To Tweet or to Sell or If You’re Blogging How Can You Be Closing!
Five Tipping Points for You to Decide.
There is a real divide between business people who swear by and swear at Web 2.0.
To Social media “moguls”, even questioning Web 2.0 is so old-school!
They say, “Unless you get known and seen on your blog, their blogs, tweet about it and post on LinkedIn and Facebook, you will never get credible as an expert or grow your brand with prospects!”
“If you aren’t getting business from social media, then you just don’t have good content or you aren’t online enough.”
I add; no one wants to be sold but everyone wants to buy. Social networking allows you to become trusted and provide bite-sized pieces of value to prospects before they are ready to buy.To entrepreneurs and owners whose firms live on creating qualified prospects and personally closing sales, the impact Web 2.0 has on running their P&L’s is at best a mystery and at worst a narcotic.
They say,
“Nobody ever buys from me without establishing a trusting, personal relationship; the only profiteers on the Internet are those teaching others how to make money on-line”
“The web commoditizes everything, the only people you are attracting on-line are your competition or wannabee buyers without money or a clue.”
I personally don’t see most buyers of B2B products and services, especially owners of established companies using social media beyond websites, especially to find and choose suppliers.
So what should you be doing on-line (beyond the basics of a great website, SEO and customer communications?)
Here are five tipping points for you to decide.
Circle Yes, Maybe or No for each Tipping Point below.
- Tipping Point One. Does your economic buyer do more than Google your business name, your competitors or your industry’s key words when deciding to buy what you sell? Yes, Maybe or No
- Tipping Point Two. Is your product or service rated, judged, influenced or approved by others who go on-line to learn about your firm and its value? Yes, Maybe or No
- Tipping Point Three. Do your customers or clients interact with each other or belong to a definable on-line community? Yes, Maybe or No
- Tipping Point Four. Are there others selling your product or service who can track profitable sales back to leads or customers they found through social media? Yes, Maybe or No
- Tipping Point Five. Is there an employee, vendor or partner who is willing to do your blogging, tweeting and other social media on commission or get paid paid-for-performance? Yes, Maybe or No
Add up your Yes’s, Maybe’s and No’s. Whatever you have the most of should drive your commitment to social media.
Regardless of your answers and your decision, as a business owner, it’s your responsibility to profitably grow your business. Keep the following in mind.
Awareness, trust and conceptual agreement is one thing, qualifying a decision maker who has time, need, authority and money for your product or service and buys is the only measure of profitable growth.
Direct mail response marketing gave advertising a measurable ROI; something will come along to make social media accountable.
Now I guess I should go post this on my blog, tweet it which will feed into my LinkedIn and Facebook accounts so all the social media experts can blast me and business owners won’t read it!
Comments
4 Comments on To Tweet or to Sell or If You’re Blogging How Can You Be Closing!
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Kevin G. on
Sun, 17th Jan 2010 11:19 pm
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Andy Birol on
Mon, 18th Jan 2010 9:58 am
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Carolyn on
Wed, 20th Jan 2010 5:26 pm
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Three Ways To Ensure Your Social Media Efforts Create Profitable Growth : Profitable Growth on
Sat, 13th Mar 2010 5:52 pm
Great post! Blogging – do I think it’s necessary? Yes. Do I think it’s effective? Not sure.
I think tweeting and blogging works very well for people trying to be visible to those who use the mediums, but I have yet in my own very small circle of business owners and execs to find any who actively participate in those mediums themselves. The first reason they give is “no time”.
What are the findings on your end? Do a lot of your prospects credit the blogs, LinkedIn, and other social media outlets for actually finding you, or is it more part of establishing credibility once they do?
As I am not seeing economic buyers (business owners) on my blog or tweeting, the answer is neither. I am seeing lots of bloggers, however.
Believe it or not this is my first time blogging. (Good evening Andy.) You pose a question that I have for some reason been avoiding. Blogging does take up time, but in the long run, it is a quick effective way to communicate opinions, ideas and decisions. I think online networking is going to become the main source of communication for businesses big and small.
Social Media has already infiltrated our school systems. Blogging about current event articles or the answers to the chapter ten review. It allows opinions and other views to be seen. It also shows how well you understand and comprehend topics. So I guess I miss-spoke, I have been blogging in school for about a year. It’s funny how I have been preparing for this(communicating via Blog) and not even knowing it.
All I’m saying…In time, we will be doing almost all business online. Adapting to “the way” is not always easy…but that’s how you know it’s worth it.
[...] Recently, I ranted about how blogging and tweeting are often incompatible with generating qualified leads or closed sales (“To Tweet or to Sell”). [...]
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