Many professionals don't realize the significance of social media. They ask themselves "why do I want to put myself out there?" when they should really be asking "who and what is out there?"
123SocialMedia does a lot of competitive intelligence for many of our clients . We search, listen, adapt and strategize. It is the ability to find information about communities, consumers, demographics, prospects, investors and competitors that is one of the most valuable aspects of social media. If you are a B2B professional, this sixty second change to your workload can dramatically improve your efficiency.
Case example: when I receive a blind e-mail from a prospect or a random phone call, I immediately turn to the web for information about who I am talking to. The more "big picture" knowledge I have about the person, the better I can talk to actionable points that make sense to that person.
In that sense I have a "sixty second review" that I do for almost everyone. If I am nearby my keyboard, I can usually do this search live while I am asking basic questions and letting the other person talk.
The end result of my sixty second online review is a MASSIVE increase to my understanding of who I am talking to.
First source: WebMynd for Firefox.
Webmynd is a plugin for Firefox that replaces the Google paid ads section with search results from top social media sites. When I search for "John Doe" on Google, I immediately see conversations including that name on Twitter, Images tagged on Flickr, the profile of John Doe on Linkedin, the video results on YouTube and more. In ten seconds I usually know enough about John Doe to immediately see some interesting things:
Example:
- From Twitter: I can see if John Doe is active online: someone on Twitter could be talking about them. This could be friends or family, or someone who just had lunch with them for business.
- From Linkedin: I can immediately see who they work for, who they know, people who can give me "tidbits" on them personally, and track down the orgnizational structure later on.
Second source: Addictomatic
Addictomatic provides another dashboard view of the person I am talking to. A lot of the information is very similar to the information WebMynd provides, but Addictomatic presents it in another format for my mind to interact with. A key to using massive amounts of data is to realize that you need to look at it from several different perspectives: what seems meaningless on one chart may seem absolutely critical when presented with another piece of data.
This fundamental means that you need to arrange your research structure appropriately. Visualizing the data you are trying to interpret is critical to processing the information.
- An important feature of Addictomatic is that I can move information sections around the homepage of Addictomatic; adding and deleting portions as needed. I can also save the URL for the search into my bookmarks and instantly have a profile for the person/company for further review.
Third source: 123people.com
123people fills in some additional holes and help me to finalize my strategic picture. Within seconds I can see additional social networking sites they are on and profiles that they have. I can also begin to tie them to real world location, as 123people returns physical address and even phone numbers.
While this sixty second process can be done live with someone on the phone, I recommend that business professionals learn the tools that present fast and immediate results for the processes they do on a daily basis.
If you take this process to the next level:
- Spend ten to thirty minutes going back through all three sites and reading some of the more prominent information.
- Go back and perform searches for co-workers and brand names related to the person you are talking with.
- Examine connections of yours that can create in-person, human testimonials and insight.
Applying this concept to larger organizations and finding niche tactical information for B2B process efficiency can drive huge results in any business.
My questions for you:
If you are a B2B professional, how much time do you spend on a daily basis trying to learn about the people you are dealing with? Are tools and processes like this useful?