Sales and Sales Management Blog

April 11, 2012

Lessons for Sellers from the Unsocial Media

Filed under: Communication,Sales 2.0 — Paul McCord @ 4:14 pm
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Is it just me or are others finding that they’re getting more and more brazen sales solicitations of various kinds from their new “friends,” “followers,” and “connections” than in the past?

It seems that when I friend or follow or connect with someone I’m far more likely now than in the past to get a direct message or inmail or email thanking me for following and “as a special gift” they offer me a super duper deal on their services or books or whatever. 

Often I’ll get an inmail thanking me for the connection and since they know that I’d love to follow their company page on Facebook they’ve taken the liberty to provide the link. 

Other times it is an outright blatant solicitation to sell me something without even the guise of a special offer. 

And sometimes it’s more subtle with an invitation to get to know one another on the phone—that within 30 seconds becomes a hard-line sales pitch.

It may simply be because more and more sellers are using Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and other social media and they’re ignorant of proper social media etiquette.

But it might also be a symptom of something more fundamental–the hazard of using a medium that is inherently unsocial—a computer.

Rude and obnoxious anonymous postings on forums and blogs have long been issues, along with the occasional in your face attempt to sell from a new friend, follower or connection. 

I’ve always chalked up the clumsy sales attempt as simply an etiquette error.  The rude and obnoxious comments on blogs and forums I’ve assumed was simply a result of having the luxury of being anonymous combined with “talking” to an inanimate computer screen.

But I’m beginning to think that there is a deeper inherent problem with social media than simply learning proper social media etiquette–and that problem is the impersonal nature of the computer itself.

Even though intellectually we know our emails, direct messages and inmails are going to another human, we are interacting with an inanimate object to talk to someone we do not know and whom know little to nothing about. 

Our message is then received by someone who is looking at an impersonal screen while reading the words of someone they do not know and many very well have never heard of before.

That is not a humanizing combination.  In fact, it makes it easy to dehumanize the other person because in a sense we’re not talking to a person until we get to know them a bit on a personal level.

In addition we may have a tendency to misinterpret the other person’s meaning when they friended or followed us.  Maybe they were looking to make a connection not because they were chomping at the bit to buy our stuff. 

But when dealing with a faceless person who we do not know and who we only have the barest of connections with it is easy to forget about their side of the equation and go full bore to satisfy our wants and needs.

The  direct messages, emails, and inmails we receive from other sellers should teach us a couple of hard and fast lessons:

  1. Slow down and consider why the other person might be wanting to connect with you—and realize that more than likely it isn’t because they’re dying to buy from you.
  2. Use the same rules of engagement you’d use if you met the person at a social gathering.  People are looking to make connections for all kinds of reasons but no matter the reason, trust and respect must be earned and built and that takes time.

Forget trying to push your wares or your website or your Facebook page as soon as you connect with someone.  Don’t screw up your new connection by immediately sending an unwanted, self-serving sales piece.  You may be typing to an inanimate computer screen, you may not know much about the person you’re writing to, and you may be anxious to make a sale, but the one thing you can count on is that whomever you’re writing to won’t appreciate being treated like a dollar sign to be rung up on the cash register.

June 16, 2011

How Do People Really Use Twitter? Please Take a Short Survey

Filed under: Sales 2.0 — Paul McCord @ 12:41 pm
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A few weeks ago I, in conjunction with Richardson Sales, produced a general survey on how salespeople are using social media. 

Although the results were most interesting, we didn’t have the opportunity to get very deep in our questions about any one social media platform.  Over the next weeks I am going to be doing several short surveys that get a bit deeper into how various social media platforms are being use.

The first short survey is about Twitter.

You can access the survey here:

Take our Online Survey

It’s short—probably take less than two minutes to complete as it only has 9 questions.

Take the survey and then check back in a couple of weeks to see how others are using Twitter—and what the overall view of it is.

April 11, 2011

Results of the 2011 Richardson/McCord Training Social Media in Marketing and Sales Survey

Filed under: business,lead generation,management,marketing,Personal Marketing,prospecting,sales,Sales 2.0,selling,small business — Paul McCord @ 9:07 am
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It has taken a bit of time and a lot of effort, but we finally have the 2011 Richardson/McCord Training Social Media in Marketing and Sales Survey results.

Some will be surprised, some won’t like the findings, and others will find they confirm what they suspected.

