In the first two weeks of February, I polled CEOs and business owners about social media sites their salespeople use. The specific question I asked was, “Which social network sites do your salespeople use most?” (I conducted the poll among members of Vistage, an executive coaching organization.) More than 420 business leaders responded. Here are the results:
- 47% use Linkedin
- 20% use Facebook
- 5% use Twitter
- 1% use another social media site
- 27% don't use any social media sites
Here are a three insights on what these results mean:
Sales expert Tom Searcy, founder of Hunt Big Sales says, "When you look at the profile of LinkedIn users — 42 years old+, average title of vice president, average income of $79,000+ and college-level education or higher — it makes sense that LinkedIn is the social media platform of choice for businesses."
Adds Social media maven Philippe Cesson, president of Cesson 3.0: "LinkedIn gives a fairly accurate perspective of middle management in corporate America. If you want to look up who works in specific roles at specific companies, it’s a great resource. Facebook offers a good way to reach working Americans under 30, a demographic which generally doesn’t use LinkedIn. As this under-30 generation comes into more decision-making power, Facebook will becomes the vehicle to reach them. Finally, usage of Twitter among CEOs, though still quite small, has increased significantly based on results from a similar poll taken a year ago by Vistage. As more companies realize the amount of actionable corporate intelligence they can gather by listening to the ‘twittosphere,’ and the impact they can have by being an actor of it, that percentage is bound to grow."
Sales and marketing executive recruiter Russ Riendeau of East Wing Group, Inc. says, “If more than 50% of your salespeople aren’t using Linkedin, it’s because they don’t know how valuable it is. One way for salespeople to use Linkedin is to answer discussion questions or post links to articles they've written. In this way they can build a reputation for being an expert on certain topics, and that expert status in turn attracts prospects.”
This blog is offered by Vistage International, a global CEO membership organization. As a CEO, who questions your answers?
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