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10 Steps Using Social Media For Business Development

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Institute of Technology and Business Development

Institute of Technology and Business Development (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We all need new business, right? Doesn’t matter if you’re a solo professional, small business of five or larger, everyone has to keep the pipeline full and the leads rolling in.

Digital marketing is absolutely the tier-one method, and I recently met an incredible expert who does it every day exceptionally well. And, the process is highly strategic requiring expertise learned over time and years of testing the methods.

Social media provides another business development methodology that everyone can do and probably does do without knowing it.

The other day, I tweeted, “If you ignore Twitter, it ignores you.” Indeed. When you fall off the ladder into the rabbit hole, it’s hard to jump out. There are a variety of reasons making that hole feel comfortable and safe and most of it has to do with being challenged and trying what’s new and different. While it’s easy to tweet and reshare everyone’s posts all day, what’s the gain besides burn out?

Let’s be more strategic and help fuel your lead generation. And, I’m not talking about inbound marketing right now; I’m talking about good old-fashioned networking.

10 Steps to Fuel Business Development

Step 1: Set Goals

There are four simple goals for using social media for business development:
1. Identify your target list
2. Elevate your personal brand
3. Ask for a meeting
4. Earn the business

Step 2: Track With a Spreadsheet or CRM System

If you’re on a budget and can’t afford a CRM system, then use your QuickBooks or Excel to track lead generation and prospecting. If you’re really on a budget, then perhaps index cards?

Step 3: Develop a Tier-One Target List

Everyone has a wish list of a company with which they’d like to work. Put your list of five or so together. Maybe you select a few out of each category that are different sizes.

For sales teams, this works, too. Select the company with which you most want to do business and get that target list active on a CRM system (but then I don’t need to inform sales how to prospect, right?).

Step 4: Who is the buyer of your services or product?

During the time I was in HubSpot school (I made a major investment in this platform to learn inbound marketing from the big guns), the words “buyer persona” appeared on my radar.

I had to think about the audience most likely to purchase my services and describe them – age, gender, expertise, values they appreciate, and more.

From the list in step one, select the title/role of the person most likely to buy your services or products. Get that title/role into your tracking system.

Step 5: Audit The Company

Here’s where social media comes to play. Using your tiered target list, begin exploring social media activity by the company. Record on your tracking system/CRM each of the channels and which is more powerful for shares and content.

LinkedIn (example). Does the company have a company page? How about a group? Who are the folks who work there? Can you find the title of the person most likely to buy from you? Better yet, take a look at your network; who in your network knows someone at that company to send an introduction on your behalf?

Step 6: Social Sharing

  • Google+. Similar to LinkedIn, check out the business page for your target company on Google+. Perhaps you’ll also find the folks who work there and you can do a search. (Not to mention, you can also do a name search on Google itself, of course!) Begin to +1 posts on Google+ by the company and also reshare it if you think it’s worthy.
  • Twitter. Companies tweet, obviously. Star the company into your Faves List and begin retweeting posts you like from that company. Pay attention to who’s tweeting; it may be an agency and there may also be initials on the posts indicating someone on a team.
  • Blog. Here’s where you can really influence and elevate your identity and brand. Visit the company blog frequently; in fact, subscribe and never miss a post. Read for a week or two (depending on the frequency of blog posts) and get a feel for the topics the company is writing on. All the while, you’re preparing to comment on the blog while resharing it on social media channels.While the blogger for the company may not be on your target list, you can still use the fact that you commented and shared that company’s blog post in your eventual pitch.
  • Your Blog. If you really want to make an impact and impression, invite the person you’re targeting to do a Q&A with you, write a guest post or to link. You can also follow them on the Interwebz; but, do not be a stalker! Use discretion and caution, please!

Step 7: Engage and Build Relationship

We who have been on social media longer than five years know how to build relationships with total strangers. It’s what the channels were built on. Today, that ‘raderie is next to nil; yet, people appreciate genuine authenticity with real professionals and people.

Use that concept to build upon the relationship you started. Of course, your goal is to get a meeting and perhaps earn some new business; however, there should be a common interest you can draw upon to build a true and solid foundation.

Step 8: Ask for a Meeting

If you’ve done a great job making small talk, sharing content and following your target list, then it’s time to ask for a meeting. Make it casual under the guise of networking because that’s what it is. No one wants a hard sell, and the recipient of your attention is smart enough to know a sales shakedown when it happens!

Essentially, be you and be real.

Step 9. Stay in Touch

If the meeting doesn’t product the result you wanted, do not fret. Sales pipelines sometimes take months to fill and business also takes time to close. If you drop off the radar, what happens when your prospect wants to find your name and number and can’t because you fell back into the comfy rabbit hole?

Step 10. Smile and Show Me Some Personality

I needed a step 10 to round this out, and maybe it’s the most important step in the bunch. Think about when you get a cold pitch; how’s your demeanor on the phone? Abrupt and impatient, right? Now think about paving the way to a prospect with smiles, laughs, personality, kudos and more. How do you think that person will feel about you with all that in front of the ask? Selling with heart couldn’t be more important, and think of it this way – if you get a “no thank you,” then move on to the next one and pretty soon it’s like riding a bike.

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How Twitter IPO Changes Its Focus

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Twitter-logo.jpgFew people understand what happens when a company goes public. We watched how Facebook maneuvered an ever increasingly heated spotlight, and now Twitter is undergoing the same.

In this piece Nov. 11, 2013 in Advertising Age, “Twitter’s task: Getting new users to understand it,” it seems the biggest issue Twitter has with new users is its complexity.