Two things stick out for me:

1.  Both salespeople and companies, whether they currently use social media or not, are struggling to figure out how to use it effectively. In fact, few—even those with sophisticated marketing departments investing time and effort into the process—have any real social media strategy.  Undoubtedly, this will be true for quite some time to come–and, of course, that means there are and will be thousands out looking to take your money to help you learn the hows of making Social Media work.  The lesson here: be extremely careful as there are many who know little more than how to construct a tweet who are anxious to take your money.

2.  To date, social media has been pretty useless in generating actual sales.  By far the most use salespeople and companies are getting from social media is in the area of prospecting–finding new prospects to contact using traditional means, not in making sales.  Again, this will probably be the case for a long, long time–it may always be the case.  Except for web-based sellers, few are realizing any real sales volume from their social media activities.  The lesson?  If you’re thinking you’re going to make easy money by spending time on social media and not having to do the hard work of prospecting, well, good luck with that thought.  On the other hand, if you’re not using social media to help identify and research prospects, you’re probably wasting a heck of a lot of time elsewhere.

Find out what else we discovered–it’s all in the survey.

I’ve decided to divert from the typical approach of requiring you to register to receive a sales oriented White Paper or making you subscribe to our newsletter.  Instead, I’m offering the report as a simple PDF download with the download link below.  I would encourage you, though, to either subscribe to the SELLING POWER Newsletter by simply shooting me an email at pmccord@mccordandassociates.com with the subject line “subscribe,” or clicking on the “Sign Me Up” button at the top of the sidebar to the right and subscribe to receive notification of new blog posts.  Subscription appreciated, not required.

If you have questions or anything needs a little more light put upon it, by all means, don’t hesitate to contact me.

Download social media survey

February 11, 2011

How Salespeople Use Social Media Survey

Filed under: marketing,sales,Sales 2.0,selling — Paul McCord @ 7:48 am
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Richardson and McCord Training have teamed up to develop a research report on whether or not salespeople are using social media in their sales and prospecting efforts; if they are using, what platforms are they using and how effective it is.  

All salespeople and sales leaders, whether you use social media are not, are encouraged to take the survey.   The survey is designed to gather information on whether or not the seller uses social media as a selling and prospecting tool; if they do, which platforms do they use; about how much time they devote to their soical media usage; and what impact it has had on their sales.

The survey is short and shouldn’t take more than a few minutes to complete. 

All who complete the survey will be entered into a drawing to win an IPod Touch.  In addition, all participants will be sent a copy of the final report.

We value you participation and I invite you to take a few minutes  to take the survey and maybe win that IPod Touch

February 2, 2011

Are You Connected? You Can Be With New Social Media Aggregator

Filed under: Networking,Sales 2.0 — Paul McCord @ 2:44 pm
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Do you have contacts on LinkedIn?  Followers on Twitter?  Friends on Facebook?  Contacts in Gmail?  Do you have appointments with some of these contacts?  Do you try to keep up with their blog posts, tweets, birthdays, job changes, and other activities?

If you do, you probably have a bit of a problem keeping up with literally thousands of business and social contacts.  It takes time to navigate through all of the platforms.  It probably has become such an issue that you really only keep connected with a few dozen select individuals and/or companies.

There’s a new service, Connected, that offers a way to take all of your contacts and aggregate their activity from Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, including their blog posts, any interactions you’ve had with them on these platforms, as well as their recent Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn activity and put it at your fingertips.

Navigating Connected at first was a little confusing as not all of your contacts will appear under ‘contacts.’  Many appear under their company link instead of on the visible contact list.  Even then I had something of a problem finding a few of my contacts, although with a little detective work they were eventually all located.

A bit of a bonus if you happen to use Google Contacts, Google Voice, and/or Google Calendar, those contacts and updates can be imported and linked to the profiles in Connected also.

In addition, you can make the data in profiles into an actionable agenda that you can then have Connected email to you dailiy. 

How much time and effort will Connected save you?  That really depends on the number of platforms you are involved with and how many connections you really stay in close contact with—or that you wish to stay in contact with.

Unlike many other sites that offer resources to help you manage your social media contacts, Connected is a fee site, charging $9.99 per month with a free 14 day trial period (a nice touch by Connected, you DO NOT have to give your credit card information to get the free trial.  At the end of the trial period you’ll get an email from Connected directing you to set up your payment form.  If you don’t want to continue the service just don’t do a thing.  Much nicer than those sites that automatically charge if you don’t unsubscribe).

