The results of Jeffrey’s first ‘tweetcast’

I did my first big Twitter group tweet last week. It’s called a “tweetcast.”
Three companies – Adly (adly.com), Evolve! Inc. (evolvesinc.com) and KiteDesk (KiteDesk.com) – combined resources and invited 22 experts, including me, to tweet the answers to eight questions as they were posted. The result was a firestorm of tweets, re-tweets, and assorted comments.
In short, it was an overwhelming success. Hundreds of tweets per minute, and value messages flying all over Twitter-space. Mine included.
KiteDesk, Evolve! and a few others were both sponsors and responsible for the platform, the communications, the experts, and creating a set of questions for us to reference and tweet our answers to.
Below are the questions and my tweeted answer replies.
Question 1: Isn’t spending too much time on Social Media dangerous? I’d rather my team sell vs. tweet.
• Spend as much time on social selling as you do watching some dumbass TV show. A1 #gitomer #socsales
• Allocate time, don’t spend it – at least an hour a day to build your social net-worth. #gitomer A1 – #socsales
• Anyone that does not allocate at least an hour a day communicating value messages to your customers is a fool. #gitomer A1 #SocSales
Question 2: Give me real examples of situations where social selling produced results. Better yet – tell me how social selling has produced results that would not have been possible without it (company name, campaign, outcome, etc).
• NOTE WELL: Just because you are ready to sell does not mean they are ready to buy. #gitomer A2 #SocSales
• Value messages, not sales messages, will ultimately create buyers. #gitomer A2 #SocSales
• Wanna meet more valuable people on social selling networks? Offer more valuable messages! #gitomer A2 #socsales
Questions 3: How do best-in-class companies measure and manage social selling results?
• Apple doesn’t measure – how are they doing? Microsoft does – how are they doing? #gitomer A3 #SocSales
• Apple doesn’t measure – how are they doing? Blackberry does – how are they doing? #gitomer A3 #SocSales
• Measuring results of social media and social sales is a total waste of time – just do it! #gitomer A3 #SocSales Question 4: How do I get my team to change their behavior to incorporate social selling into their routine?
• Marketing: Solicit testimonial videos and real-life examples that can be posted on Facebook and YouTube. #gitomer A4 #SocSales
• Marketing: Provide your team with a full suite of social selling templates. #gitomer A4 #SocSales
Question 5: What is marketing’s role in social selling and how can the two departments work together to produce results?
• The best role for marketing is to get all their salespeople up and running on social media and social selling. #gitomer A5 #SocSales
• The best role for marketing is to prepare all salespeople with a full suite of social selling tools. #gitomer A5 #SocSales
• As a customer, I don’t want a sales message, I want to value message. Do you get that marketing? #gitomer A5 #SocSales
• The best role for marketing in social media is to stay out of it. #gitomer A5 #SocSales
• In general, marketing has no concept of selling. They pound customers with boring messages that have no value. #gitomer A5 #SocSales
Question Six: Are there holes in the social sales toolbox? If so, what’s missing?
• It’s not just social sales, it’s social service. How good are you at social listening? #gitomer A6 #SocSales
• Missing from 99 percent of all social selling messages: a value message to the prospective buyer. #gitomer A6 #SocSales
Question Seven: Are traditional sales tools such as email and phone calls still relevant? Why/why not?
• Great salespeople combine traditional selling and social selling. There’s plenty of place for both. #gitomer A7 #SocSales
Take a close look at my answers. Some I prepared in advance, some I created on the spot.
Results: I was retweeted and “favorite” more than 250 times during this event, I gained more than 100 new Twitter followers, and I learned some very valuable lessons about the attraction of this type of promotion.
Short answer: It worked.
Long answer: I want to (will) do it again. •


Jeffrey Gitomer is president of Charlotte-based Buy Gitomer. He can be reached at (704) 333-1112 or email to salesman@gitomer.com

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