To get in earlier with customers it is increasingly necessary to use sites like Twitter and LinkedIn. “Selling is dead. Long live social media”. This is a claim that has sparked heated debate recently in one LinkedIn sales group. While it is a bit of an outrageous claim meant to invite discussion, it captures one of the most pressing issues we all face today. What role does and will social media play in the marketplace and how can we plan for the ways it will impact us? LinkedIn generates 277% more conversions than other social media channels. So what does this mean for you? MORE >>

The reps then choose the specific message that goes into a Twitter feeds or LinkedIn status updates. Inside sales reps have a higher dependence on LinkedIn, professional networks and Twitter, while brand specialists tend to use collaboration tools and personal pages. In the months since our first blog post on IBM’s social selling strategy , there has been overwhelming interest in the process they use to support reps, while maintaining brand standards. That learning largely comes from connecting, listening, and facilitating—in short, becoming a member of the customer’s community. MORE >>

Salesforce for Twitter and Facebook. Does your company use Salesforce.com as your CRM? If so, you’re going to want to read this. CRM, like many other initiatives companies roll out, is often plagued with adoption problems. This shouldn’t come as a surprise because, as valuable as CRM is to sales organizations, entering data into the system can be a pain for sellers. So not only do companies need to pick the right CRM system for their organization and make sure their reps see value in using it, but they also need to make it easy for reps to use. and incorporates more than 20 languages. MORE >>

For example, Morgan Stanley allows 600+ of their advisors to leverage LinkedIn and Twitter to generate leads and re-engage previous clients. This has resulted in a 12X increase in Twitter followers and a 2X increase in page views of seller profiles, culminating in increased lead generation.  ( SEC Members : Learn more about IBM’s “social sound bites” and register for our upcoming webinar on this best practice.). “Our customers just don’t call us in anymore!” . 1)      Where do your customers learn? 2)      To what degree do we leverage social media in sales? It’s the internet.” MORE >>

FWIW, Twitter has its own little language.  This list of  Top Twitter Acronyms is very informative. Do you receive e-mails, text messages, and tweets filled with acronyms you can’t decipher? You’re not alone; in fact, some companies now hire teenagers and young adults to teach their employees information-age shorthand. Maybe it’s a sign of the times.  As a global population, we’re busier than ever before and the efficiencies gained through acronyms might be small but maybe make us feel like we are working faster. Let me know if there’s anything I can do.” MORE >>