Is it worth the ten dollars a month?  At this point I haven’t decided as I’ve only just begun using it.  That being said, it does have some nice features (with the recognition they have more work yet to be done).  Time will tell—about 12 more days to be exact—as to whether I find it worth $120 a year.  I’d suggest, however, that you take a look and a trial and decide if Connected will work for you.

October 20, 2010

3 Sales Resources Well Worth Taking a Look At

Filed under: sales,Sales Resources,selling,small business — Paul McCord @ 4:27 pm
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There are a ton of great resources on the net for salespeople and companies.  In fact, there are so many it’s hard to keep track of ‘em.  Let me point out three (one self-serving) that I think are worth your time:

  1. My friend Paul Castain of YourSalesPlaybook.com is top notch on helping sellers learn how to really get value out of social media.  His blog is right on the money—and funny to boot; his observations sharp; and his free stuff worth every penny and more.Recently he published a new ditty called “How to Become More Visible to Your Network.”  It is 25 ways to really build some relationships with those people you meet whether in the real world or your virtual business worlk.  Valuable, valuable ebook. 

    Get your free copy here.
  2. Do you or your company do webinars whether free or paid?  If you do you need to try out Webinar Box Office from Webfishery.  Webinar Box Office claims to promote your upcoming webinar on more than 250 social media sites—for FREE.  Their webinar database is searchable by subject and promoted on Facebook, Twitter, and others. Worth a try. 

    List your webinar HERE

  3. Roger Bauer interviewed me about how to reignite your sales.  You can find the interview at the Bauer Pauer Hauer HERE.  You’ll learn the three things you must do to get your sales going again; the biggest mistake salespeople and managers are making right now; how to get a ton of referrals almost overnight; and much more.

 I know everyone is busy but I think each of these is worth taking a few minutes to take a look at. 

September 16, 2010

Guest Article: “Five Ideas To Elevate Your Reputation,” by Jeb Brooks

Filed under: business,career development,success — Paul McCord @ 8:15 am
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FIVE IDEAS TO ELEVATE YOUR REPUTATION
by Jeb Brooks

Recently, I posed a question on Twitter: “What comes to mind when I say, ‘salesperson.’”  What came back probably won’t surprise you…here’s a sampling…

  • Likely to be incompetent
  • Smarmy
  • Working an angle not in my best interest
  • Slimy

It’s fruitless to make excuses for other people’s misbehavior. Instead, it’s better to focus on improving your own reputation (and the reputation of the people you manage). Here are a few ideas.

  1. Never make a claim that can’t be backed up with facts.
    This is also known by its more technical name, “lying.” And liars get caught. Making a claim that you can prove (or better yet, a third party can verify) builds trust. Anything you say can be checked at the speed of Google. 
  2. Only ask for referrals after earning the right.
    It’s awfully appealing to ask every warm body you come across for the names of other people who might want what you’re selling. But you’re much better off waiting until you’ve proven your value. People are a lot more willing to share your story after they’ve experienced it.
  3. Remain in alignment with your prospect: People buy for their reasons not yours.
    I’m definitely not the first person to say, “Listen your way into a sale.” But that’s because it’s always been true! Pay attention to what your prospect says and you’ll be able to identify what – and how – they want to buy. That means you should only offer a recommendation if it will really help your prospect. Don’t be in the business of jamming your most profitable offering down a prospect’s throat unless it will be of genuine use.
  4. When a salesperson and a prospect get locked in a war of wills, the salesperson will lose.
    Your success is determined by the person who decides whether to buy from you. They’re in the “driver’s seat.” Be truthful and respectful. If you sense that a prospect is beginning to become defensive, it might be time to back down and gain an understanding of their perspective before becoming angry.
  5. Manipulative tactics do nothing but harm reputations (including mine).
    Thankfully the millions of manipulative closes are on the wane. But there are still salespeople who try to manipulate their way into a sale. Most of today’s buyers are smart enough to see them coming. When you try them, it’s easy to put a knick in the reputation of all salespeople.

The bottom line?  We’ve all got to work hard to continue the momentum in our effort to elevate the reputation of the sales profession.  Hope you’ll join me…

Jeb Brooks is Executive Vice President of the The Brooks Group, one of the world’s Top Ten Sales Training Firms as ranked by Selling Power Magazine. He is a sought-after commentator on sales and sales management issues, having appeared in numerous publications including the Wall Street Journal. Jeb authored the second edition of the book “Perfect Phrases for the Sales Call” and writes for The Brooks Group’s popular Sales Blog . He can be reached at + 1 (336) 282-6303

June 28, 2010

Guest Article: “Dear Customer, Meet Me on Twitter. Dear Vendor, Why Should I Do That?” by Jonathan Farrington

Filed under: marketing,sales,Sales 2.0,selling — Paul McCord @ 1:10 pm
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Dear Customer, Meet Me on Twitter.  Dear Vendor, Why Should I Do That?
by Jonathan Farrignton

It seems that most of the hype surrounding Sales 2.0 has been generated first by software vendors/social media evangelists and now by salespeople – but what do customers make of it all, has anyone stopped to tell them what’s in it for them?
 
