Buzz! How to generate Buzz using Twitter

I have been using Twitter for about a month now, with the goal of generating interest in my Outsourced Sales Management Consulting practice. Think of Twitter and all of these types of social media sites as advertising tools, to send out your brand to as many people as possible.

Now to some ideas!

I have found (with a help from my friends) two other web sites that link to Twitter:

ping.fm
klout.net

ping.fm is a site that broadcasts your message out to multiple social networking sites like Twitter. There are currently over 45 sites that ping.fm connects with. Think of each one of those sites, as a mini advertisement with its own target markets. When you setup a ping.fm account you can select as many of those sites as you want. At the main screen on ping.fm there is a box where you enter your message and it is then posted to all the social sites that you have selected. One entry is then sent out to many social networking sites.

klout.net is a web based tool that ranks your Twitter postings. It has a very interesting graph showing how you compare to other people in the world of Twitter. I am listed as a Connector in the over all ranking of Twitter accounts. You can also compare your Tweets to other peoples Tweets.

There is a series of tabs on the right. The next tab is Stats, which gives you an overview of your Twitter activity. The Stats lists: Engagement, Reach, Velocity, Demand, Network Strength, and Activity. The Content tab lists specific activities like questions and answers, and retweets. Use this as a guide to your Twitter activities keeping the goal of building up your followers to build your brand identity. Finally there is the last tab for Network which shows a world wide map with an overlay of your influence. My map shows that I influence people in the United States.

This web site is a new tool for me so I will have to update you on the trends that I observe. I look at klout.net as a way to measure the effectiveness of my marketing message, also know as Buzz. The more these indicators grow the more Buzz my effort is generating. My goal of all these tools is to increase paying clients for my Outsourced Sales Management Consulting practice. The more Buzz and traffic on my site I can generate, the higher probability of closure of new accounts. I am also targeting new clients that are based outside the US. Based on the map on klout.net I need to focus on connecting to people outside of the US.

I hope that this helps you and gives you some tools to increase your Buzz. Please post your comments below. If you are looking to increase your company’s sales, please click through to my web site for my contact information.

Using social media tools to expand your potential customer base

Twitter and Linked In and Blogs…. Oh My!
Twitter and Linked In and Blogs…. Oh My!
Twitter and Linked In and Blogs…. Oh My!

Sometimes it would be great to ask the All Knowing Wizard of Oz to tell you what to do with these new marketing tools. Since he is not available, I hope that I can answer some of your questions.

I started to try out Twitter a few weeks ago as a way to expand my connections. My goal is to find small companies that are ready to expand their sales and marketing efforts in the US. I then help them to connect with sales people and customers across the country and the world. The way I think of the social networking sites is like a TV commercial. I am sending out a very small message to a large pool of prospective customers. The focus of the message is my brand, me, and where to find more information as a fellow up. For example, books that I am reading, updates to my blog, meetings I am attending and that I am looking for sales people to sell my client’s products.

How does this tool fit into my sales strategy?

Think about the classic sales model of a big funnel. The inputs into the funnel are raw unqualified prospects. In the old days of the 1980’s the inputs came for responses to advertisements. The outputs of the funnel are customers that purchase something from you. The challenge in this model is to mover prospects through the selling process from raw leads to closed sales. The Social Networks are a way to get people that are interested in your specific message and then drive them to the next step in the selling process. In my case the Twits drive traffic to the Blog. The Blog drives traffic to my Web site, which gets people to send me an email requisition more info.

Who is reading my messages? For me it is a lot of people that I do not know. My goal for now is to let the network grow. The bigger the audience the higher the probability that my commercial with hit the one person that I am looking for.

If I post someone finds interesting, great!
If they read that leads then go to my Blog, Wow!
If they read the Blog and then contact me, Hurray!

Some people commented on my Linked In postings that Social Networks do not have a good ROI. I learned from Bill O’Leary in the early 80’s that ROI is Return On Investment. What is the investment in a Blog? What is the investment in a Tweet? Nothing but my time! The ROI for only one hit is huge and worth my investment in time.

I hope that you found this interesting. Please post any comments or questions, and please add your name to the followers list.