I am regularly asked how I use social media for business development so thought I would write it down. I hope it helps.

Incidentally, by putting it down on paper (figuratively speaking) I noticed something. I studied physics and will never forget something my A-Level physics teacher said to me – ‘Physics is 4 lines of Maths and 1 line of Physics’ (I was always better at Maths than Physics!) So perhaps seeing this pan out: ’selling is 4 lines of listening and 1 line of speaking’ (I am also better at listening than speaking!)

1. As a research tool. Understand who your target market is: Until you do this there will be no focus. You need to define the criteria that will in turn define your audience; from organisation through to the people within that organisation.
The criteria for the organisation can be hard data such as industry, turnover or location; or soft data, for example: trends, issues or growth strategy. The softer data has always been more difficult to find and this is where social media can be absolutely brilliant. It takes some practice, but listen well, search well and you will find that elusive group of prospects that need what you have.

2. As a database tool. Follow your target market: Find the organisations on Facebook & Twitter and follow/like them. Find the people on LinkedIn (but do not attempt to connect to them until you have actually interacted with them – this will do much more harm than good) and save their profiles if you have a premium account (I highly recommend this), or bookmark them if not.

3. As an information feed. Listen to your target market: What are they saying? Who are they talking to? What interests them? What news and articles are they retweeting, or reposting, or writing? What groups are they members of on LinkedIn? What lists have they built and what lists are they on? There is a wealth of information available now and absolutely no excuse or reason to have to ‘cold’ call people anymore.

4. As a networking tool. Join the right conversations: Conversations that are relevant to you and your organisation, that you can add value to, with questions you can answer, or simply something you are interested in – join in. Join relevant groups on LinkedIn – please don’t stalk prospects – make sure the group actually is relevant!

5. As a sales tool. If you must sell something, sell the problem not the product/ service: The best way to generate interest in your service or product is to simply talk about the problem it can solve (Seth blogged on this back in August)
When you find active conversations or articles talking about issues relevant to your service and product, offer advice, give something to your audience (please don’t just put a link up to your website!) Start a conversation about the problems your product can solve and again give advice. If you have defined your prospects well enough, the subject will immediately resonate with them; and if they are interested in how to solve it, they will actively seek you out.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 24th, 2011 at 11:37 am and is filed under chitchat. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Tags: advice, business development, conversation, data, facebook, Godin, groups, hard data, information, LinkedIn, listening, marketing, research, retweeting, sales, selling, Seth, social, social media, soft data, solutions, target market, twitter