Of course all of these tools (not necessarily new tools by the way) will help us find new opportunities, but will they really help us manage our existing client base, after all, CRM in one guise or another has been around since…well, I think I still had hair!

We all know that a vitally important sales activity is that of managing existing customer accounts, to consolidate and grow the relationship. Yet unfortunately, when compared over time, the customers’ interest levels increase while salespeople’s interest levels tend to decrease. This creates a “relationship gap” and is due entirely to complacency. I happen to believe that “complacency levels” are increasing alarmingly, and this goes some way to explaining declining levels of sales achievement.

Another major issue is that too often the salesperson fails to expand his/her “contact base” as this next survey proves, which results in vulnerability and exposure to competitive activity.

Periodically, the Financial Times conducts a survey of British industry to establish how companies go about their purchasing. The survey is very comprehensive, broken down into many kinds of products and services – and I have no reason to suppose that results are exclusive to the UK or Europe.

From a Sales Director’s perspective, these are very worrying statistics

Customer size (Number of employees): Less than 200
Average number of buying influencers: 3.43
Number of influencers visited by salespeople: 1.72

Customer size (Number of employees): 200 – 400
Average number of buying influencers: 4.85
Number of influencers visited by salespeople: 1.75

Customer size (Number of employees): 401 – 1000
Average number of buying influencers: 5.81
Number of influencers visited by salespeople: 1.90

Customer size (Number of employees): 1001 +
Average number of buying influencers: 6.50
Number of influencers visited by salespeople: 1.65

In essence, without a sustained approach to ongoing servicing and support activities, customers that took months to win are ultimately lost because there was a lack of interest from their supplier.

To-days clients/customers are looking for vendors who can be business-partners, who are willing and able to share risks and who are able to properly manage the entire sales process.

They are also looking for business partners who will sell to them how they wish to be sold to – and that may not include via a Sales 2.0 or a “Social Media” approach.

Fact: It now costs fifteen times as much to locate and sell to a new customer as it does to an existing one – compelling reasons to build brick walls around our client base, before  promiscuously chasing after every half-chance? It may not be as exciting, but be assured, it is a great deal more profitable.

“Dear Vendor, You probably will not see me on Twitter – now what?”

Jonathan Farrington is a globally recognized business coach, mentor, author and sales strategist, who has guided hundreds of companies and thousands of individuals around the world towards optimum performance levels. He is Chairman of The Sales Corporation, CEO of Top Sales Associates and Senior Partner at The JF Consultancy based in London and Paris. Early in 2007, Jonathan formed Top Sales Associates (TSA) to promote the very best sales related solutions and products. TSA is now a subsidiary of The Sales Corporation, based in London and Paris.  Visit his website

June 23, 2009

Boost Your Sales series: “How to Find the Right Social Media Strategy for Your Business,” by Cindy King

Filed under: business,lead generation,marketing,prospecting,sales,Sales 2.0,selling,small business — Paul McCord @ 6:26 am
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How To Find The Right Social Media Strategy For Your Business
by Cindy King

“How can social media improve my business?” 
“What will Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn bring to my bottom line?”
“What is the ROI of social media?”
And…
“Are businesses really making sales through social media?”

These are questions I heard often this week while attending the Social Media Success Summit 2009 . They are heavy questions.  And there is a problem: the real answers people want depend on their business and their markets. Social media is about connecting with people.  This means connecting you in your business with your clients.  This is why I believe that businesses need to jump in and participate to find the answer to these questions themselves. 

In this article, I hope to help you get a little closer to these answers by telling you my own story as a small business owner using social media to reach international clients.

Why It Takes Time To Find The Answer

Less than a year ago, I did not even realize that a blog was social media. My blog was 6 months old and it was time to look for ways to improve my online presence.  I blog for business and had no time to waste.  Luckily I met Chris Garrett  who gently got me to look more closely at the other social media platforms, even though they seemed unsuitable for a small business struggling with time commitments.

