This was a fairly decent size data set for the survey and it’s still surprising to me that companies have not figured out how to generate leads on social media though they seem to be able to measure social media results.

Some of the most amazing points I noted were:

• Over 80% of companies have less than 3 people managing social media.
• 86% of companies only track vanity metrics like fans and followers.
• Only 31% of companies can track social media to sales.
• 65% of the companies say the biggest obstacle for companies to use social media is time.
• 40% of the companies think the goal of social media is to increase sales

We’ve already found that generating leads in Facebook is possible but that having a great page in LinkedIn could be a game-changer for your company.

I collected some great resources and wanted to share:

• New LinkedIn Company Pages Are Finally Rolled Out to EVERYONE
• Create a LinkedIn Company Page
• LinkedIn Company Pages: Your Secret Weapon
• How to Make Your LinkedIn Company Page Award Worthy
• 5 Creative Ways to Use LinkedIn Company Pages
• Get the Most Out of LinkedIn Company Pages
• How to Build a Killer LinkedIn Company Page
• How to Use LinkedIn Company Pages
• 21 Examples of Powerful LinkedIn Company Pages
• 5 Tips for a Killer LinkedIn Company Page

58 Social Media Tips for Content Marketing from Content Marketing Institute

How to Use LinkedIn Company Pages & Groups from HubSpot All-in-one Marketing Software

Best LinkedIn Company Pages of 2012 from LinkedIn

Here is an excellent infographic that shows the dimensions of LinkedIn Company Pages

New Social Selling research from Aberdeen shows that sales people that leverage social media have a huge impact on revenue and customer retention. Social Selling using the most popular social network for professionals can identify and accelerate opportunities.

Being connected through social networks increases your ability to eliminate cold-calls by focusing on the people you have connections with and maintain those relationships outside of traditional sales processes. By adopting social selling techniques like connecting and sharing relevant content with your network you increase your ability to reach further out than your existing connections in more effective ways that result in more revenue.

This infographic highlights some of the most impactful ways that LinkedIn and Social Selling can help a sales professional.

15% HIGHER CUSTOMER RENEWALS
31% HIT HIGHER TEAM QUOTAS
21% OF THE INDIVIDUAL REPS HIT THEIR QUOTAS

There are hundreds if not thousands of metrics you can track in social media. So how do you decide on which ones you want to focus on? I guess that depends on what results you are most interested in.

I’m pretty vocal that if you’re measuring fans and follower growth as a primary metric that you are making a mistake. Not that these numbers are good to look at but they are only for your vanity. As I said in the ROI of Social Media post, this is skill level one.

Measuring Social Media

If you really want to know how your social media efforts are doing, you should be looking at engagement.

Social engagement is not just retweets but covers a few different metrics that I’ll explain here.

Clicks: Knowing how many clicks your social media updates are generating is a key metric. This measurement can tell you what content is resonating and allows you to do further tracking down to the website or landing page level if the link is directed at your pages.

Mentions and ReTweets: Your brand mentions on social media is another metric that you should be tracking. Overall mentions as well as knowing who is mentioning you is important. Being able to identify influencers and advocates should be a priority.

Unique users engaged: This is an interesting social media metric that few applications can track but I’ve found it to be important. Part of showing growth is being able to measure how many new people you’ve engaged with in social channels. This is a primary metric just like how marketing tracks new leads in the funnel.

Incoming messages: Another social media measurement is track is the number of messages that are coming into the brand. These are people that are talking directly to you and not just sharing your content or mentioning you in their updates. This can be incoming to the brand channel or any of the sub-channels that are used. This is another growth metric and should be used to align resources and show trends.

Sent Messages: This is a social media metric that you should be measuring also. Looking at the incoming tweets, mentions and then crossing that with the number of sent messages from your social marketing team you can see if your actually engaged with the people who are communicating with you. Now I’m not going to say that every mention or incoming message requires a reply but you should be paying attention to it and make sure that there is a checks and balance metric on them.

Individual responsibility: One of the things I find very useful is the idea that everyone on the team is responsible for staying engaged and that no one member on the team is carrying all of the burden of communicating with the community. Being able to measure social media updates down to the individual is important. More important is being able to know WHAT updates are being sent by WHO. Not only for crisis control but to see if members on the social marketing team is getting more engagement than others and being able to report on why.

What other metric do you track that should be added to the list?

Social media is one of the most significant forces reshaping the facets of business and management. Considering that the basic function of management is to empower people to be more productive, this can be assimilated in social media through social crm. If harnessed through customer relations management (CRM), social media can produce financial benefits for businesses. When applying social customer relations management, brand teams need to alter the mindsets they have on social media as well as the traditional brand planning methodologies. In addition, IT resource infrastructure also needs to be developed. Statistics show that about 76% of businesses are using social media for business objectives.

Social customer relations management transforms businesses in the following ways;

Empowers employees to engage customers
Social business empowers employees including B2B sales professionals to act on behave of a company through different social channels. Today, for instance, Dell has pioneered a response analysis, which identifies issues with their brand and products. This enables them solve customer issues proactively. As noted by the Dell’s Chief Listener Susan Beebe, “We have 10,000 Dell employees trained as social media professionals.” Furthermore, Dell has established a social media university and it aims to see all of its employees trained in social media as Beebe further reiterates “…we want a lot more people at Dell trained to be brand ambassadors.”

Models out customers into brand advocates
Building relationship with customers on social media can easily convert these fans into brand and products advocates. They will talk about the brand name and its features to their peers. This helps in enhancing the reputation of a brand. It also helps in building confidence among potential consumers and these can be easily be groomed to become new clients. Through social media, a company’s social program team identifies industry influencers and nurtures them to reach out to the social community with a deep sense and touch of their minds. This manipulates their perceptions about a company and chances their buying behavior. One of the benefits of creating a brand advocacy is that it helps customers sell a company’s product through word of mouth.

Increases company’s sales data
In the rich data markets, profile data that is provided by customers through social media interactions and lead generation processes is segmented based on needs, value, and psychographics to predict the ability of the customers to buy products and services. Social crm integrates both social data and social concepts to engage the customer in a collaborative conversation. A company can collect data about the fans lives, interactions and the social profile information that is available on the social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Social concepts entail advanced thinking about aspects such as online engagement and influence. This also is touched on in the ROI of social selling webinar.

Increases returns on investments
Businesses are swiftly applying social media CRM to develop virtual social communities and create social commerce programs by enhancing customer care and improving consumer research. A Survey done by Nucleus Research has depicted that CRM decision makers were able to establish that organizations can tremendously increased returns on investment by incorporating mobile and social capabilities that can be applied by sales persons.

Social CRM helps sales professionals to be more productive by intertwining social media networking to customer relations management. By monitoring comments made about brands and products, this can give insights on how consumers feel about the products and what improvements they suggest. This helps in product research and formulation.

In essence, the aim of social business is to create and fortify customer relations. Customers are seeking for tangible value, something that businesses are likely to confuse and this means that entities need to intuitively engage the social communities and understand what they really want in a brand. Nonetheless, the bottom-line is that social media when complimented with social crm brings forth great potential where companies can get closer to their customers. This enables businesses to increase revenue, improve on efficiencies and reduce costs.

I don’t know if anyone can claim to have created or invented “social selling” even though I was a part in creating Social Selling University, I know I didn’t invent the term. Back in 2005 I was doing it before I ever knew there was a term for it.

