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In a world where consumers are more empowered than ever to share their message, it’s becoming more and more important for businesses to be online. Social media has changed the way we do business. It’s impacted businesses across multiple industrie and specialties. It’s changed tourism, electronics, automotive and it’s even changed the way B2B organizations market themselves.
At the forefront of this change is Twitter. With an incredible 170 million active users and more than 400 million tweets sent daily, Twitter has changed the game. It’s no longer simply a channel to find news articles, chat with friends and discover funny pictures. It’s become a tool for businesses to engage and drive meaningful results.
Here are six tips to using Twitter to beef up your pipeline, close more deals, and build lasting productive relationships with customers.
Relationships are the most powerful tool that we have in sales. It’s also the most affordable tool on our belt. On average, it costs companies five times as much to acquire a new customer as it does to keep an existing one. Twitter offers an opportunity to strengthen your relationship with existing customers and retain them as lifetime customers and brand advocates.
The key to social sales success is understanding the value of building relationships with your customers and turning them into both repeat buyers and customer advocates or champions for your product. Through ongoing interaction and showing that you care, Twitter is great for establishing customer relationships.
Every interaction you have on Twitter should be with the intention of building a relationship with that user. Whether it’s making a connection with an influencer, competitor, new prospect, or existing customer – each interaction should serve the purpose of strengthening a relationship.
Being relentless about relationships means working with a sales model that doesn’t just value relationships but makes them the priority.
Authority is the best way to establish trust from your customers and prospective clients. The best way to establish authority is to engage with industry influencers frequently.
Influencers are typically well-connected, vocal, and involved. Generate a Twitter List of influencers and engaging with their content and build real connection with them around issues relevant to you business.
Engage by listening and reading their content on a regular basis. When you find opportunities to reach out, begin by asking questions, retweet and favorite their tweets, participate in Twitter Chats that are relevant to your company, and keep the conversation going by mentioning them in your own tweets.
Twitter is more than just a broadcast medium. While it’s important to regularly share your own content, there is room to retweet content from other users. In fact, about 15-20% of your tweets should be retweeted content. Specifically content from thought leaders and industry influencers.
You can also use retweets as a way to share testimonials with your existing network. That is, if you find a customer tweeting positively about your brand, you can share their tweet using the retweet function to give that positive mention more reach.
Retweeting is a great way to compliment the original tweeter and also offer relevant and interesting content to your own followers.
Value-driven content is the muscle behind social selling success. Start by listening – is there a problem or concern that you can solve? Is there a need that you can satisfy?
Once you have an understanding of what your followers want and need you can deliver content that adds value and improves their life in someway. This can be an e-book explaining how to fix a tech issue one of your followers is frustrated with or an article, blog post, or link with information that will relieve a current pain.
The point is that you’re helping your followers solve their problems, satisfy a need or answer a question. The content you’re sharing is making a positive difference in their life…at least at that particular moment.
It’s obvious by now that your customers aren’t calling the customer service department with their issues or inquiries. Instead, they’re tweeting it to their friends, family, your competitors, and to you.
Listening on Twitter gives you the unique opportunity to find prospects when the timing is right and when they’re actually asking for answers you have. This can be the difference between fostering brand advocates and fostering brand advocates for your competitors.
Schedule your tweets and monitor your interactions and messages, as well as track hashtags, popular searches and to manage multiple accounts.
Engaging with leads on Twitter is a great way to employ a customer-centric approach to sales that’s built on relationships and is mutually beneficial. You scratch their back with content that helps them achieve their goals, and more of your leads will begin moving through the sales funnel, thus scratching yours.
Every single day, thousands of people are going to Twitter for receommendations on products and services. In most cases, their inquiries go unanswered and they are left to make decisions based on information they find online. As more brands begin to recognize this as an opportunity to engage, more businesses are investing in tools like LeadSift so they can engage and ultimately close the deal.
What other ways have you seen Twitter drive sales?
Get more sales tips on marketing and social selling with the free Salesforce e-book below.
