FoxBusiness.com published this deansguide article 4-28-09
Every great sales professional, business development director, and account executive should be paying attention to the huge opportunities that Twitter represents to their bottom line sales quota and success. As a former national account executive in the software industry, I never had a tool like Twitter. If I had Twitter at my disposal, here is how I would drive my sales while driving my competition crazy. The following are 5 tips for lead generation.
Twitter Strategies: Lead Generation for Sales Professionals
- WeFollow.com: Wefollow.com is a Twitter directory covering every niche market of businesses, entrepreneurs, and celebrities. Go to wefollow.com and register your account in the appropriate niche. This helps provide exposure. Next look for your competition to see if they are in the directory. Finally search for your peers who you network with or collaborate on projects. Tip: Give your customers and collaborators this information so they can take advantage of wefollow.com
- Search: Utilize Twazzup.com and Twitter’s internal search engine to search for your competition, peers, collaborators, and consumers. Make a list of your competition and clients that are using Twitter. Tip: Again make this information available to clients using Twitter. Be a go-to source of valuable Twitter information
- Blogroll: On the profile page for every Twitter account sits a microblogroll aka the Followers section with pictures of some of that account’s followers. The following is @guykawasaki’s blogroll:
4. Mine Blogroll: Mine this blogroll for your competition, for people or companies you wish to contact, and for recon on who your competition is actively engaging. The key is to scan this roll but then go deeper by clicking on the link “view all” at the bottom of the blogroll widget
5. Mine Competition’s Tweet Stream: Go to your competitor’s profile page look for:
- Competition’s consumers or client communications
- Who your competition engages with in conversation
- How often they are engaging
- Signs of customer service activity may signal an opportunity to “steal” an account or customer away from your competition
- Search for announcements that your competition is partnering or about to “consult” with a desired account
- Search for reputation management issues that could be a deciding factor in why your company is a better fit for a client
- Search for “loose lips” or “bragging” where your competition could not keep their mouth shut. Approach companies with information about your competition’s “communication” tendancies
