Tweet Me, Friend Me, Make Me Buy

Spotlight on SmaRteR SaleS

Spotlight

Artwork Chad wys, She’s in Pieces 2011, paint on found canvas and frame 6.25" x 5.25" x 0.75"

Tweet Me, Friend Me, Make Me Buy
Social networks are an exciting development for sales reps. With a little managerial discipline, all that clicking, following, and sharing will win more business. by Barbara Giamanco and Kent Gregoire

88 Harvard BusinessReview July–August 2012

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Not loNg Ago a B2B rep for the virtual-meetings company PGi made the fastest sale of his career. One morning he contacted a CEO—someone who was no pushover, having had bad experiences with the type of product the rep sells. By late that afternoon he had a signed agreement. How did the rep pull off this feat? By using social media. Here’s the way it worked. The rep is aTwitter user. Drawing on the TweetDeck feature, he had specified keywords so that he would be alerted when they appeared in a tweet, whether from someone he “followed” or not.

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Spotlight on Smarter SaleS

investigate purchases they’re considering. The shift On the day in question, a message containing from a “push” to a “pull” world of commercial mesthe term “web conferencing”caught his eye. The point of the tweet was how poorly web confer- saging has been thoroughly documented by now. It’s encing works. “I clicked on the Twitter handle,” not just that buyers start the sales process without the rep told us, “and noticed that it was a com- you; research has shown that today they typically complete most of the purchase journey before havpany account.” He called the mainnumber on the company’s website and asked to speak to the per- ing any contact with sales. And by that point they are far more informed about your business than you are son who handled Twitter. Moments later he was about theirs. talking to the CEO, who, after marveling at the Much of this online activity involves social media. power of Twitter, described his frustration with Studies by ExperianMarketing Services indicate that the various web platforms he had used. “I told social networking now accounts for 15% of internet him all about GlobalMeet,” the rep said, referring visits in the United States. LinkedIn, the most profesto a PGi conferencing service. “He checked out sionally oriented of the major sites, announced more the website and said he wanted to try it, so I sent than a year agothat it had registered its 100 millionth over the agreement and received it back within a member and was adding a million more each week. few hours.” It’s a great story, but perhaps not a surprising one. Twitter has more than 100 million active users (out Twitter is, after all, a social network, and no aspect of of at least 200 million registered members), and Google+ has passed 65 millionmembers. Most of business is more social than selling. these people are also on Facebook, which is nearing What is surprising is that most sales managers are proving slow to recognize social media’s potential. the one billion mark, meaning that it includes 14% of In a recent survey of B2B marketers by BtoB maga- the world’s population. When the 1950s-era criminal Willie Sutton was zine, only 5% said thatsocial media marketing was a “fairly mature and well optimized” part of their mix. asked why he robbed banks, he allegedly replied, A clear majority (58%) admitted to being “in early “That’s where the money is.” For any salesperson wondering why she should use social media, the stages,” and 17% said they didn’t use social media answer is similarly obvious: That’s where the buyers at all. We’reaware of very few sales training courses are. In fact, 55% of buyers turn to social media when that cover social media use. And some companies

Social media selling has risks, but sitting on the sidelines is the greatest risk of all. And the way to venture in wisely is becoming clear.
forbid their employees to use social networks on company time. Certainly there are risks, but as customers...