There is a lot of buzz on social CRM, but what does that really mean. After all, hasn’t Customer “Relationship” Management always been social? Aren’t sales inherently social? What changed?

 

That really is the core of the new concept—something changed. Whether you call it social CRM, social selling, or Sales 2.0 you are talking about leveraging this explosion of social media and networking to increase your sales opportunities.

Fundamentally social media exposes more of your potential customers’ profiles, intent, and preferences. That means you simply have to listen to generate sales leads.

 

 

1. Twitter Search—This is the fundamental underpinning of any social lead generation campaign. Twitter has unleashed real-time search—allowing you to tune into discussions and conversations that may be relevant to your products or services.

 

2. TweetGrid—This Web tool allows you to monitor multiple live conversations and searches at one time. 

 

3. Seesmic Desktop or TwitterDeck—These desktop tools allow you to monitor targeted Twitter searches and specific groups of Twitter users.

 

4. Google Reader—The ideal RSS reader for efficiently reviewing hundreds of blogs and the numerous posts they will produce each day. Google makes it easy to search for keywords, share or annotate a post, or star them for importance.

 

5. LinkedIn—One of the original social networking tools, LinkedIn has evolved into a great place to prospect. LinkedIn makes it easy to find connections, relationships, and potential referrals or partnership. However, one of the best prospecting features may be LinkedIn Answers. This question and answer feature gives great insight and opportunity into potential prospects.

 

Now that you have your listening posts set-up, it is time to learn how to fill them with a steady flow of intelligence.

Probably the most critical step in making a social CRM process effective is your ability to build a large and well-targeted audience. The general rule of thumb for creating an audience that will yield results is to remember that people like to buy from people like themselves. Therefore, the more natural and open you are the more likely you are to attract people who will trust you and ultimately buy from you.

 

Keeping in mind we are trying to attract people, not bombard them with broadcast advertising here are some techniques that work to build your audience:

As you do these activities you should be very aware of using keywords that will draw in prospects looking for your products and services. Focus on creating and interacting in discussions that showcase your expertise.

 

Using these techniques you will begin to trigger a steady flow of intelligence. Now it is time to turn these rivers of information into prospects.

Your initial engagement in these social networks is designed to draw in a growing audience, based on attraction. Now it is time to get a little more aggressive and target prospects.

 

Each of the social networks and tools I have mentioned above operate on the premise of connections or followers. Your attraction campaign will gather to you several initial prospects. However, the biggest gains will come from leveraging the power and opportunity of their audiences.

 

Every time you engage someone on Twitter, LinkedIn, or other social network you are immediately exposed to thousands of other connections (friends) of these people. And chances are they trust or are in some way similar to your audience—another opportunity to attract more prospects into you immediate network.

 

The key is building authority and value around your profile for your niche.

Two legs of your three-legged social sales tool are in place—you have audience and a steady flow of opportunity–time to turn that into sales engagements.

 

Triggering sales opportunities is now a matter of engaging in the conversation when your audience is ready. The tools mentioned above will allow you to immediately see when a prospect in your audience (new customer database) needs help, can use your services, or is asking for a product. Your contact management has become as simple as clicking and responding. Even better, when you do this in a public way all of the people who had the same question or problem that didn’t ask may contact you.

 

Now your prospects are inquiring directly with you! Social CRM just got a lot more interesting, huh?

Give lead management a try—free for 30 days—and watch your sales production climb. Kaleidico’s Sales Manager is the pioneer of pull-based, high velocity sales lead management, giving your sales team a competitive advantage. Lead management will pull more deals through any sales pipeline.