Books like Sales 2.0 from Anneke Seley opened my eyes to a new way of sales that blurred the lines between traditional sales and technology. As a geek, I welcomed the idea that I could find a way to blend tech into my sales efforts and the first and easiest way was to leverage social media.

As a sales person your job is ultimately to sell things and grow revenue. Social networks open up an entirely new game for you to play and it’s a very profitable one.

The early adopters were laughed at and even discouraged from using social media as a tool for driving sales. When I signed up for LinkedIn back in 2005 I saw the potential. It was a growing network of professionals that were getting ‘connected’ with each other.

For the most part the easiest connections were people that you knew. Friends, co-workers and maybe some other people you had come in contact with. Your LinkedIn profile was your online resume that you could outline your entire career in one page. It’s a shame that many people still hold this belief. The LinkedIn profile has evolved and the people reaping the most benefits are the ones that have transformed their profiles from a resume into a business portal. A place that anyone can go to, get information from and communicate with knowledgable people in their industry. Your profile should be used as a resource, not a resume.

Then there was 2007 when I joined Twitter and it all started to make sense. I started connecting the dots between the early adopters of Twitter and my LinkedIn network and seeing that instead of just building a bunch of connections I was able to follow the real time activities of my friends and prospects/customers through their social streams. It opened my mind to a new way to engage and it more than made up for all of the unanswered emails and voicemails I was leaving.

A Twitter profile should be as mandatory as an email address and phone number for sales people. If I ever ran a sales team that would be the directive. If you dont think there is a reason to have a Twitter profile, read The Ultimate Guide to on How to Use Twitter for Social Selling.

Technology has become a necessity in sales. There are blog posts like 5 Tools To Help You Close Sales Deals and 3 Potent Ways to Use Social Media in Sales that give sales people a starting point on applications they should look at using. Not because they are they next shiny objects but because these tools when used effectively can accelerate sales cycles. Best-in-Class sales reps (reps that deployed social selling) companies saw a 16.3% average year-over-year increase in total company revenue, compared to a 4.1% increase for the Industry Average and a 8.7% decrease among Laggards “Social Selling: Best-in-Class Targeting of the Right Message, at the Right Time, for the Right Person” Aberdeen Group; 2012.

Identifying prospects, speeding up the cycles and generating revenue is at the heart of sales.

At the heart of sales people’s jobs is the CRM and over the past year we have even seen that the CRM is no longer enough and that it too has to become social. There was a great post written by Craig Jamieson called Leveraging Social CRM for B2B Salespeople that outlines some of the changes that are being made. Another article asks Should your business invest in social CRM tools? I say that if your company doesnt then you are putting your company at a great disadvantage.

“Sales is an art but you need organizational and proven methods of managing intelligence, so you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.” Wais Asefi, CEO, Textmunication

Many analysts like Gartner and Forrester are also recognizing the need for sales people to become social. CSO Insights has a paper that explains how sales intelligence and social insights can have an impact in revenue.

The Social Selling Expert is Born

The early thought leaders in the space like Jill Konrath aren’t ‘social selling’ experts but they paved the way for the future of sales. They were the only ones that were writing about the art of sales and served as the educators of myself and other sales professionals. It’s because of their adoption in a new method called blogging that sales people and executives started to take notice of how to change business. It wasn’t long before more people started blogging about sales tactics and sales methodology. Now you can’t throw a social rock in the industry without finding some ‘expert’ in sales that is willing to train your teams how to be more effective making phone calls, sending emails and organizing your business.

There are now over 1000 people on LinkedIn with the word “social selling” in their bio. A couple years ago that number was ZERO. I’m excited to see that the term is getting traction. The Social Selling Revolution has made it’s way all the way to the Enterprise and huge corporations are putting time, money and resources into training and equipping their people with best practices and tools to be winners in this new era. Look at placed like IBM and ADP, they are both adopting social selling and even becoming leaders in the space.

Over the past year many tradtional sales methodology trainers have adjusted their positioning to cover social selling and there are people like Barbara Giamanco who wrote the book “The New Handshake: Sales Meets Social Media” who helped pioneer the practical use of social media within sales.

Be careful of the “experts”. There are some great people and organizations out there that know a lot about social selling, best practices and ways to implement it, but there are also many people that call themselves experts that are really good at optimizing your LinkedIn profile and that’s the extent of their expertise. Before anyone starts sending me tweets about how that’s offensive, let me explain…

Social selling is bigger than one network . It’s the ability to leverage social networks in a way that builds and leverages your connections to get the job done. There are many social networks out there, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook are the big 3 in the US. and being an expert in LinkedIn doesn’t make you an expert in social selling. It’s a great start though.

The Future of B2B Sales is Social

The future of sales is a social one. As I said earlier, companies that don’t adopt social selling and that don’t find a way to put that social intelligence into their CRM will be at a huge disadvantage in the market. Executives need to start planning on how they are going to enable their sales teams with next generation tools that will make their sales teams more effective.

Technology is a double edge sword. Just as sales people are moving into the future, the buyers are already ahead of us.

Email technology has made it so that I don’t get junk anymore. It’s filed away automatically based on flags or even my behavior. If you’re not someone I’ve communicated with before or don’t have a connection to, I will probably never see your email. Tools like SaneBox or even good ol’ GMail only serve up the email that I want to read and if something slips through it take a click of the mouse to make sure it never gets past again.

Advanced phone systems now have virtual gatekeepers and eventually your phone will know if you want to be bothered by a caller based on your behavior, your contacts and your phone logs. I’ll be buying stock in that company when it’s created.

Applications like InsideView changed the game and have disrupted the sales  role by giving sales people the ability to cut down research time, gather actionable insights and leverage their connections in new ways. Besides getting general information sales people can now look at multiple social insights of their customers/prospects and engage with them with more relevance than ever before. [granted I work there but this isn't a paid advertisement]

We are going to see the application of social selling increase across every industry. Its not a matter of if, but when it’s going to touch your company.

Businesses large and small use Twitter and Facebook to communicate directly with their customers. Social media allows us to announce new products and campaigns and build free brand awareness. However, social media isn’t a one way street. Customers can use social media as easily as companies, and when they complain on social media, everyone can see it.

Regardless of your company size or industry, you need to monitor social media. This is a pretty universally accepted concept, but implementing a formal process in your organization for social monitoring can take be a lot more difficult. A lot of organizations think of social media as an add-on to traditional processes rather than a transformative trend that’s going to change the way businesses operate forever. The fact that you’re reading this on our blog suggest that you fit into the latter category – as we do – and still face resistance to social media integration with business processes. Here are a few reasons we’ve found to work well to help the resistors see the light:

Collecting Customer Feedback

Rolling out customer satisfaction surveys can take a lot more time than simply reading through tweets and Facebook posts. Some companies, such as Square, set up Twitter feeds just to collect customer feedback. Responding to a survey can take a lot more effort than shooting off a quick Tweet, and a lot of customers have figured that out. Customers also tend to get incredibly vocal on social media in the heat of a moment of frustration with your products. They put their feedback in their own words, and you can learn exactly when, why, and from whom complaints or praises arise. You can then adjust products or processes to fix errors, or you can reward customer loyalty that you may not have discovered. You could spend three weeks building a traditional case study, or you could spend three minutes creating a Storify of great customer quotes. Which would you rather do?

