How does Social Media Help Sales Professionals Make Money?

by Lonny Dunn

There are a number of ways Social Media can improve your "Image" on the internet, from building your "Brand" to adding credibility. This was from a comment reply on LinkedIn earlier today, and I am cut/pasting it here for your benefit.

Erin, As a lifetime sales professional, I'll take a shot at this.

Apparently this was a tough question. Social Media is a platform to establish your credentials. You can use it to establish you as an "Expert" in a certain professional field and build your BIO. For instance, if I am selling tires, than I can write blogs about tire performance, durability, bargain hunting and other information, which may or may not convince the consumer to buy from me, but so what? It doesn't have to be about making a transaction. It is about building a reputation as THE TIRE Guy on the Web. Then, later, after posting these articles to Blogs, and informing others all about tires, I am able to list those articles on my BIO. Secondly,

Social Media can enhance your credibility indirectly. By having links to other profiles on other sites, your own persnal webpage with links to your blogs and articles and references, your clientele can get a feel for what you do, how you do it, and how you think. They may notice you like the German Shepherd Dog, and they raise Poodles, you have a common bond and can discuss dogs when they take you to lunch. The indirect appeal cannot be overstated. Tell them to read your profile before all appointments it makes a much better visit, you are allowing them to research you.

An example can be amplified for the BIG appointment. Let's say you know you have a very big negotiation in two weeks. You're not gonna close a deal over a fb private IM anyway. But you may wish to build up the profile a bit, to honestly cover what you know about that target's needs. If I am selling consulting services, and I wish to close an Airline factory on a million dollar deal, I may wish to identify one of my lifelong hobbies of airplanes, and that my dad was a pilot, and that I was born to the trade. Don't misinform here. Just gently beef up the truthful areas. You never know when the decision maker's assistant get's smart, and does a little research, and finds that you posted a comment that you hate to fly, and got sick on your last trip to Hawaii. It can work in reverse.

Another, no less useful purpose for Social Media is Brand Awareness for both you and your product across a wide range of media. The exact same pic of me is available on fb, Twittter, LinkedIn, Apsense, and my blog posts. People become comfortable, they "Trust" or identify certain social gathering formats more than others. When they see the exact same pic used in all the sites, landing pages, and cross marketing techniques, branding occurs. To Wit:

A. Seeing my face on Twitter after finding me on LinkedIn, a consumer can trust that it's me, not my assistant or some bot, but really me.

B. Since they subconsciously trust FB for instance, they will begin to trust me more, they identify.

C. We co brand ourselves with the various social sites, and that adds credibility to whatever I am doing; they saw me on Twitter, they Tweet, they trust Twitter, they trust me. Along these lines, you can strengthen your approach by creating landing pages specifically for that Social Site. Meaning this: If all I want them to do is sign up for a newsletter, I can create a special landing page, just for all Twitter users. Another for fb, etc. Now when they click that link, they see the Twitter Logo, or LinkedIn, whatever AND THAT's all. Do not "crowd" them all on one landing page, just b/c Coke does it. The new branding technique is to create specific landing pages for specific social sites.

By being familiar with the top 5 social sites, you can improve others lives, and the question is not what can social media do for you, but how you can help other's improve their lives today, and if you do that, you are truly a success. God Bless, and I hope I helped, I ran out of Space!!

Lonny Dunn Viral Marketing, Copywrite Editor, Dir of Ops

Follow my Tweets on Twitter www.twitter.com/ProDevNetworker and www.twitter.com/ProNetworkBuild

LonnyDunn@Yahoo.com

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