Blogging, engaging, listening to customers on Facebook or Twitter are all a necessary component of being online. But doing these things won’t help you actually make sales using social media. The idea of following customers into social spaces is smart. But incomplete without a means to capture attention and ultimately convert it into demand – leads and sales. Could the answer to selling more with social media be found in starting conversations that are worth having? And could conversing in ways that generate questions that you have the answers to be a better way to generate customer inquiries? Here’s my advice on making each social media marketing budget dollar go further in 2011.
Ignore conventional “wisdom”
You cannot control your customers anymore. You must enter “the conversation” with them – or risk becoming irrelevant. And when you start “engaging” you must be transparent and “humanize yourself”. It’s imperative to assess the sentiment of your fans and detractors on the Web –- constantly take the pulse of your brand image.
Rather than look at these typical social wisdom statements as valid let’s invalidate them. No, you haven’t lost control of your customers. No, “the conversation” they’re having about you isn’t new, it’s just amplified and expedited by the Web. Your brand is “human” and you are honest with customers. My point is to demonstrate how popular statements made by social media gurus don’t just sound ridiculous. They signal a disconnect with your core business objectives.
Question your consultants
Overzealous “digital rock star gurus” say the Social Web has revolutionized everything. And getting attention is the answer. We’re told to listen first. Then “engage” customers. But what about selling to them? As David Ogilvy reminds us, “we sell or else!”
Why is managing your reputation and developing enthusiasts more important than generating sales? Because someone who sells social media buzz monitoring software says so? Or why is the end goal for Twitter something called engagement? (aka attention) Because someone who wrote a book on Twitter decided so? And who said you cannot use LinkedIn to generate sales leads? Research funded by an ad agency that sells banner ads?
It’s likely not your imagination. These questions are often being birthed by social media gurus who are well-intentioned. But they have something to sell you.
“You don’t sell someone something by engagement, conversation and relationship. You create engagement, conversation and relationships by selling them something,” says Bob Hoffman, (“The Ad Contrarian”) CEO, Hoffman Lewis.
Businesses that sell with social media are reaching beyond attracting customers. Or even coercing them to prefer their brand. They’re focusing on discovering and capturing demand. Sales. And they’re doing it using these 3 practical success principles:
- Focus on creating behavior.
- Constantly translate customers’ evolving needs and prompt discussions worth having
- Publish useful, relevant tools and services that guide customers to ask questions that their products/services answer.
Consider your current social media activities. Everything you’re doing to “join the conversation.” Your tweeting, blogging, posting updates on Facebook. Are your activities talking with or “talking at” customers? Or are you truly interacting?
“Next time you find yourself listening to a digital strategy that approaches a ‘social media marketing’ campaign with a predominantly top-down ‘influence’ model, stop, regroup, and consider a more mature perspective on influence – one that involves a carefully balanced combination of top-down, bottom-up and lateral mechanisms,” says Olivier Blanchard of BrandBuilder Marketing.
Asking the Experts the Difficult Questions
So I ask you… what if “the experts” are wrong? What if they’re actually not supporting your ability to generate more leads and sales with social media marketing? What if they’re actually blocking you? It’s time to ask difficult questions of our employees and consultants.
For instance, ever find yourself in a meeting asking, “I need to sell more products – how can social media help?” Good question. But all too often, the digital consultant across the table answers. But with a question, “Okay, are you
engaging customers on Facebook?” or “Sure, sure… we’ll talk about that in a minute. What’s your follower count on Twitter? Let’s examine how we can get it higher. Then we have something to work with… and can talk about the other details.”
Somehow your consultant’s questions and burning issues become more relevant and urgent. Many of us, understandably, adopt these questions (this alternate reality) as our own. Suddenly we’re playing catch-up. You may believe your brand isn’t “in control.” You may even rush into the digital jungle with new-found guides at your side –- buzzing, posting and tweeting.
But eventually you wonder why your objectives aren’t met. The buzz, posts, tweets are great but what about leads and sales?
Action item: Question your consultants and improve
Press your consultants and agency reps to answer business questions first and without using words like traffic, engagement or buzz. Make them squirm. Then turn the guns on yourself. Ask yourself: “Are we hiring employees and vendors based on tactical skills rather than ability to create strategic results (think and act critically)? Do they ask the right questions or avoid ours? Might we already have many of the answers we’re seeking in the so-called experts”
The answers may surprise you and prompt bold actions.
As an example, in a staff/vendor meeting make a point to understand if you’re using the Social Web to interact with customers intimately –- or if you’re “blasting” and tweeting into the ether.
If you’re interacting is it organized? Or do tactics work apart from (or compete with) each other?
What actionable information does each interaction produce and where does that information go?
What’s done with it (or not)? Do interactions even produce actionable information?
Finally, ask yourself if there’s room for each social strategy to cooperatively push customers down the sales funnel… like a musical symphony… using the collected information? Task your team to organize around logical customer behaviors and prompts.
Jeff Molander
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Jeff Molander is adjunct professor of digital marketing at Loyola University business school, a content marketing speaker and author of forthcoming book, Off the Hook Marketing: How to make social media sell. He blogs at www.jeffmolander.com