So I reluctantly tried Twitter, while I blogged daily on two blogs, had a dormant Facebook profile, a LinkedIn account and a small group of social media friends to coax me on.  It took me 3 months simply to understand what social media was about.  Don’t panic, it does not take everyone this long.  But I had a few prejudgments against social media to get rid of and was not quite as web savvy as I am today.  I also found that I needed to understand several of the social media tools individually before I could see what was happening in the big social media picture.

Once I understood the social media environment the fun started.  I began to play with it, to see what value social media had for my business.  It took another 6 months to understand how the people in my market use social media and how I could use social media as a prospecting tool.

That is my social media story in a nutshell. 

For many businesses it is not that simple.  Management wants answers to those big questions before jumping in. 

What Is The Buzz About?

First you need to understand why social media is important.

Although social media started out as personal communication platforms, these platforms are in the process of becoming useful tools businesses to reach clients.  For example:

  • Facebook is used successfully by many businesses in the B2C world as a sales platform.  Other businesses are using the Facebook Pages as a hub within a strategic social media presence. 
  • LinkedIn is not just a place to virtually exchange business cards.  For example, there are polls and applications to share slide presentations.
  • Twitter is now widely accepted as one of the easiest and fastest ways for businesses to poll their audiences and get immediate feedback.  Tweets are now indexed by Google, which improves overall search results.

Although each of these social media platforms will continue to evolve, it is this form of communication that is important.  Social media communication will continue to expand in today’s customer-centric world of inbound marketing. 

Social media is a place to connect with your clients.  You need to find out what part this plays in your sales cycle.

How Can Social Media Help Your Business?

Before you can answer this question there are three important things you need to establish:

Right attitude – You need to understand how social media communication works.  You can only pick up the right attitude through participating. People have different communication skills, so this can take more or less time to get right.

Context – Many businesses wonder if their clients are on social media.  The answer is often yes.  Your clients are like everyone and probably spend time online. The real question is one of context. 

  • What are our clients doing on social media?
  • Where are they?
  • Why are they there?
  • How are they using social media?

You need to understand the context your clients are in when they use each social media platform.  Only then will you be able to find the right approach to connect with them on social media. 

Clear Business Objectives – Social media platforms have a wide range of bells and whistles… and things that can seem absurd in a professional environment.  If you want business results out of social media you must stay business focused and learn to navigate in this environment.

Although a direct sales approach does not work on social media, you can use social media tactics within a well planned soft sales approach based on a strong value proposition and engaging with people.

Clear business objectives also help you to handle some of the challenging aspects most people struggle with on social media:

  • Get over any personal issues you have with networking.  People who are good networkers in traditional environments usually adapt well to social media networking.   Social media highlights personal preferences and styles in networking.  Clear business objectives helps you keep to business networking.
  • Avoid wasting time on the gadgets.  There are many social media tools to “help” you get the most out of social media.  It is very easy to add on extras that do not add any value to your business strategies and get you out of focus. Clear business objectives help you to come up with a social media system that works for you. 
  • Stay focused on targeting the people you want to meet. 

Why My Tweet Plan Boosted By Business?

My first Tweet Plan revolutionized by business.  It opened doors to people I would never have dreamed of meeting.  Yes, I have had a few clients come to me through Twitter.  But this is not where I have had the highest return on my time investment. 

What I appreciate most out of Twitter is the ease in making high quality contacts.  Instead of using social media to get individual clients I deliberately looked for people who could bring me many clients.  I wanted high quality sources of referrals to help me develop my new business. 

What I found was that I can make contacts very easily on social media, but not sell directly.  To make these contacts work for my business, I need to take them outside of the social media environment.  Social media is simply a part of the initial cycle to find clients.

This is why I started the New Year by deciding to connect directly with one new Twitter contact each day.  By phone, or by email.  This means that my sales success rate depends on my traditional sales and business skills. 

And this leads me to the most important thing to remember about using social media to develop your business:  Take the conversation outside of social media.

Conclusion

Social media does not provide miracle solutions for businesses.  You still need good common business sense.  It does have one distinct advantage though: it puts everyone on the same playing field.  Small businesses can have the same business success as the big ones.

Today I have learned how social media works for my business. 