Gauging Real-time Reactions

When you launch new campaigns, tracking them in social media is just as important as tracking them in your CRM. CRM and marketing automation tracking show you who engages with your campaigns as well as what they click on, but social media allows you to get real feedback. Companies may have figured out how to manufacture shares and likes, but you can still collect the personalized messages that your customers send about your campaigns. Social media also allows you to quickly take advantage of news events that are trending so you can gain publicity in areas that you’ve never before been able to. Twitter has completely disrupted the PR industry. Getting a press release on the wire is expensive and can be timely. Releasing it on your blog and promoting it via social media can get it front of a lot more eyes a lot quicker, and a lot cheaper.

Enriching Sales Presentations

Social media offers sales reps an unbelievably easy way to validate statements without using statistics. If you want to prove that people are unhappy with your competitor’s product, what better way to do so than to compile a list of angry tweets and put it in your presentation? If you want to demonstrate that marketing executives face a debilitating problem that you can solve, why not display tweets from real marketing executives facing those problems?

Unveiling Connections

Perhaps one of the most untapped benefits of social media is it’s ability to reveal connections that you wouldn’t otherwise know you have. LinkedIn is great because it shows you your professional network and the professional networks of your colleagues, but what about all your personal contacts that aren’t on LinkedIn? Your previous employer’s network? Your education network? Your reference customers’ networks? LinkedIn has a ways to go before its a universal connection solution, but even so, finding one person to whom you’re connected can make the difference between a three month nurturing process and a quick reference phone call.

As sales reps, do we really care about the ROI of the company Twitter feed if it doesn’t help us win the deals in our pipeline?

We put together a few tips and tricks sales reps can use to take advantage of social media for their sales efforts.

Add Powerful Prospects
Your connections on a social network comprise the most important part of it. We don’t Tweet to ourselves, we Tweet to our audience. And people don’t sign up for Twitter to hear themselves talk. Build a list of 50 influential executives in your industry, and follow them on Twitter. ReTweet them, respond to their tweets – engage with them. You may not manage to catch their attention, but you may end up catching the attention of decision-makers or social media influencers in your industry. Decision-makers are much more likely to respond to a sales call from a rep who’s on their radar than they are to respond to a stranger.

Always Provide Value
Never send a Tweet just because it’s been a while since your last Tweet. To engage your followers, provide some valuable content. If you don’t have any, ReTweet. Subscribe to websites that provide content and news about your area of expertise, and share the content they provide. Send links through Twitter, and include your commentary whenever you can. The more of a personality you have, the more followers you’ll collect.

Furthermore, generating a discussion about a professional topic is the best way to increase interest in your company and products on Twitter. Not to mention that Twitter engagement/discussion can open rare opportunities to discuss relevant topics with industry experts.

Follow Your Prospects
Follow every target account on your list, as well as your target contacts at those accounts. Information hits Twitter very quickly after its release – sometimes even quicker than traditional news sources. Be the first to hear about new challenges or opportunities that your prospects face so you always have a reason to call them. People also Tweet about their personal interests and lives. Learn something about your prospect that isn’t in a database, and use that insight in a conversation. If you find out your prospect is a huge fan of the San Francisco Giants, bring it up in a conversation.

Offer Assistance
If your prospects ask questions on Twitter, or express concerns over a business decision, offer your help. Send them useful content when you can. Dissatisfied customers love to Tweet their woes. Search for negative Tweets directed at competitors, and reach out to the authors of those Tweets with helpful information about superior products.

This year is no exception with some of the biggest names in business like Sir. Richard Branson of Virgin Group. This is a video that shows all of the speakers coming this year to Dreamforce 2012.

Here are some amazing stats about the growing problem and the booming business of fake profiles on Twitter.

• 39% of @facebook followers are fake
• 34% of @ladygaga followers are fake
• 31% of @justinbeiber followers are fake
• 32% of @katyperry followers are fake
• 32% of @espn followers are fake
• 33% of @britneyspears followers are fake
• 27% of @youtube followers are fake

Social Selling Software – InsideView.com

Although social business is a relatively new aspect in business, it is steadily and successfully being employed across different types of businesses. It has proven to be an effectual business engagement especially to businesses which have many employees and a wide clientele base. The effectiveness of social business is attributed to fact that it actively engages all the principles in the general operation of the overall business.

These principles are made up of the core business communities which include employees, employers, customers, analysts, prospects, user groups, suppliers, donors, analysts, grassroots supporters and user groups. For transcendent business results, each of these communities takes up an active participation in the daily running of a company. This is in complete contrast to the traditional business set up, which granted all the business operational powers to the main executives.

Just like many other significant business strategies, the development process of a social business is gradually implemented in stages. Here are the main developmental stages for a business developing from a traditional set-up to a full social business set-up.

1. Traditional Stage

Businesses in this stage operate through the common business channels, where there is a minimal link between the customers and the employees and/or executive. The clients provide very minimal feedback on the products and/or services. Due to the minimal interaction with the customers, the businesses do not consider taking advantage of social media. Additionally, the marketing is mainly done through the traditional marketing methods of newspapers, magazines and television commercials.

2. Experimental Stage

In this stage, the interaction with customers is still minimal although better than the traditional stage. The employees gather feedback from them, which is later analyzed by a group of individuals commonly referred to as mavericks. In addition to that, the mavericks also monitor the social circles on how different business communities relate to the specific brand. Although there is no formal social business structure, the mavericks will begin experimenting and advocating for a social business. After witnessing the experimental social business results, the enthusiasm spreads among the employees in the entire company as the executives start considering social business as a viable option.

3. Operational Stage

Unlike the previous stage where social business is experimented in chosen departments, the aspect now becomes operational in all the departments. All the business communities (employees, employers, analysts, consultants, customers, supporters etc) and their roles are adequately defined before they are gradually integrated into the social business. Individual leaders from each of the communities are expected to monitor and analyze the transcendent results. For excellent implementation and analysis, only ideal and measurable channels are used in the social business.

4. Measurable Stage

The social interactions are better and more solid compared to the previous stages. The interaction with the customers is especially beneficial since the sales productivity significantly improves. The central team then presents the exceptional social business results to the executives. Each aspect of the business, including the interactions between the major business communities, channels used, ROI of social media is effectively analyzed. If the executives are content with the results, they give a green light for the full engagement of social business. The general perception of the company changes as the individual business communities gradually embrace social business. All the social business tools are effectually optimized and training is done on new social business channels as they are being integrated into the overall business structure.

5. Fully Operational Stage

All the business communities fully implement this business structure. There is maximum interaction between them and special attention is paid to the customer relationships. Customers, on the other hand, appreciate the relationship between them and the different company levels. This meritoriously keeps them loyal to the business. The sales and the overall company revenue drastically improve as the employees and executives embrace this as a major business breakthrough.

While many B2B sales executives do not realize it, sales volume and sales productivity are not the same thing. Without good sales productivity, it can cost a company quite a bit of overhead to make just one sale. However, with good sales productivity, it can lower your business costs and increase profits. Here are a few strategies to increase sales productivity.

It’s not about you.

Being great at B2B sales means being great at relationships. People are not just buying a product or service; they are initially buying a relationship with you. If they do not trust you, they will likely not buy from you no matter what you have to offer. So, the first step to increasing your sales is to get to know your client.

