As we head toward the end of the year, it’s natural to start looking to 2015. Where will you find new prospects next year?
They could be on social media right now without you realizing it. Get your team to increase their use of social media (for more than just cat videos) this quarter by implementing a Twitter Drive, in order to increase business next year.
How to Start a Twitter Drive
- Have a meeting on Monday where everyone notes the number of Twitter followers they have. Some may have 100, some may have 5,000. Some, umm, may not have any.
- Set a follow-up meeting for four weeks from Monday to see what progress everyone made.
- Brainstorm ways to find the right kind of new people to connect with.
What are You Tracking?
- Don’t count the absolute increase here — there are ways to game this system (bulk following other users, paying someone on Fiverr.com to get you a bunch of followers) — and the point is not merely to add names. The point is to increase real connections.
- Make sure the connections are real, i.e. the profiles are used frequently and are the kind of person your team would like to do business with.
- Count the number of conversations that go on over Twitter.
- Truthfully, what you’re tracking isn’t as important as what you’re doing — building a habit of using Twitter to connect with prospects — and four weeks is a good start in building new habits.
Brainstorm Ways to Mindfully Connect
Here are a few ideas to get started:
- Connect with every current customer
- Connect with every current prospect you have met with at least once
- If you are in media, connect with prominent ad agency folks you know around town
- Connect with business leaders at places like the Chamber of Commerce
- Connect with high-profile nonprofit organizations
- Share content!
Think of connecting on Twitter in three categories:
Hunting
When you know who you want to connect with. Your target is clear— actual names. Make a list of prospects. Find them on Twitter. That’s hunting.
Fishing
When fishing, you have to select the right bait in order to bring in a big catch. Good content is your bait; sharing it is fishing. Your keywords, your branding, even the look and feel of your Twitterfeed are all bait--if they’re good.
Farming
Farmers plant seeds (helpful hints, mindful quotes, links to other people’s content) in order to cultivate the crop they desire for their future harvest.
Finding ways to connect using Twitter is a perfect combination of all three types. Many people stop at hunting, but with fishing, you’re throwing your brand out where the fish are, which helps you be a known quantity in the pond, and farming is essential to future cultivation of prospects, even though the fruits of your farming labor don’t become clear for a while, often a long while.
As you use these search tools to find others, you’ll gain new insights about how someone may find you, and in a month, your salespeople will have an effective new prospecting tool at their disposal.
Who knows, you might even try a new social media drive next month.