Are you curious about how social media fits with sales and sales management? Or cynical? Are you looking for silver bullets or short cuts to improve your sales?

Simply put, social media is the online conversation and relationship building you would naturally do offline. Social media is not a quick fix, but it is the new wave. It can be highly complementary to your sales activities, as well as adding value. Multiple social media options can be creatively integrated into the online and offline marketing mix. These social media options can soften the sales process and lessen the need for cold calling.

Here are some examples of social media that sales professionals could be using:

Professional Networking Sites:

For example, LinkedIn has almost 160,000 New Zealand members. Many major brands, NZ industries and qualifications are represented. It is useful for finding industry experts, prospecting, developing JV’s, researching and sourcing additional product lines and developing a reseller chain. Globally there are 50,000,000 members, and according to web traffic metrics site Alexa.com, LinkedIn is used professionally during work hours. LinkedIn is ranked #22 of all us sites.

Video hosting sites e.g. YouTube:

Video is one of the most authentic, brand, product and personal authority building social media tools. This can effectively transport suspects and prospects into buying mode. Video uses a less formal communication style that is a natural to relationship marketing. Video is also valuable for demonstrating products and services in action, introducing key personnel within a company or the delivery of information leading to sales. Youtube is the #5 most visited New Zealand site and #4 in USA. It is a good tool for targeting males.

Micro blog:

Useful for real time information, feedback and as a sales tool. Micro blogging is great as a customer service tool as well. the most popular include twitter and twitter-like enterprise level applications. Twitter is ranked #13 of all New Zealand sites and #13 in usA. Microblogging is used mainly by middle-aged markets.

Wikis:

For structured in-house knowledge sharing. Wikis are useful for creating customer service Question & Answer conversations or for product launch or product development feedback and for cross-team communication.

Some benefits of social media in the sales cycle include:

1) It can enhance offline relationships. Likewise, online relationships can certainly benefit by meeting offline. New Zealand B2B businesses already practice online/offline business development. It is now a reality. An example of offline to online is the way in which Paul Brislen of Vodafone became the customer advocate on Twitter by default after finding Vodafone customers had difficulty getting service through their customer service lines. Paul was contacted by Twitter users, Paul listened and gathered their customer complaint information then actioned the need quickly and in person with the customer services team. Most of my networking offline ends up in connections on LinkedIn. People you’ve met at Chamber of Commerce functions are more easily followed up through social media networks like LinkedIn. At our social media workshops we ask our participants to connect with our social Media networks during or after the workshop. they can see all my activity online with my regular LinkedIn updates.

To see how the online to offline connection works, my own use of LinkedIn is a good example. When I started using LinkedIn, I joined several sector-relevant LinkedIn groups to identify joint venture prospects, then I contacted about 15 people who fitted my criterion and objectives. The subsequent chain of offline meetings and relationship development led to the formation of alliances and the expansion of relationships resulting in valuable business activity. This involved things like winning an innovation award, the formation of an active business partnership, a pending reseller license, growing credibility as a contributing writer to online and offline publications, and a new LinkedIn group, Auckland Live, was formed to foster networking relationships cross-sector. We hold a breakfast meeting several times annually. Second degree activity (from someone else’s online relationship leading to me) has resulted in connections to the speaking circuit. Through the benefits, transparency and recommendation tools of LinkedIn I have managed to make connections that would have been more time consuming and challenging to access through offline methods.

2) The ability to identify and target prospects, suppliers and vendors strategically. Social media provides transparent profiles on your target prospects. For example, a New Zealand technology exporter seeking resellers globally recently posted an article on LinkedIn and within a short space of time had four high-quality candidates.

3) Diminished access barriers to prospects who may otherwise be challenging to find or difficult to get access to. Networking through LinkedIn and twitter can be targeted with keywords (geo- and industry targeting). On LinkedIn, introductions and communications are acceptable and anticipated, without the need for formal letters of introduction.

4) Some sales processes can be automated such as sharing trackable downloadable information for the suspects’/prospects’ research phase (whitepapers, product in use, product comparisons, how-to videos).

5) Your existing clients can form a ready-made social media community for prospects to belong to. Community is the new CRM concept. CRM software developers strive to incorporate social media into their new releases. Creating connections on social media then building conversation and community with suspects, prospects and clients using social media sites is an efficient way of sharing information and building loyalty.

6) Social media channels are simple, fast and easy for your loyal brand evangelists to share your brand with prospects on your behalf. social media and online tools make it easier for them to become an active referral source. Ask your contacts to meet on social media platforms. If your brand needs protecting – it is fast to fix and your brand evangelists may do the job for you. This can occur in different ways depending on which platforms are used.

7) Brand evangelists are your ‘voice of the customer’. They can be your customer advisory committee by using social media tools. You can now use social media as a 24/7 market research tool due to real time search and live feedback, if your microblog community is active. At a recent think-tank on banking and market collaboration, a Twitter community was asked what ways banks could truly collaborate with their businesses. Feedback was instant and frank.

How you choose to implement your social media strategies will depend on the freedoms and scope of your role, the scale of your resources, the size of your company and the infrastructure and level of available dedicated marketing and customer services support. Much that you would achieve offline can be achieved efficiently online; for example, product demonstrations, seminars, and Question and Answer conversations. Just keep in mind that crucial deals with certain products, sectors and cultures can never entirely be substituted with online communication.

Imagine yourself as a technology provider with high authority target markets nationally and internationally. Due to the company’s growth stage and the economic environment, your company’s budgets require strict adherence to controlled or reduced cost of sales. Your first wish may be to visit your key prospects directly, but the sales cost is too high. the relationship development, needs assessment, product demonstration and other main sales processes may be achievable by phone, networking, blog, video, webinars, email and file sharing. By incurring the costs closer to the crucial deal making stage, and with fewer face-to-face meetings, there is likelihood of proved ROI and the company meeting budget.

Depending on the tolerance your prospects and your market sector allow, this may be achievable at no sacrifice to relationship development or quality of the sales process. In your sector how many face-to-face visits could this cut? How much profitability could you add? What time could you save by efficiently using online tools? Only you will know how you could creatively use online tools, once shown the scope of options.

No doubt you’ll be keen to gain more insight into the specific ways social media can be used in your role. Here are eight aspects of the sales cycle that can gain productivity benefits through online social media activity:

• Establishing credibility and authority
• Sector research and sales prospecting
• Getting your foot in the door
• Navigating customer organisations
• Collaborating across sales teams
• Providing customer references
• Building ongoing rapport

Ensuring ongoing customer success with post sales support to get started, if there is one form of social media you need to become active in, it is LinkedIn. Its design is perfect for targeting new relationships that would otherwise be too difficult to access, and it is easy to extend relationships. Start by becoming active in Groups and discussions and explore content on interesting profiles. Then link your other social media into LinkedIn.