This looks like a normal conversation with a friend. Ask them questions. Ask them about the family, what they do for a living, what they like about it, what they don’t like about and what they do for recreation or what they would like to do for recreation. The key to this is to listen, let them talk.

I know it seems a little overboard, and may even feel like you are prying; however, people love to talk about themselves. In fact, they become interested in those who are interested in them. Plus, you will find that the more that they talk about themselves, the more they will reveal what they like, dislike, want and need, leaving you an opening to give them just that.

A more passive and smarter way of this would be to use sales intelligence to uncover things about the prospect that you may not get a chance to ask them about or give you some excellent material to start conversations with.

Present to your client

Now that you know about your client and they have begun to know like and trust you, and you have gathered exactly what their wants and needs are, you can begin your presentation. It is important to already have a presentation outline in place, however, now that you know what your client is looking for, you can customize it to reinforce what they just told you about themselves. Here is an example.

Let’s say that you are in marketing, you are talking to a business owner, and after getting to know him, he tells you that he loves what he does but he is overwhelmed with trying to do in house marketing. It has affected the time that he spends at home with his family. So you could say, “We can implement a customized marketing plan for your company that will allow you to save not only money because you are outsourcing it for a lower cost per hour than doing it in house, but also save you time so that you are able to spend less time at work and more time at home with your family.” The more that you can add their personal interests to your presentation the better.

Ask the closing question.

More often than not, after presenting to the client many sales executives end right there, they neglect to ask the closing question and leave the closing up to the client. They assume that after the presentation, the client will automatically decide to buy their product or service. However, believe it or not, most people like to be told what to do, which makes the closing question not optional to raise your sales productivity.

The key to remember is that the closing question is not “would you like to get started now?” The closing question is a question that gives them an option but not the option to say yes or no. Here is an example.

“So is Monday at 8 or 9am good to meet together so that we can get started working on generating a marketing campaign to get higher sales for your company and allowing you to spend less time on marketing and more time at home with your family?

Remember that sales productivity is not based on the products you sale, or the amount of volume you do, it is based on how well you can relate to people. The better you relate to people, the better your B2B sales skills will get. The better your skills become, the less time, effort and money you will be spending with each client; therefore your sales productivity will rise as well as your profits.

Social business is a buzzword which is not really clear to most individuals. Contrary to popular belief, social business is not the aspect of business which involves the use of online social networks. It is rather a business strategy which is aimed at effectually improving the overall performance in the individual businesses which employ it. Just as its name suggests, social business encourages connectivity and active participation of all the communities in a business.

These communities are made of employees, customers, employers, analysts, donors, volunteers, consultants, suppliers, business partners, prospects, user groups and grassroots supporters. These are all the parties involved in the running of a business. Therefore, social business refers to an organization’s ability to take advantage of all its communities for an improved business performance. This is a different strategy compared to the traditional business approach, where the business and its operational factors are entirely controlled by the executive.

There are many benefits of social business to the individual contributing communities and the general business. Employees are among the main beneficiaries of this strategy, especially when it is compared to the traditional business strategy. Social enterprises excellently improve the general employee advocacy. Employees are empowered and they feel appreciated as major contributors to the general success of a business. This empowerment helps them develop their individual skills especially in communication through the external and internal social tools.

Secondly, social business improves the customer relationships. Customers are usually considered the main driving forces of each business. In fact, without sufficient customers, a business would obviously crumble. Therefore, it is expected that all the communities involved in social business direct their resources and energy to improving customer relations in a bid to please the customers and attract many more. The commitment of all the parties in this especially the employees is very crucial in improving the general customer relationship management.

Social business significantly improves the marketing of an organization or business. All the involved parties work together to come up with effectual and creative marketing strategies. After this, they collectively supervise the implementation of these strategies and observe their results. This is a much more improved and effective marketing management initiative compared to the traditional approach where executives would just pay marketing consultants to handle this entirely.

Social business also improves the general business innovation among the employees. Once the employees are empowered and feel trusted enough to be included in the critical decision making process, they communicate more on their business ideas. A good number of these ideas later develop to become significant innovations which boost the organizations. This is where the ROI of social media is mostly experienced.

Finally, social business also improves the unity and communication within an organization. All the involved parties feel appreciated and critical to the development of the business, which in turn improves the general operations within an organization or business. Therefore, social business is a very good and effective business strategy which most organizations should consider undertaking.

What’s the difference?
How social discovery takes social networking a step further

Most people on Facebook have “friends” that they know or have met in real life. Family members, social pals, people you went to high school with, those you’ve met on business trips or at events, and friends of friends make up the majority of Facebook social networks.

So how is social discovery different? Instead of finding friends online so you can stay in touch with them, you get in touch with people online so you can make new friends.

Social discovery isn’t based on real-life relationship foundations. With this strategy, you connect with strangers on the basis of shared interests, geographical proximity, or even randomly. The get-to-know-you phase comes after the initial connection.

Popular social discovery sites

While social discovery is new in terms of massive popularity, it’s not new to the Internet. A bunch of social discovery sites have been around for years, and are now enjoying huge traffic spikes and user sign-ups as Internet denizens turn to social discovery to spice up their friend feeds:

• Tagged, a social discovery site with more than 100 million current users that emphasizes meeting new people, was founded in 2004.
•  StumbleUpon first appeared in 2001, with the purpose of helping people discover new websites of interest by randomly “stumbling” through links grouped by categories or similar content. The site now has 25 million users.
•  Pinterest, an “online pinboard” that introduces users to people with shared interests in clothing, recipes, hobbies, pets, and more, launched for invite-only beta testing in March 2011—and already has more than 10 million registered users.
• Mobile apps like Highlight, Sonar, and Facebook’s new Find Friends Nearby, allow you to instantly connect with strangers who are in your immediate geographical vicinity.

Discovery and social business

The popularity of social discovery is good news for social enterprises, who can now find more ways than ever to reach out to customers and potential customers. In fact, social discovery lets customers quickly find businesses that interest them, and makes it easier to connect with those companies.

For the most part, social discovery is breathing new life into the slight staleness of social networks. This can only lead to good things.

Whether your goal is to boost sales productivity, increase awareness about a service, or raise funds for a social cause, effective use of social media is critical. Knowing how to engage people is fundamental to social media success.

According to Jennifer Aaker, a Stanford professor of marketing, “You can’t use social media effectively unless you know how to capture people’s emotions.” When the objective is to spread the word about your product, service or campaign, you need people to care enough to share your link, message or images with others.

Understanding Social Business

The term “social business” has historically been used to refer to social enterprise intended to help and advocate for the disadvantaged. Increasingly, the term refers to creating businesses that are truly social and which interact in meaningful ways with clients, the public, prospective employees, and people at all levels of the organization.

ROI of Social Media

As businesses look to expand and educate the public about the benefits of their products and services, using social media becomes more important. Social media tools can assist with everything from employee hiring to cost cutting to sales increases. For example, a website design firm can stay connected with high-quality designers on Twitter and inform them directly about job openings. A B2B sales software company can interact directly with clients on Facebook and Twitter, eliminating costs associated with using other middlemen.

Engaging Your Audience

Numerous strategies exist for attracting attention via social media tools like Twitter. Writing helpful blog posts on topics of interest to clients and posting links on Twitter and Facebook are common practices. Offering your website or blog visitors the option of receiving blog post updates via email increases the percentage of website visits.

