Maybe there is something to this Twitter thing, even for sales professionals. I've dabbled with Twitter for over six months, mostly as spectator. Last week I listened to a streaming audio conversation hosted by John Jantsch, Taking Your Brand Online, with Guy Kawasaki, David Meerman Scott and Chris Brogan, and it's worth checking out.
In response to the question, "what 2 or 3 things should a small business do first with social media?" Guy Kawasaki resonded, "Twitter, Twitter, Twitter!" Co-incidentally, I read Dave Stein's blog on using Twitter. So, I took a couple of hours for additional research. My specific selling interest was to find people at key companies who are running virtual events or virtual shows. I used Twitter Search with those keywords and instantly discovered several people with whom I wished to connect. Given the several weeks spent trying to accomplish this objective, this was a major achievement.
But, my story doesn't end there. Next, I created a short multimedia vignette from my Avitage Collection. In this vignette I invited the person to try one particular feature of our service -- iNgage Presenter -- a live streaming audio and video communication console that also delivers visual support during a conversation. Within two hours, I conducted three online conversations, responded to two email requests and had two phone conversations.
I have three immediate follow on meetings scheduled. It was truly an exciting and mind blowing experience. And, did you hear me? TWO HOURS! Lessons LearnedFirst, a little context: To me, marketing and selling is all about resolving some fundamental communication challenges: Find interested peopleCapture their attentionCapitalize on attention with compelling, relevant contentEnable viral communications to make sharing easyDeliver the right information, the right ways, at the right time -- timing is everythingMore marketing and sales "conversations" are conducted over the phone, through email or on the web, especially at the early stages of the customer buying processIn a complex sale, a key communication challenge is to enable third parties to carry our messages: customer sponsors, partners, referral sources, etc.
Even after live meetings, we need ways to sustain and extend conversations and deliver our messagesThis objective is significantly enhanced by using multimedia programs, and this is a main part of our business. Now, my Twitter lessons: Twitter can help find individuals and companies at the time they are focused on a specific topicTwitter provides a direct, personal way to deliver a targeted and well timed message.
Today, people on Twitter are eager to receive appropriate messages through this mediumLike all good communication tools, Twitter can accelerate the selling process by helping us find and engage people who are interested, and possibly ready to buy.Consider the communicaton tools that were in use in this example: TwitterMultimedia vignette for dynamic, but asynchronous communcationsEmailPhoneWeb site -- everyone checkout out our website before contacting meReal time web-based communcations using streaming video, audio and graphics (aka PowerPoint).
I'm sure there are many other selling uses for Twitter I'm not yet familiar with, please share your insights.
Blog with ideas for preparing to capture the full potential of multimedia without incurring high costs and un-intended consequences.
