chose was from a small company not a big name brand.
So what can we do? Well as I stated before, the social media experts would have us listen and engage, which is good advice but may not be practical for small businesses.
Just so you understand I am not that comfortable with social media. As opposed to my young staff that swims in it all day long.
So here is what I do... and what I recommend you set up for yourself and your sales team.
At the sales level I use a CRM platform that tracks all of our contact’s social interactions. In case you are not familiar with the term - CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management - but it really goes beyond your customers and manages all of your contacts including prospects, suspects and everyone else you ever came in contact with.
We use a CRM tool called Nimble - This company really understands contact management in the social media world. It is also priced to make it affordable for anyone.
Anyone that has ever been in contact with me or my company is automatically in our Nimble system. The system automatically goes out and finds our contact’s social accounts and imports them and keeps everything up to date. We can easily see what our customers and prospects are interested in and what social accounts they are active in.
Remember I said that I am not that comfortable communicating through social media. This makes it fool-proof. Whatever platform my contact is on I can send a communication through my CRM system as easily as sending an email.
More importantly I have a wealth of information regarding my prospects personal interests. It is so much easier to close a business deal when you can connect on a personal level first, isn’t it?
The principle I am trying to illustrate here is that I am not spending time on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, or LinkedIn listening. I am not spending time on 3rd party programs like HootSuite to view my social streams of the entire marketplace. I am doing nothing more than what I have always done and what almost every B2B salesperson does every day. That is - go through our contact databases and communicate with our prospects and customers. Except now I have much better intelligence about my prospects and a way to make deeper personal connections with them using social media.
In Summary - How To Make Sure Using Social Media Doesn’t Suck.
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Empower yourself and your sales team with a tool like Nimble that incorporates social communication. This allows your team to use social tools without having any prior experience and without spending any additional time. If you don’t need a CRM and you happen to be a HubSpot customer then you are in luck because HubSpot is launching their Social Inbox this week. Another great HubSpot tool for making social communication easy and effective.
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Focus your new social tools on the prospects you are already working with. And this is the real key point. By ignoring the world and focusing in on the people that you are already communicating with you will build deeper relationships close more deals and not spend a minute more of your time than you would have otherwise.
I hope this helps you. It certainly has helped me close more deals. Now get out of here and go do it.
Social Media Sucks! This is how I feel about it most of the time.
As an owner of a company that provides business to business services it was difficult for me to see how social media could help our sales efforts. And if you're like me - you might be thinking the same way.