Social Media Marketing

One of the best ways to use social media is to allow your target audience to do your marketing for you. Zappos, an online clothing and shoe company, has a TweetWall that highlights the products that customers have just recommended to others. Starting a YouTube channel is another effective way to elaborate on your offering and allow viewers to post their feedback, interact with one another, and share video links with friends.

Staying Connected

Stay in touch with your target audience by using Facebook, Twitter and similar social media tools. For example, if you run a dental practice, ask your patients to join you on Facebook. The next time a new dentist joins your practice, you can post his or her bio and picture to keep your patients informed.

Staying connected via social media also allows you to understand the needs and opinions of your audience. Take the time to read the posts of your followers and become familiar with their interests.

You’ll know that your social media efforts are on the right track when you begin to see higher numbers of website visitors, comments and followers, indicating that people are engaged, sharing links and genuinely interested in what you have to offer.

One of the easiest ways to increase B2B sales productivity is to continue to sell to current customers. This is done by actively creating and nurturing a relationship with them. It takes far less time, energy and money to sell to a current customer than to sell to new customers. Many salespeople make the mistake of not following up after the first sale. But by implementing an after sale plan, a company can increase sales with repeat buyers.

Keep in Regular Contact with Customers

A good way to remain in touch after a sale is through email. In most cases, a salesperson has the customer’s email address. Sending periodic emails with information about new products or upcoming sales is a good way to bring about new orders. Any method of communication works to build a relationship. Sending tweets on Twitter, a newsletter, text messages on smartphones or automated phone messages are all ways to remind customers that your company offers products or services that they need.

Ask for Feedback

Another way to follow up with customers is to ask them how the product or service they purchased from you is working out. Many customers are eager to discuss their experiences or may have questions. Getting feedback offers companies the chance to learn what areas of the company need improvement. A company dedicated to great customer experiences can expect more repeat business. By asking customers for their opinions, you show that you value them and this is an excellent way to nurture the business relationship.

Nurture the Relationship

When following up with customers, it is important not to bombard them with sales information and promotions. This aggressive hard sell may put some people off. A better approach is to offer useful information to the customers. Articles on the industry, videos or tutorials on the products, or case studies about how the products have helped other customers are other methods for keeping in touch while also nurturing the relationship.

Make Product Suggestions

After you get to know a customer, you are in a better position to recommend other products or services he may be interested in. This is a very effective way to increase sales. Since you have listened to the customer and showed interest in helping him, the customer is more willing to accept your product or service suggestions.

If you don’t follow up with customers after every sale, you are missing a chance for repeat sales. Customers often buy related items down the road, and by nurturing a relationship with them, it is far more likely they will contact you when they are ready to buy. Smart salespeople understand that following up is an important part of the sales process. With regular contact, you create long-term repeat customers.

SOURCE: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cushinglibrary/4115001779/sizes/m/in/photostream/

For those keeping track of the sales evolution, there is an underlying aspect of it all that has remained constant throughout history.

What is that common, ever evolving element? It is that the business of selling has always been a social business.

While there are moments in history one could point to where the sales process has been more impersonal. It seems that in recent years the process has not only returned full circle, but moved on to a new level entirely.

Companies have traditionally tried to multiply their results by multiplying their efforts, a fact that remains true today. Instead, they are now reaping the reward of a digital revolution that has given them a socially acceptable way of interacting with potential consumers that is no longer seen as a hard sell.
So to further understand the future we take a look back at how the sales process has evolved throughout history and how it has drastically changed in the last twenty years.

A brief history of sales

What simply began as a way of fulfilling the basic necessities of existence, the art of bartering for the most part, was done amongst people from different areas that each had their own special product to offer the world. It was a grueling process in which people would have to set out on complex journeys just to bring back the desired goods and supplies.

This method continued to develop over hundreds and thousands of years as enterprising merchants began to take to the road, roaming from region to region to spread the various merchandise they collected during their travels.

As the population grew, so did the cities. Add to that mix the creation of a government or ‘ruler’ backed currency and the buying and selling of goods rapidly stepped into a new millennium.

The evolution of sales in recent years

From those traditional beginnings came our first modern sales person. These old fashion suit-and-tie types are the reason we have sayings like, “hitting the pavement.” That is because before technology a sales representative, regardless of their product, had to hit the streets and make their sales in person.

This person-to-person contact allowed real relationships to be built and allowed the confidence one had in those they were dealing with that they weren’t going to be taken advantage of. It was a time when sales people put their reputation on the line as the bridge between manufacturer and consumer. When a deal could be considered done with a good old handshake.

Then, as the telephone gained popularity and home installations grew, sales begun to transition from face-to-face exchanges into something less personal. Without having to expend the same energy to travel a territory, businesses were able to set up phone farms and run their sales teams from a central call center. Even with the public showing its distain for the technique this move to telemarketing has had a long and successful run producing new sales.

As we entered the 21st century, both face-to-face selling and telemarketing were still widely being used. However, a new and inexpensive way of communicating was about to be introduced. This new method of communicating was email.

Now, instead of showing up on someones doorstep or interrupt them by calling during dinner, a salesman could send an email message to their prospects email address and follow up from there. Unfortunately too many began relying on the belief that sales are strictly a numbers game and the byproduct was something called ‘spam.’

As things tend to do when they grow and evolve the time between advancement grows shorter and shorter. We spent thousands of years travelling to make a sale, a few decades on the telephone, and then only a few years utilizing email to reach the public.

In all of sales, the ultimate by product of doing an exceptional job has always been the word-of-mouth endorsement of a product or service when a consumer’s expectation is exceeded. This brings us to our newest sales trend, social media.

This new ‘social selling’ has allowed the consumer to be more empowered throughout the sales process and for the first time in our history we have given the masses the tools to do the selling with us.
How has technology made the sales person more effective? Even Twitter which was mainly a personal or marketers tool for broadcasting has become a impactful medium for sales people.

Online strategists, Activated Strategies points out, first through humor then comparison, that there are quite a few evolutions to the sales process that have occurred just in the last twenty years.

For example in the early 1990’s sales professionals would construct the “reason to buy” a product, while today we ask the customers what they need and how they would like us to deliver it. Then we build our solutions to match their desires.

Twenty years ago we found ways to “counter” our customer’s complaints, now we listen to the consumer’s trepidations and design ways to resolve them.
It’s the way we handle these “trigger events” that has changed.

In the 90’s we’d use manipulative phrases or customer guiding “sales words” to lure in new clients. Now, customers appreciate and respond when we simply use a natural dialogue as if we are having a real conversation. That is because we know that our intentions are pure, the way we convey that will come naturally.

We used to be centered on this attitude that was combative towards anyone we were in competition with. We believed that someone needed to lose before we could win. Now, we have begun to work as partners. Finding that it is possible for everyone to win, because in the end we either all win or no one will.

These friendlier trends have led to the executives even following other executives social profiles in an attempt to stay connected, informed, and available for collaboration whenever it’s feasible.

On another note, we used to believe that everyone was a potential customer. So we cast our nets far and wide with hopes of pulling in the most return. Fortunately, that old belief has now changed to be more about the customer’s desire. If they don’t want what we are selling, why would we waste the energy?

Instead, we now have social networks in which like-minded and interested individuals opt-in to be part of the process. This has given rise to more of a social enterprise that puts the buyers and sellers more or less on the same side.

And that’s what we call the inevitable and almighty evolution of sales.

