In 2014, a social business is a sustainable business. But what does that mean exactly? Historically a social business was one that aimed to make the world a better place and while today’s definition of a social business does not exclude that end result, the focus is more on culture and communication style.
Companies that adopt today’s social business model leverage social networks and utilize social media tools to amplify brand messaging and communicate with a vast audience including existing customers, potential customers, technology partners, future employees, and more.
Quickly emerging are new and necessary skill-sets and job responsibilities. Companies that leverage these socially fluent employees are quickly becoming industry differentiators. Social networking, social listening, social prospecting, social, social, social. Business engagement is still relationship-based and one-to-one interactions are very much necessary for building rapport– but how and where these communications take place has changed dramatically.
Whether you are a fan of LinkedIn or a Twitter die-hard, scaling your social activity to effectively meet the demands of a modern social business model is not easy. Even while factoring in that customer-facing employees are no longer the only employees directly communicating with existing and potential customers, being productive at identifying and engaging leads is a major hurdle for social businesses.
Thankfully, there are a plethora of tools, each with their own unique advantages, to assist with effectively scaling lead identification, qualification, and engagement for social business success. Here are 5 of my favorites:
1. Swayy – Personalized Content Discovery
Swayy helps you discover the most engaging content to share with your networks based on your interests — and theirs, to increase engagement opportunities.
2. HootSuite – Social Communication Management
Hootsuite lets you promote your business, identify and engage quality leads, and effectively stay in communication with existing customers on social networks.
3. Twtrland – Prospect and Influencer Identification
Twtrland helps you grow your online presence by enabling you to easily identify influencers and prospects by criteria that matters to you
4. Postwire – Evergreen Asset Sharing and Management
Postwire gives you a way to maintain a linked “library” of resources that are never outdated or stale. Quickly personalize the set of assets for each prospect. Share the link — that’s it. A personalized way for salespeople to engage with prospects beyond email, calls, and meetings — a way to share up-to-date assets supporting the sale.
Each of these tools are powerful and help scale a specific aspect of social business. However, using them (or tools like them) together is a strategy that supports effective social business activities.
