In the introduction post, I’ve wrote about selling as a communication technique which doesn’t receive enough attention in social media. This week I want to elaborate on my opinion. In order to do that we have to go back to basic concepts of selling. According to marketing guru Kotler, these are the main roles of the sales force: Prospecting, Communicating, Selling, Servicing, Information gathering, Allocating. All of these roles could be performed in social media environment, but today I will start with the analysis of Prospecting.

Prospecting in Social Media

From the first sight it seems like it is the easiest part, but even though social media is great research tool it can be quite challenging to find the right prospects, or to find the right social contact information of prospects in social media. Especially, if you want to target someone who is doing the business “offline”. The social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter can be quite helpful, but there is a great need for Social Media Citizens list, where you can easily find people responsible for social media campaigns or faces behind Facebook pages, Twitter profiles and etc. Here is a short overview of advantages and disadvantages of the main social networks in terms of generating new leads.

Facebook:

+ Facebook “Search” is an easy way to find people who are looking for or talking about the products or services you sell.

+ Facebook “Groups” and “Pages” – easy way to find the prospects according their interest

+ Best for relationship building (more than 140 characters)

–  Difficult to find the right contacts behind the certain “Pages”.

–  Difficult to start the conversation because most of the people use it only for personal reasons and can get easily annoyed (especially in UK).

Twitter:

+ “Twitter Search” is an easy way to find people who are looking for or talking about the products or services you sell.

+ “Twitter Lists” – easy way to find the prospects according their interest

+ Quick direct contact

+ Good for for relationship building

+ Can use @ to start conversation straight away if you don’t care about your followers

–  Can’t send direct messages to people who are not following you

Linkedin:

+ Can easily find the prospected company by industry

+ Linkedin Groups – easy way to find the prospects according their interest

–  Can’t contact if you haven’t got an upgraded account