Want to find out this can apply to your business? Learn more here: Sales Intelligence – InsideView

Customers in all niches and industries are increasingly resistant to traditional sales messages and advertising. Some of this has to do with the changing nature of communication. As customers and prospects consume more of their information through internet media, their expectation has been to trust those answers that they find themselves more enthusiastically than those that are presented to them. With a firm understanding of what ails them in either their personal of business life; prospects are now able to seek their answers on the world wide-web, whether that occurs on search engines or through social media.

Webinars work best when promoted as solutions to problems.

Before a customer or prospect gets the answer that they are seeking, there is a process of information sorting. In most cases, they have to go through the process of educating themselves on the depth and nature of their problems as well as the available solutions. Once that process has been completed, these same future customers can evaluate the solutions that are going to be worth their time to purchase.
In this new context customers are selling themselves on what will work best for them. This has become an everyday occurrence for consumers solving personal problems. The proliferation of websites that have various user ‘review’ sections are evidence of this expectation from buyers for more pre-sale information.

The question then becomes how can a business enter into this conversation of trust with a prospect? Providing too much information without successfully outlining the benefits can lead to a confused prospect and subsequently ruin the sale. However, it is clear that prospects are desirous of more information before they trust sellers. One way that a seller can provide this level of trust is to bring new prospects and customers on to a webinar.

A webinar is an audio-visual presentation delivered from the computer systems of the seller to the computer system of the buyer. The seller is broadcasting content privately to a group of people who have volunteered to receive the information. Although the seller can use the webinar to give those who attend, a traditional sales message; that is typically not the most effective way to use the medium. What works best is to use the medium is to present information to solve a difficult problem the prospect is having.

This method is effective for three reasons. First, the prospect is attracted to sign up for the webinar based on the information that they want to receive, not necessarily on the product. Webinars work best when promoted as solutions to problems. Those individuals who have a desire to have their problem solved will take their time to attend the live broadcast or get a recording of it.

Second, the seller trades the solution for the contact information of the prospect. In order to receive the information in the broadcast, the prospect has to register with their name, email address and other pertinent information. This means that the seller knows that the attendee has an interest in solving a certain problem with the resources to contact them.

Third, the seller has the opportunity to help the prospect understand the depth of their problem. The webinar is less of a B2B sales pitch, and more of an opportunity to build a bond with a future customer by sharing a real understanding of their problem. By providing this information without charging the individual for it helps to establish trust.

Lastly, the webinar is promoted as an event which increases the perception of urgency on the part of the buyer. Knowing that someone is presenting a solution to their problem on a certain date without the promise of repeating it makes the webinar more of a priority in the prospect’s mind.

The information provided on the webinar, when combined with the resources to contact the prospect helps the company to accomplish two major goals during the webinar event:

1. It establishes the potential for a long term relationship
2. It establishes the potential for the company to find out what the prospect’s true needs are

A company can end the webinar by either providing information on how the customer can best solve their dilemma, or make a special offer (not available to those on the webinar) for a particular product or service. When managed tactfully, a webinar can produce fantastic results in terms of in event sales. By providing the best of its most helpful information, the company is able to break through a potential trust barrier and put themselves on the side of the buyer. This is what powers webinars to position companies and their salespersons for long term relationships.

As a salesperson one of the primary factors that must be settled for you to be most effective is yours or your company’s unique selling proposition (USP). The USP is that unique position that you occupy in the minds of both your prospective and existing customers. It is vital because it determines the reason why somebody chooses to make a purchase from you. Ultimately, the USP should encapsulate the sum total of what a prospect experiences as you do business with them. If it doesn’t reflect their experience, it is unlikely that you will see them again.

The unique selling proposition is born out of the answer to two basic questions: First, why do your customers buy from your company? Secondly, if they have chosen not to buy from you, why should they do so in the future? These are important questions for every company to answer; and the reason is simple: a prospect needs to have a reason in their mind to choose you. If they don’t, your company’s position with that customer or prospect can be taken by company that CAN give them a reason that matters to them.

A company’s USP is typically defined by what makes it most competitive and unique. It is the factor or factors that set it apart from companies like it. Companies should be providing those things that their competition doesn’t, in a way that is valuable to the B2B sales prospect. That unique additional value will continue to rest on the mind of the customer to bring them back to you. Companies can create this unique value in four basic ways:

1. Price
   Although difficult to maintain, one way to maximize the USP is to become the lowest price leader in your class. Companies like Wal-Mart have mastered the practice, but it is evident that there are not many firms like that. This is one area to be cautious of before deciding that a price advantage can be maintained.
2. Differentiation
   This advantage is created by companies that consistently do something better or different than the competition. It is important to note here again that the differentiation factor must truly matter to the customer.
3. Niche
   This is a focus on a particular subset of the market that other companies choose not enter due to its degree of difficulty to maintain.
4. Value
   This is the ability of your company to provide a higher level of quality and service to your customers.

When a company doesn’t position themselves in the marketplace based on their USP, the only factor for the prospect to use will be price. They truly don’t have any other good reason to come to you. When you are competing on the basis of price, the only way to maintain market share is for a company to take less profit on sale. On the other hand, when a USP is carefully crafted, a company can charge a premium price on its products, in some cases, and remain competitive. Defining a unique selling proposition can be a powerful element of a company’s profitability.

Because this concept can have such a pronounced effect on the company’s profitability, it’s important to discuss the defining characteristics of a USPs that works:

1. It answers the question, why should people do business with your company and not its competitors.
2. It is brief. Experts believe that a USP should be less than 100 words long.
3. It is specific in areas of quality, service, selection and guarantee
4. It cannot and does not double as a mission statement
5. It fills a competitive void in the marketplace
6. It matters to prospects and customers
7. It is easy to execute at high levels of excellence.

Whether you develop a USP for your company or for yourself as an individual salesperson, a solid USP is the cornerstone of your marketing. It is foundational and should come before any marketing and sales tactics because it starts and ends in a prospective customer’s mind. Savvy sales professionals can catapult their sales effectiveness, by working from that foundation to build and maintain customer relationships.

In today’s hyper-competitive market for products and services, a salesperson can position themselves before they actually meet a client for the first time. This positioning does not involve sales tactics or “breakthrough” methods. It is a matter of presenting one’s self as a B2B sales expert on solving the unique problems of prospects and customers in their niche. Salespeople that consistently make their expertise known in the marketplace can become sought-after specialists. There are direct benefits for doing this. Those who are successful at making their proficiency public knowledge typically have the option of asking for premium compensation.

Marketers and salespeople have more tools than ever to publish their expertise, due to the proliferation of venues provided by the internet. A salesperson can create expert content about solutions within their chosen industry and post it:

1.) On Blogs
2.) In Whitepapers
3.) In Podcasts
4.) In Internet Videos
5.) In Press Releases

The internet allows for this information to be found by those seeking it using their connected devices. However, the fact that this content is easy to publish can be as much of a curse as it is a blessing. The ease of publication means that everyone can publish in these venues. What follows then is also true: all content can be made to be equally ‘findable’ on the web. The fact that a marketer’s content is findable, may not necessarily have to do with the level of expertise expressed. This means that a salesperson’s true expertise may be lost among the vast amounts of data published on a particular topic.

This potential for information overload from internet searches often drives professionals to their own industry related journals for solutions to their most perplexing problems. This helps them to get high quality information, by relying on experienced editors who only allow those things to be published that will be of benefit to the readers. Therefore the solutions found within industry journals have established trust by default.