To follow this line of thinking, go back to the very first tweet you posted. Perhaps you need to go back to the very first time you logged in and saw a blank screen with some stranger popping up to say hi. Were you as nervous as I and almost backed out?

There are still people who don’t engage on Twitter because they believe the common misnomer that it’s a bunch of people talking about what they eat and where they go to the movies. We in the know, know better, right?

Because Twitter is now publicly traded (NYSE: TWTR) with a valuation of more than $20 billion and a 73 percent “stock pop” (says Ad Age) on day one of trading, it has to think differently about how to behave:

  • Attract more of the masses (a major hurdle)
  • Onboarding new users and making them feel comfy out of the gate
  • Reduce consumer churn – the rate that new users drop off in a short period of time
  • Increase advertising dollars for marketers who want proof the users are there to click through and make a buy

Take a look at Twitter’s number of users in the U.S., says Advertising Age:

  • Q1 2013 – 48 million monthly active users
  • Q2 2013 – 49 million monthly active users
  • Q3 2013 – 53 million monthly active users

Facebook has three times the scale. At the end of Q2 2013, it boasted 179 million monthly active users

It’s like comparing apples to oranges, however, because look at the skill and understanding a Twitter peep has to communicate. When you read tweets from accounts trying to sell, they’re awkward. Engagement and relationship building are the keys to earning followers; Facebook is about existing relationships among friends you already know. Not so Twitter.

It’s because of Twitter that I have a new network of true and real friends I’ve met IRL, spoken with on the phone, engaged with on Skype, and hired into my business. Not so Facebook.

There are so many ways Twitter can be used to enhance knowledge of the world.

When there is a natural disaster like the ones in New Orleans, Haiti, the Philippines, New Zealand, and elsewhere, Twitter comes alive with tweets around the world providing updates about the crises and how peeps can help. Not so Facebook.

The hashtag is finally coming into its own as a way to follow conversations; its now in use by Facebook AND Google+. We owe that to Twitter as the first channel to adopt hashtags; I think I first began hashtagging #RockHot in August 2010, and all the threads of tweets featuring that phrase I created are documented. Pretty cool.

I digress…

What I’m hoping doesn’t happen with Twitter as it has with Facebook is the social channel’s intense need to put advertisers first and revenue above service. We who have been around since the early days know quite well the quirky and secretive nature of Twitter with a tribe mentality.

It’s too bad Twitter will change itself to appeal to the masses who don’t and won’t get it (although I’ve heard from a lot of moms that the kids are hitting Twitter in droves and foregoing Facebook). Groups of young boys (about freshmen age in high school) are forming Twitter accounts and buying followers to gain immediate traction.

Perhaps Twitter needs to look within among users who already prefer the channel over the others instead of trying at this late juncture to appeal to those who won’t get it to also thus appeal to marketers sinking advertising dollars into the channel.

Time will tell…

Tennis Balls And Business Strategy

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I play tennis about four times weekly in leagues, clinics and hitting. In clinics, tennis balls are all over, and that means you need a ball hopper to pick up balls and dump back into the coach’s wheeled cart.

The balls are scattered; like stars in a galaxy. There’s no rhyme or reason how to pick up tennis balls efficiently. As I gaze around the courts, I deduce the best strategy to get the most balls in the least amount of time so I can resume drills.

Stay with me here…

1. If a single ball has landed all alone off to the side, I ignore it. I see some  players use their racquet to flick all the balls into the general vicinity of other balls grouped in back corners. I’d rather head to the area of highest concentration to pick up the most balls in a grouping. If I flick all the balls toward a corner from other areas of the court, it’s like playing marbles — there’s no guarantee the ball rolls nicely to land next to its cousin. And, why waste my energy flicking balls with my racquet? That’s expended fuel I need for playing time!

2. If some balls are off to the right and some are off to the left at the back of the court, I select a logical division point and pick up one ball and proceed towards the grouping with most balls together.  As I play with a variety of ages of women, some don’t have enough arm muscle to carry a heavy ball hopper, or turtle speed is preferred when picking up balls because they just don’t like it.

3. The ball hopper is steel with open gaps in the bottom. When you push the handles of the hopper down on top of a ball, it squeezes into the hopper and pops up into the bottom. Here’s the rub…I’ve tried to pick up three balls at a time with the hopper, but invariably something goes awry. Three just isn’t efficient because I add an extra step to capture the ball that squeezed away. Picking up two at a time is perfect; goes smoothly, and I can get into a rhythm and be done faster.

Tennis Balls and Your Business

When you read the items above, did you begin to see a correlation with tennis balls and your business?  Let me help:

1. When you try to rush through an exercise without methodical planning and execution, something will become chaotic or a crisis which sets you down an unplanned path.

Do use thoughtful strategy when planning a campaign or growth goals.

2. Is your team handpicked with high energy? Do they contribute to your business with the same level of knowledge and expertise so you can realize your growth goals?

Do examine your human assets and ensure they’re right for your business longterm. 

3. How frequently do you permit yourself or your team to get pulled off track to an interesting tangent that looks juicy until you dive in?

Don’t waste time on programs that take you off goal. Stay the course and only add additional programs/tasks when they directly benefit your opportunity. 

4. Think about how you approach a problem; better yet, think about the solution you execute to solve that problem. If the balls are scattered in all directions (like so many balls in the air), think carefully how you will approach each ball to address it independently or as a grouped situation.

If one situation, person or ball is screaming loudly, step back and assess the situation and see how best to manage it in a streamlined fashion.

Business owners, whether startups or 10-year-old companies, need to remember that how you pick up a tennis ball provides a thoughtful look at how to grow a business. Can you see that analogy?