May 2, 2010 in InsideView 20, Sales 2.0, Sales Data, Sales Intelligence, Social CRM, Uncategorized | Tags: social media | by Gordon Anderson
Guest post by Santosh Shukla, InsideView Hyderabad office.
Posting on Twitter, updating a Facebook profile, putting that Youtube video demo and uploading pictures to Flickr may be free of cost, but it’s wrong to think that social media for marketing and sales is free.
Social media are now standard tools of the Sales 2.0 workplace. But if you are like me, the “social” part of social media sometimes gets in the way of the work. That means you inadvertently spend some time to look at the tweets of people you follow, retweet some and end up spending much more time than you intended. Similar things happen when you go to LinkedIn to find a connection, and end up reading and joining irrelevant discussions.
Thus, a result-oriented foray into social media turns out to be a long walk into unknown (but interesting) woods and by the time we realize, the damage is already done. Time is money, and you’ve just wasted a pile of it.
Here some tips that I use to get the most out of social media while staying focused:
Link your Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook accounts to save the time and effort of updating same status/message at different places.
LinkedIn with Twitter: https://www.linkedin.com/secure/settings?twitterSettings
Facebook with Twitter: http://www.facebook.com/twitter/
Create lists on Twitter to follow tweets on related topics like Sales2.0, Golf, psychology etc. to be focused on reading only what you want to read at that moment.
http://help.twitter.com/entries/76460-how-to-use-twitter-lists
To follow the tweets of the IV 20 Top Sales Industry social media users here – http://twitter.com/skshukla/Sales2-0
Use intelligent tools that allow you to focus on the crux and not deviate by being in your work window. SalesView helps you to read relevant blogs, tweets of the prospect that you are targeting within your CRM so you don’t have to leave it to get the social media benefits. It also finds the LinkedIn connections and Facebook friend connections for prospect accounts within your CRM.
Follow top 20 Sales Industry Social Media Users and some more stars to get the latest and greatest information and views of the Sales (and Marketing) industry without spending too much time elsewhere.
Talk to people who have pioneered in linking social web and enterprise, the creators of term “socialprise”.
I am sure you have some more tips that you use to efficiently use your time on social media and get the desired results. Please feel free to share them.