However, salespeople who wish to be position themselves as experts often follow the practice of publishing to be recognized among their peers. This means that they tend to seek to be published in their own industry’s journals and not those of their potential prospects. While being published in a sales or marketing journal does provide professional credibility, it doesn’t necessarily bring a salesperson any closer to their prospect or customer. An interesting question to ask would be, where is my potential prospect more likely to read an article, in a sales journal or their own industry journal? The answer of course is very clear: they will read about the problems in their own industry journal.

Trade journal editors are often looking for good helpful content for their readers. While they are unlikely to want to have a 500 word sales pitch written by a salesperson; they typically love to have solutions that demonstrate knowledge of the industry from those who present them. This provides an enormous opportunity for salespersons and marketers who are willing to undertake the work of engaging editors of industry trade publications to solve problems causing the industry angst.

For example, a salesperson who markets to the construction niche probably already has a considerable amount of knowledge of the problems in that industry. Having helpful content in that industry’s trade journal provides weight to the claim of commitment to and understanding of its unique problems. But in addition to that, a salesperson gains valuable information from the field as to what the industry is truly wrestling with.

Therefore the first step is to contact the Editor of a niche trade journal to find out what the real issues are. Of course, there will be a time to propose content to them. However, to get an article published, the Editor must view the salesperson’s understanding of their (the industry’s) problems as helpful to their readers.

To have content published in an industry trade journal provides benefits to a salesperson that go beyond the contacts they make. It truly positions them as an expert at providing solutions and sets them apart from their peers. While stating that one is dedicated to an industry can be credible; being able to point to an article, reviewed by industry professionals demonstrates that commitment .

7 Tips to use Facebook for a Value-Added Customer Experience

1. Make sure you have a professional photo, and that it’s up to date. What’s the point in meeting a new client if they are jarred by how different you look from that 20-year old photo? Have a professional photographer take a photo of you in professional clothes.
2. Build up your friends list after you have made one or two initial posts. People aren’t likely to add someone as a friend if the friend’s profile is completely empty. If you have a website and email address, make sure you’ve uploaded the exact addresses you want customers to use. Don’t use your personal email, for example, if you don’t want to receive business emails there.
3. Consider adding a “Tuesday Tip” or similar project that reminds you to post once per week and provides some sort of valuable information to your friends list.
4. Before making your profile completely public and inviting new friends, have someone else look it over for typos. Make sure all your contact information is up to date and accurate and that the links work.
5. Check regularly on the page for people who might have posted questions, new friend requests, or messages. Your prompt response, especially to new prospects, could make the difference in closing a deal later on down the road.
6. Limit your posts to 2-3 per week. If people feel overwhelmed by the amount of information you post, and especially if they don’t feel that information is valuable, they will “defriend” you and not see any of your posts. Before each post, consider the goal of posting this information and what you hope to achieve. In this case, quality is always better than quantity.
7. If you partner up with people in the community, make sure to tag those people in relevant posts. For example: “Excited to work with @Eagle Bank for our new fundraiser for the Cancer Society!”. Then your post will not only show up on your Facebook page, but theirs as well, reaching out to a whole new group of people.

Facebook can be a powerful tool to connect with old and new clients and spread the word about your business. Keeping these tips in mind will allow you to use Facebook in a way that creates business for you and value for your clients.

Once the consumer world shifted primarily online, the business world followed. The move to relating to the customer who absorbs and shares products and information in 140 characters or less culminated with the rise of social customer relationship management (CRM). The market for social CRM, and the applications it has produced to track customer habits, relationships and activity via social media platforms, has drastically orbited into relevance in the past year.

Everyone is abuzz about social CRM, and social CRM applications are now a must have. The market for social CRM is decidedly up, while the global business market is learning how to operate within it. The results so far have been positive, but one glaring issue has come to the surface: Not all businesses are making a return on investment (ROI) with their social CRM strategies.

“For the 50 percent of Fortune 1000 organizations not determining, or even measuring, ROI, ignorance will mean failed projects,”

If the social CRM applications a business is using, whether they’re to monitor customer activity or manage cross-selling, aren’t earning that business money, then what is the point? Vendors and buyers in the social CRM market are wrestling to find the answer now, since social CRM has proven worthwhile otherwise. For example,

• Productivity in sales teams using social CRM increased by more than 25 percent.
• Sales representatives have a better picture and understanding of the customer via insight into their online profiles.
• Businesses seem more “in touch” with their consumer base when they are interacting with them in the same social media community.
• Business-to-business (B2B) social CRM applications allow sales teams to share pertinent information about consumer habits and organize them into a more clear database.
• Sales teams can better track a customer’s satisfaction post-purchase.

Clearly, social CRM strategies are worth keeping. Now, the market is moving to hone the much-talked about trend into a more stable, money-making venture. Afterall, a trend only becomes a permanent strategy once its ROI prove to be continually beneficial.

Information technology research group Gartner looked into the ROI of social CRM applications earlier this year and discovered that only half of the Fortune 500 companies using social CRM will receive a worthwhile ROI from their social initiatives. Essentially, the research results elicited the proverbial shout of, “Not so fast!”

As much as the findings were surprising, they didn’t cast a failing grade on the social CRM experiment. Instead, it highlighted the holes in the social approach to customer management and sales. In short, it found that social CRM needed to be more comprehensive in tying improved customer relations to an improved ROI.

“For the 50 percent of Fortune 1000 organizations not determining, or even measuring, ROI, ignorance will mean failed projects,” said Adam Sarner, research director at Gartner. “Among the companies who will not see a worthwhile return, only 20 percent will even have the data to evaluate where their social strategy is falling short. These organizations will be unable to justify future funding.”

The report highlighted that companies have yet to determine how to properly track the ROI gained from social CRM, as well as implement RIO strategies. Success of social CRM strategies had to be linked to actual dollars as opposed to the number of retweets a company received, according to the report.

“ROI, measurable business value and budget justification for social projects are becoming unavoidable topics for many organizations,” Sarner said.

Although the ROI for companies using social CRM is hanging in balance, the market for the social applications is going up, up and up. The market for social CRM is expected to surpass $1 billion by year-end 2012, according to Gartner. The predicted is a jump from the previous year, where revenue reached about $820 million. The market is expected to continue to grow with 30 percent of social CRM spending coming on the business-to-business side, too, according to Gartner.

However, much like the factors needed to improve ROI, the social CRM market will only continue to grow if vendors can prove that their social applications tie to actual ROI. Businesses understand the customer relationship benefits of social CRM, but now they need to be sold on money-making end of the market.

Vendors who can show their social CRM applications go beyond improving customer relationships will be most successful in the future, according to Gartner. Ideally, Sarner argues that social CRM applications need to evolve into a three-dimensional business tool focused on customer relationship, B2B sales and marketing to survive.

Often, businesses differentiate the use of social CRM instead of taking a comprehensive approach to the trend, Sarner says. For example, one department might use a social CRM application to track customer satisfaction, while another department uses a different application to market new products to its customers. Instead, companies should search for the social CRM application that is all-inclusive.

“Until recently, many companies have treated social CRM as a series of experiments and tactical purchases. Few have a social CRM strategy or established metrics to measure its effect on hard business results. Different departments, employees and managers implement different types of applications for different purposes,” Sarner said.

