{"id":2402,"date":"2011-01-26T21:09:03","date_gmt":"2011-01-26T21:09:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/?p=2402"},"modified":"2011-01-26T21:35:22","modified_gmt":"2011-01-26T21:35:22","slug":"thrive-in-2011-by-making-social-sell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/2011\/01\/thrive-in-2011-by-making-social-sell\/","title":{"rendered":"Thrive in 2011 By Making Social Sell"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Blogging, engaging, listening to customers on Facebook or Twitter are all a necessary component of being online. But doing these things won\u2019t help you actually make sales using social media. The idea of following customers into social spaces is smart. But incomplete without a means to capture attention and ultimately convert it into demand \u2013 leads and sales. Could the answer to selling more with social media be found in starting conversations that are worth having? And could conversing in ways that generate questions that you have the answers to be a better way to generate customer inquiries? Here\u2019s my advice on making each social media marketing budget dollar go further in 2011.<\/p>\n

Ignore conventional \u201cwisdom\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

You cannot control your customers anymore. You must enter \u201cthe conversation\u201d with them \u2013 or risk becoming irrelevant. And when you start \u201cengaging\u201d you must be transparent and \u201chumanize yourself\u201d. It\u2019s imperative to assess the sentiment of your fans and detractors on the Web \u2013- constantly take the pulse of your brand image.<\/p>\n

Rather than look at these typical social wisdom statements as valid let\u2019s invalidate them. No, you haven\u2019t lost control of your customers. No, \u201cthe conversation\u201d they\u2019re having about you isn\u2019t new, it\u2019s just amplified and expedited by the Web. Your brand is \u201chuman\u201d and you are honest with customers. My point is to demonstrate how popular statements made by social media gurus don\u2019t just sound ridiculous. They signal a disconnect with your core business objectives.<\/p>\n

Question your consultants<\/strong><\/p>\n

Overzealous \u201cdigital rock star gurus\u201d say the Social Web has revolutionized everything. And getting attention is the answer. We\u2019re told to listen first. Then \u201cengage\u201d customers. But what about selling to them? As David Ogilvy reminds us, \u201cwe sell or else!\u201d<\/p>\n

Why is managing your reputation and developing enthusiasts more important than generating sales? Because someone who sells social media buzz monitoring software says so? Or why is the end goal for Twitter something called engagement? (aka attention) Because someone who wrote a book on Twitter decided so? And who said you cannot use LinkedIn to generate sales leads? Research funded by an ad agency that sells banner ads?<\/p>\n

It’s likely not your imagination. These questions are often being birthed by social media gurus who are well-intentioned. But they have something to sell you. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou don’t sell someone something by engagement, conversation and relationship. You create engagement, conversation and relationships by selling them something,\u201d says Bob Hoffman, (\u201cThe Ad Contrarian\u201d) CEO, Hoffman Lewis.<\/p>\n

Businesses that sell with social media are reaching beyond attracting customers. Or even coercing them to prefer their brand. They’re focusing on discovering and capturing demand. Sales. And they’re doing it using these 3 practical success principles:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Focus on creating behavior.<\/li>\n
  2. Constantly translate customers’ evolving needs and prompt discussions worth having<\/li>\n
  3. Publish useful, relevant tools and services that guide customers to ask questions that their products\/services answer.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Consider your current social media activities. Everything you’re doing to \u201cjoin the conversation.\u201d Your tweeting, blogging, posting updates on Facebook. Are your activities talking with or \u201ctalking at\u201d customers? Or are you truly interacting?<\/p>\n

    \u201cNext time you find yourself listening to a digital strategy that approaches a ‘social media marketing’ campaign with a predominantly top-down ‘influence’ model, stop, regroup, and consider a more mature perspective on influence \u2013 one that involves a carefully balanced combination of top-down, bottom-up and lateral mechanisms,\u201d says Olivier Blanchard of BrandBuilder Marketing.<\/p>\n

    Asking the Experts the Difficult Questions<\/strong><\/p>\n

    So I ask you\u2026 what if \u201cthe experts\u201d are wrong? What if they\u2019re actually not supporting your ability to generate more leads and sales with social media marketing? What if they\u2019re actually blocking you? It\u2019s time to ask difficult questions of our employees and consultants.<\/p>\n

    For instance, ever find yourself in a meeting asking, \u201cI need to sell more products \u2013 how can social media help?\u201d Good question. But all too often, the digital consultant across the table answers. But with a question, \u201cOkay, are you
    \nengaging customers on Facebook?\u201d or \u201cSure, sure\u2026 we\u2019ll talk about that in a minute. What\u2019s your follower count on Twitter? Let\u2019s examine how we can get it higher. Then we have something to work with\u2026 and can talk about the other details.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Somehow your consultant\u2019s questions and burning issues become more relevant and urgent. Many of us, understandably, adopt these questions (this alternate reality) as our own. Suddenly we\u2019re playing catch-up. You may believe your brand isn\u2019t \u201cin control.\u201d You may even rush into the digital jungle with new-found guides at your side \u2013- buzzing, posting and tweeting.<\/p>\n

    But eventually you wonder why your objectives aren\u2019t met. The buzz, posts, tweets are great but what about leads and sales?<\/p>\n

    Action item: Question your consultants and improve<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Press your consultants and agency reps to answer business questions first and without using words like traffic, engagement or buzz. Make them squirm. Then turn the guns on yourself. Ask yourself: \u201cAre we hiring employees and vendors based on tactical skills rather than ability to create strategic results (think and act critically)? Do they ask the right questions or avoid ours? Might we already have many of the answers we\u2019re seeking in the so-called experts\u201d
    \nThe answers may surprise you and prompt bold actions.<\/p>\n

    As an example, in a staff\/vendor meeting make a point to understand if you\u2019re using the Social Web to interact with customers intimately \u2013- or if you\u2019re \u201cblasting\u201d and tweeting into the ether.<\/p>\n

    If you\u2019re interacting is it organized? Or do tactics work apart from (or compete with) each other?<\/p>\n

    What actionable information does each interaction produce and where does that information go?<\/p>\n

    What\u2019s done with it (or not)? Do interactions even produce actionable information?<\/p>\n

    Finally, ask yourself if there\u2019s room for each social strategy to cooperatively push customers down the sales funnel\u2026 like a musical symphony\u2026 using the collected information? Task your team to organize around logical customer behaviors and prompts.<\/p>\n

    Jeff Molander<\/p>\n

    —
    \nJeff Molander is adjunct professor of digital marketing at Loyola University business school, a content marketing speaker<\/a> and author of forthcoming book, Off the Hook Marketing: How to make social media sell<\/em>. He blogs at www.jeffmolander.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Blogging, engaging, listening to customers on Facebook or Twitter are all a necessary component of being online. But doing these things won\u2019t help you actually make sales using social media. The idea of following customers into social spaces is smart. But incomplete without a means to capture attention and ultimately convert it into demand \u2013 … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[137,721],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-posts","category-guest"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2402"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2402\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2410,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2402\/revisions\/2410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}