‘Real life’ networking works ‘hand in hand’ with social media

What social media marketing can learn from real-life networking events

One of the oldest forms of sales and marketing is to go to a real-life in-person networking event. While these real-life networking events don’t have all of the efficiency and measurability of social media marketing, if you’re looking to get more sales leads from your social media marketing efforts, there are a lot of tips and ideas that we can learn from being in a room with real people.

Using social media in networking events

Here are some ways that real-life networking events can inspire us to get better results from social media marketing:

• 1. Find out 'who should I meet?' When you go to a real-life networking event, it doesn’t do any good to just scurry around the room trying to talk with anyone and everyone. Instead, you should use a focused approach.Find a short list of 5-10 companies that you would definitely like to talk to, and if you know the event organizers or host, ask them, 'Who should I meet?' Who are the people at the event who you are most likely to want to talk to – which companies are represented, which companies are in the market for your solution, and which companies might be the best fit for you to talk with?
  

  In the same way, before you spend time on social media marketing, commit some time to finding some specific companies that you definitely want to talk to. Instead of talking to the whole world on social media (and reaching no one), go deeper into pursuing a few key relationships.

• 2. Do your homework. At a real-life networking event, ideally you want to show up having some good conversation points for the key companies on your list. You want to know something about the people you’re going to meet, so you can carry on a deeper conversation and build a relationship with them.

By doing your homework, you’ll be better prepared to take the conversation farther and potentially build the relationship into a sale. In the same way, with social media conversations, make sure that you are very well-informed about the people you’re talking to.

Before you respond to a Twitter message or Facebook comment from a potential customer, spend some time researching the company. Look them up on Google or LinkedIn. Try to get a larger context for their question or concern. There is so much information available at a moment’s notice nowadays that there is no excuse for being uninformed.

Take time to learn about your prospects so you can have more productive conversations – online or in real life.

• 3. Listen more than you talk. People like to talk about themselves. If you’re at a party of a networking event, it pays to let people talk more than you do. Show sincere interest. Ask good questions. Get them to open up about their biggest challenges. Then you can stand ready to offer potential solutions.With social media conversations, it’s important to listen more than you talk. Social media is an underrated listening tool to take the pulse of the market and see what people are complaining about.
  

  Do keyword searches on Twitter to see what people are saying about your product, your company, or your competitors. Then you can respond directly to people’s concerns.

Real-life networking events aren’t likely to go away anytime soon – people enjoy connecting with each other in person. But even though social media is becoming more important, there are many tips for building relationships and having conversations that are just as applicable for social media marketing as they are for 'real life.'

Take a focused, thoughtful approach. Listen more than you talk. And make sure you are well-informed about your prospective customers and their challenges.

Thanks to Gregg Schwartz for sharing his advice and opinions in this post. Gregg Schwartz is the Director of Sales and Marketing at Strategic Sales & Marketing, an industry-founding lead generation company specializing in major account B2B lead generation.You can follow him on Twitter or connect on LinkedIn.