The inconsistencies on how the social CRM product is used has resulted in a market fragmented into typically three segments: sales, marketing and customer service, Sarner says. Small social CRM vendors then approach their product in the same way by focusing on one major component of the strategy as opposed to several. In the future, the sellers who offer tools to address all aspects of social CRM in one application that is applicable across a variety of departments will survive, according to the report.

“Vendors that can assemble a full set of social CRM functions and make progress in two or more areas, such as marketing and customer service or sales and marketing, will be best-positioned for success,” Sarner said.

B2B vendors are also positioned for success in the market, according to the report. B2B applications for sales use should experience the fastest growth in the social CRM market by accounting for 30 percent of the total market in 2015. In 2011, B2B applications accounted for just five percent of the social CRM market, according to the report. .

The short answer to this question is yes with qualifications.

When an individual or company markets their product or service on the internet, they connect with the customer in a straightforward relationship. The seller presents information to the buyer, enough so that they do one of two things: 1) they can decide to make a purchase or not to make a purchase or 2) they can decide that they would like to receive additional promotional communication (such as email) or decide against it. While there are cases where there are alternatives in between, these are the basic choices that are presented that the buyer can choose.

That’s where traditional sales then intersects with internet marketing. Presenting a buyer with information and then gauging their response is the key to being able to assess whether or not a sales process is working or it isn’t. Marketing and sales people can tweak the message (much as they might do a sales script) until it resonates with the maximum number of buyers and results in a favorable action.

The direct messages from sellers take place on websites, blogs and in email communication. That is why a considerable number of sales people and advertisers make the transition from traditional promotion to internet marketing seamlessly. The sales processes are basically parallel to each other. These parallel processes indicate that new customers can still be won by presenting them with extraordinary value and targeted benefits to get them to say yes.

However, social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Pinterest have a different underlying foundation. These sites primarily exist for socializing and interaction. They don’t always lend themselves to presenting a direct message that leads to new leads. In fact, these mediums are probably considered most helpful for relationships already established between seller and buyer. However, that does not mean that marketers can’t win new business using them. Businesses that want to attain new business using social media must use a different basis for approaching new clients: engagement.

When companies engage social media account holders, their goal is typically not to drive them toward a sale with their initial contact. The goal in social media engagement is to get members to pay attention and to find the company’s content worth sharing with their online social network. Companies that are unsuccessful in social media, are those that do not create opportunities to engage in conversations that users find worth sharing.

Companies who can approach people in the context of the issues, thoughts and ideas that they are talking about with their friends online are successful using social media. These are companies who have a considerable number of “likes” on their account and have been successful in getting the attention of these users.

When a potential customer becomes a follower, or “like” connection, the company has won the right to share things with them as they are happening. This is where companies need to seek to get these contacts into a more direct medium of communication for a sales message. Perhaps it is getting them to volunteer themselves to be on the company’s email marketing list, or to attend a webinar that they are conducting. In some cases, buyers are willing to trade their contact information to be involved in a contest or to secure a discount. Any of these methods or methods like them can be used.

Regardless of the individual method chosen, the important factor is that the company proactively uses social media as a way of engaging people in a social context. Engagement events such as polls, contests, coupons, discounts and humorous multimedia (videos, images, audio) get people’s attention and entice them to “follow” or “like” a company. When that happens, companies can then be more direct in requesting that prospects take the action of becoming a participant in a contact database such as email or SMS. This then puts the prospect in a position to be marketed to by the company in a measurable way.

Marketers and salespeople can become frustrated in the amount of work it takes to move someone form prospect to direct contact. However, social media is a channel that cannot be ignored with almost 900 million accounts on Facebook alone (not counting the other networks). If salespeople are patient and skillful in guiding customer to direct contact, they can win a steady flow of new customers on social media platforms like Facebook.

As a sales professional, you spend most of your time out in the field, building relationships with potential and current customers to increase your sales. Communication is key in your career; without effective, thoughtful communication, these important relationships can falter. You devise effective sales pitches to increase your success, but you should also focus on general communication skills so that you can adeptly maneuver through any conversation with a potential client. Understanding the ways to communicate professionally on sales calls can help to increase your sales productivity and make you a more successful sales professional.

Know How to Small Talk

You want the bulk of your meeting to be about what you’re selling, but you also don’t want any awkward silences during a sales pitch. Becoming comfortable with small talk—often with strangers—helps boost your communication skills on the job. Have a few tried and true topics to mention should you face an uncomfortable lull in conversation. When possible, tie the small talk into the product or service you’re selling. If you’re a pharmaceutical representative selling allergy medication, for example, you can mention the weather, such as a lack of rain—and tie that into how little rain means more pollen and, thus, more allergies, making your product important.

Have Canned Answers

Chances are as a B2B sales person you field the same questions from potential customers repeatedly. Take some time to draft a concise, thoughtful response to these questions. Potential customers likely want to know why your product or service beats the competition. Cite a few specific reasons, complete with facts, statistics, or research-based evidence, whenever possible. If you sell software to small businesses, for example, you could state: “Research shows that businesses that use our software save $2,000 a month and 25 man hours.” Prepared responses can be convincing when you have impressive facts to share, and designing answers ahead of time means you’ll speak without hesitation when the question is asked.

Know When to Use Industry Speak

Using industry-specific terminology can help you or hurt you in sales. Know when to use it and when to avoid it. If you’re talking shop with a long-time customer who knows the ins and outs of your product or service, industry-specific terminology shows your knowledge and helps you relate to your customer. On the other hand, a potential customer who is new to your industry might be confused or even put off by too many technical terms. Opt for industry-specific language when your customer has a high industry knowledge, and choose everyday language to relate to customers unfamiliar with whatever you are selling.

Conclusion

Effective, professional communication is essential in the highly competitive sales industry. A sales professional who can communicate well can relate to customers, answer questions, and showcase his or her knowledge with ease. Such skills can help win over customers and increase sales, leading to long-term success.

Next week starts a fun fueled week at Microsofts Digital World Partner Conference.

There is a large focus this year on the social business and how CRM can leverage social intelligence. This year at WPC, InsideView will be showing how Microsoft Dynamics customers can drive sales productivity leveraging the Social CRM app for B2B sales professionals.

Barb Potter, Director of Marketing KnowledgeLake, a SharePoint ECM Company. ”The addition of InsideView makes Dynamics an even more comprehensive solution for us because it not only provides the full complement of CRM capabilities, but also company information, contact details, and relevant connections. Getting all of that in a single place has made our teams more productive. The integration of InsideView with Dynamics CRM is a great step forward for both companies’ customers.”

Industry research shows that 90% of executives never respond to cold calls or unsolicited emails, yet 84% will engage with a sales person when they are connected through a friend, colleague, customer, or industry peer*. Through the alliance, Microsoft Dynamics CRM users will have native access to InsideView right within Dynamics CRM at no additional charge.

Microsoft Dynamics is used by over 30,000 customers and being able to be more effective in sales is a driving factor for most of them. The keynotes for the Microsoft WPC event looks like a who’s who of the Microsoft ecosystem that will be sure to impress and educate the attendees on the vision of the company and the community that supports it.

Join us at the WPC Blockbuster Party

InsideView was honored to receive the 2011 Microsoft Dynamics Marketplace Solution Excellence Partner of the Year award.

Be sure to stop by booth 352 to learn more about InsideView and enter to WIN a Microsoft Surface Tablet.