Shane Gibson's Podcast – Social Selling – B2B Sales and Influence

I was recently asked to summarize the what marketers must know about social media marketing by Jay Levinson. I was about to answer him when he added a stipulation in, in 3 points, only 3 summarize what marketers must know about social media. I thought I would share with you what I shared with him:

* It’s a conversation – As marketers in the past we have been awarded based upon our ability to craft messages and broadcast to an audience, a niche or a market segment.  People no longer want to be talked at.  In fact their conversations with each other on Twitter, Facebook, or even the videos they post on YouTube impact and define major brands.  As social media marketers we need to get involved in those conversations if we want to effectively brand and market online.

* It’s a listening tool – More than a conversation, social media marketing is about listening.  We need to be listening for opportunities to engage with people that are talking about our brand.  Social media gives us the opportunity to engage at the instant someone is talking about us (if we’re listening), and have relevant, personal and authentic conversations with our customers.  Use tools like Twitter search, Google Alerts, and SocialMention.com to monitor those conversations.

* Social media belongs to everyone, which is good and bad, it forces you to be different to win – As a marketer you no longer have control or a monopoly on a medium.  Social media tools are in everyone’s hands.  This is great news for anyone who wants to create a brand and generate revenues online.  This is also a bad thing, because it creates a lot of noise. You must have a distinctive message, offering and leadership style if you want to get noticed online.  To win you must be more engaging, add more value, and be more creative than everyone else if you want to rise above the noise.

There’s a lot of talk about being engaged. In particular in social media we talk about engagement as one of the key benchmarks of being a successful brand, marketer, blogger or personality online.  Today’s podcast is on what engagement is about. Here’s a short list of what engagement is:

* Complete listening, not just to hear but to make others feel heard.

* Present consistently

* Connected emotionally

* Aligned with values

* Contributing to dreams

* Seeing trust as an ends not a means

* Creating networks and meeting points

Yes I have consumed the social media Kool-Aid. In fact I have opened my own roadside stand.  Social media is an exciting disruptive technology.  But the ride is almost over, the hype will die down after everyone has found everyone on Facebook and when even our dog has a blog. Marketers and the community at large will ask “Now What?”

Social media will come to an end.  The ride is not over yet, we have a few good years ahead of us but the writing is one the wall.  My podcast today is about the end of social media and what it means to marketers, bloggers, business owners and the community as a whole.

This podcast answers another version of the question “Why?” with the answer “Why not me?”

To Donate the the Vancouver Food Bank Click here or the image below. Every bit helps!

This podcast is about the question: Why?

This is an important question.

It’s the most important question.

Why?

To Donate the the Vancouver Food Bank Click here or the image below. Every bit helps!

Ronald Lee of Man Meets Woman Happy Sexy You and Vancouver Social Board sponsored this post for the blogathon for the Vancouver Food Bank.

The topic Ronald chose was: What It Takes and/or How to Become a Thought Leader?

This is a great question, have a listen to this podcast to hear about becoming and influencing thought leaders.

To Donate the the Vancouver Food Bank Click here or the image below. Every bit helps!

Jay Levinson says it takes up to 18  months for a the market to react and accept a new brand. Jim Janz says it takes 18 months it develop a leader. Fred Shadian says it takes 1000 training sessions to become a master.  Malcolm Gladwell says it takes 10,000 hours to become an outlier.

This podcast is about becoming a community building and marketing maven.  How long have you invested in yourself and your people?

This doesn’t need much of an intro. The title says it all. Marketers are lying to you about social media. People are designing speeches, and marketing packages around a topic they have very little background in. Listen to the podcast to find out why this is happening and what to do about it.

The last podcast I did was about “Getting Real in Social Media” and this is an extension of that. I’m a big proponent of the use of social media marketing and social networking in business. With that said, often social media helps us start a relationship, it can also help us nurture a relationship, but there are core sales skills needed to turn those relationships into revenues. There are dozens of core sales competencies but for this podcast I want to focus on three that social media marketers need to master:

#1) They need to master the art of Rapport Building

#2) They need to get good at Needs Analysis Selling

#3) They need to understand how to sell what people buy, and it’s not features, price or technology

To Donate the the Vancouver Food Bank Click here or the image below. Every bit helps!

This podcast is a cautionary one for those of us that dove in blind and head first into Social Media. We were right. It’s the future of marketing and it’s changing the way we work, lead, and sell. With that said, we can still go broke wasting our time with Twitter, blogging, Facebook and Linkedin if we don’t have a plan to GET REAL.