  • It is not just one social media platform that brings in the results.  People are different and multifaceted.  They bounce between Twitter, my blog, my website, Facebook, LinkedIn, FriendFeed.  They check out what I have to say in several places before contacting me directly. 
  • It is not just the inbound effect of people contacting me either.  I also go looking for interesting people and reach out to make direct content.  This is how I meet 2 or 3 good contacts each week.
  • It is not just me sitting alone behind my computer.  Several networks of friends for different social bookmarking activities and networking help me learn more and keep up to date. 
  • It is not just about my business and what I offer.  It is also keeping a tab on what is happening in my industry online.  This increases my business intelligence and gives me interesting information to pass along through social media platforms.

My social media strategy does not work for everyone.  Different business models need to adapt their social media strategies to fit their needs.

Cindy King is a Cross-Cultural Marketer & International Sales Strategist  based in France.  She uses her dual background in sales & marketing to help businesses improve their international sales conversion and develop country-specific international sales guides.  Connect with her on Twitter @CindyKing

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April 28, 2009

Twitter for Business—Why Is Everyone all Atwitter?

Filed under: marketing,prospecting,sales,technology — Paul McCord @ 8:15 am
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I’ve been using Twitter for a few weeks now and although I’m not a ‘pro’ at using the tool by any means, I’ve made some observations that have raised a number of questions about its usefulness and I’d really like to get other’s opinions and experiences before I determine that Twitter, like much of the other highly touted ‘social media,’ is a lot of hype and little practical application.

Here’s what I noticed about Twitter:

Preaching to the Choir:  I’ve spent a bit of time looking at the followers of a number of people who are obviously seeking to use Twitter as a marketing tool and I’ve noticed a pattern-the overwhelming majority, often in the area of 85 to 90% of the followers, are not prospects for the person’s company but are instead friends, competitors, or co-workers. 

The Numbers Don’t Add Up:  Assuming that their message is getting a broader play from being ‘retweeted,’ I chose three people and followed their followers to see how often a tweet would be disseminated through being retweeted.  The results, I’m sure, would be very disappointing to these three Twitter users if they knew the numbers.  Although they did have several of their tweets retweeted, most of the retweets were of tweets that promoted an article the person had read that had been written by someone else and was posted on the article author’s website or blog. 

One of the primary uses of tweets is to post things that are helpful to one’s followers and letting them know of a useful article is one of the most common forms of this.  The problem is if you’re trying to get yourself out to as many people as possible, being retweeted doesn’t seem to be doing a very good job-other than letting people know what you read and then sending them to that author’s site.   It appears being the author of the article is far more beneficial than being the tweeter of the article.

Inane Information:  The content of tweets is often ridiculous.  From ‘tips’ that are either so obvious or trite as to be silly, to the minutia of someone’s existence, the content often leaves one wondering whether or not the posters of these tweets really have a meaningful job-or are capable of meaningful thought.  Twitter sometimes borders on a 140 character version of the theater of the absurd.

Hyper Promotion: Some, by no means all–just the most obnoxious, use Twitter to shamelessly name drop, unrelentingly promote their newsletter or blog, continually proclaim their own guru status, or repeatedly tweet about their latest article.

Where most would post a tweet about their latest article or newsletter, these hyper self promoters will post the same tweet about their article or newsletter four, five, six times a day, day in and day out until they’ve written another article and then they start the cycle over again.  Where most will mention the new edition of their newsletter, hyper promoters will post tweet after tweet after tweet encouraging readers to go sign up for the newsletter, thinking, I guess, that if you didn’t do it the first 19 times they told you to, you’ll do it the 20th time they mention it.

Not only is this hyper self-promotion annoying, it makes the person doing it appears desperate.

Twitter appears to be a great way to maintain contact with family and friends.  If you want to create a casual network of co-workers and acquaintances-or even others within your industry-Twitter seems quite the tool. 

But for serious business promotion?  I’m far from convinced. 

To be fair, I’ve spoken to one gentleman who is a firm believer in using Twitter to promote his business.  He says that since he has been using twitter his website traffic has really increased.  Unfortunately, his sales haven’t, his newsletter subscribers haven’t increased that much, and his repeat traffic to his site hasn’t increased that much.  Has Twitter really helped him?  I don’t know, but he believes it has.

I have another friend who is certain that Twitter is helping him get the word out about himself.  He points to the fact that he has over 2,200 followers (he dismisses the fact he follows over 2,000 of them), and that he regularly has his tweets retweeted.  A cursor y look at his followers–it doesn’t appear that his message is getting out to many viable prospects. 

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I’m very skeptical of Twitter’s usefulness as a business tool, but I’d really like to get other’s experiences and opinions.  The floor’s yours.

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