Twitter has came along way from a social network in which people told you what flavor of ice cream they were eating to a powerful platform for inside sales teams can count on for success.
Twitter Lists
Lists allow you to filter out all the noise and organize important people. For example, creating a list for industry influencers to help you establish yourself as a trusted source and thought leader by sharing their information and networking with them. Also essential is a list of your current prospects that are in Twitter. Monitor this list to listen for trigger events, or to get to know your prospects and establish some value for your next formal touch point. Also essential is a competitors list for you to gain insight into their positioning, their problems, and who they're talking to.
The Personal Touch
Twitter gives you a glimpse into what your prospects personal life, likes, and interests are. This information combined with their professional LinkedIn profile will give you a 360 degree understanding of what makes your prospects tick. Knowing their personal lives allow you to immediately build rapport on your calls or email, and have context to have a great conversation. As sales moves toward a more buyer-centric model, this personal information will be going in to your CRM system in order to raise success metrics across the board.
#Hasthags
Twitter is unique in that it is almost an entirely public social network where you can find information from and interact with people whom aren't a part of your network. This means the mount of information available is incredibly higher than most, if not all social networks. By following hashtags that your prospects may be using, you may be able to find an entirely new set of people to sell to. Another great use is to follow the hashtags of events your prospects are attending, or even perhaps you would like to attend. You'd be surprised, following an event or conference hashtag on Twitter is like being right there. It gives you some interesting opportunities to engage with them during the conference and gives you some great ammo to have a great call with them afterwards.
If you have some other successful ways you've used Twitter as a sales tool please share them in the comments.
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