75% of B2B buyers use social media to make purchasing decisions. And there are millions of conversations and dozens of places to look for said conversations right now to find leads. It doesn’t have to be difficult to start social selling.

How to use Twitter to Generate Leads

As you look at your prospects, Twitter is a great place to start. All of the conversations are open and you can engage easily with a reply. I will say Linkedin has a higher level of opportunity, but it also takes more time to figure out, to make connections, and to build a following. So if you want fast go to Twitter, if you want quality focus on growing on Linkedin. Here we’ll discuss using Twitter to quickly identify the right people and opportunities for your pipeline.

Social Selling Research via Twitter Search

You can go through conversations, find people whose profile matches or look through media. I suggest coming to Twitter search for the conversations. Depending on the product or service you are selling, you should have an idea of who your prospect is and what they might be talking about in different stages of buying research. Let’s look at an example: You sell a CRM for nonprofits Awareness stage your prospects use a spreadsheet or email contact program, they may not talk about their database but they might reference using the spreadsheet, so that’s one word to search. Consideration stage has your prospects looking at multiple tools, asking questions of your competitors, and even talking about other technology products they use. Decision stage will be able comparing prices, asking about deep features, etc. It makes the most sense to set up your searches in a free tool like Hootsuite. Once these are set up you can quickly run through results a couple of times a day to find opportunities. Now, I’ll be honest, these are conversations that a lot of reps will pick up on, and they are few and far between because they are the most obvious searches. As you watch these search results you’ll notice additional keywords and opportunities, these are the ones you want to pay attention to. For instance, do you find tweets that mention signing up for a non-profit newsletter? That can be done inside your CRM, so you can ask the user how to sign up for the newsletter and begin a conversation that way. Tweets might talk about fundraising, events, dinners, thanking donors, etc. These are the real quick identifiers for opportunities. Additionally, Salesforce’s mini guide on Social Selling talks about looking for complaints to respond to or follow up with. This is another option that will help you find people who need your service.

Twitter Audiences

Another favorite way to find social sales opportunities is to watch Twitter audiences. What I mean here is watch the followers of other users. For instance, your competitor might be KarmaCRM, so you should watch their following. Each day new people will follow them and you’ll be able to look at their profiles and tweet history to see if they are a prospect for what you have to offer. Besides competitors, you’ll want to follow and watch followers of industry leaders whose following will need your product. In marketing, Neil Patel is a leader so anyone who follows him is probably a good prospect for marketing automation programs. Think of your competitors, your industry leaders, and even your own CEO, and constantly watch who is following them. Build out lists of prospects using the Twitter list feature and import their feeds into Hootsuite so you can easily see who is opening a conversation.

Linkedin Feed for social media conversations

While Linkedin will take a bit longer, there is the opportunity to watch your feed from Hootsuite and you can often find engaging conversations others have started. Participate in these conversations, read others’ responses and offer to connect with those that have potential to work with you in the future. Lately, I’ve been saving links to conversations on Linkedin to refer back to, here is one I saved to Pocket, there are definitely many opportunities here.

Your Social Selling Opportunities - Go Get Started

Being social is the fastest way to find opportunities. That means sharing a lot, connecting a lot, and listening more than anything. Have conversations, not just sales chats, and connect with people on a level where they will come back to you. Build relationships, and stay active. Retweet and share with others, respond to many tweets and shares and build your network.