Twitter Phone Booth

Business at the Speed of Now: Social Media Sales From Tweets to Telephone

Social Media Sales Tying Twitter to Telephone

I’m a sucker for a great story. Yesterday, I was doing some research for a client looking for a lead automation / lead scoring system, and after doing some research I decided to put a tweet out to see what others may have to say. Here’s how the social media sales story occurred:

Within an hour I had a dozen tweets from friends and a few companies. A few of which are included here:

Here’s the amazing part, within 15 minutes my office phone rang. To my surprise, it was a representative from Marketo inquiring about the tweet that I had sent. After a fruitful conversation, I tweeted again.

Then about 20 minutes later, I received another telephone call from Silverpop in response to Erica’s follow-up tweet:

Social Media Sales 2013

So, this shouldn’t be a surprise, right? Since 2008, I’ve been telling clients that the day was coming (or here) when social media was going to be integrated into real-time business functions. Still, big data and connectivity took me off guard. A reply to such a tweet is one thing, but I was amazed with the speed and the research that went into not just simply tweeting back but actually connecting the dots from my bio to my business.

You’ve heard the social media warning: Ignore at your own peril, but so often, clients believe that the warning simply doesn’t apply to them. The excuses range from “my industry isn’t using social media” to “we don’t have the time for that.” Can you imagine not having a telephone in your business? The social telephone is ringing both metaphorically and now actually. The question is how long can it go unanswered?


Jeremy Floyd

Jeremy Floyd is the President at FUNYL Commerce. Formerly, he was the CEO and President of Lirio, Bluegill Creative, a marketing and communications firm in Knoxville, Tennessee. In addition to managing the digital strategies, Floyd was an adjunct professor for the University of Tennessee Chattanooga MBA program teaching digital strategies and social media. Floyd blogs at jeremyfloyd.com and tweets under the name @jfloyd. Jeremy is licensed to practice law in the State of Tennessee and holds a law degree from the University of Tennessee College of Law and a Bachelor of Arts degree from MTSU in English and Philosophy.

  • That was interesting to watch happen in real time yesterday. Thanks for the follow-up blog post. Like you, I’m impressed by how on-the-ball some of the sales reps were. It’s one thing to respond to the tweet, but to take the time to go the extra distance and differentiate themselves via a phone call was notable.

    Did you find the effort to reach you by phone to be influential in your decision, or did you see it as intrusive?

  • Absolutely, the two firms that called, while premium priced products, stood out from the pack in the decision process.

  • On Twitter, it comes across less “pushy salesperson” & more “helpful person offering an answer to your question”.

  • So, you think the call is too aggressive?

  • No no…I meant when the sales process originates from Twitter, it seems more natural and not so aggressive. I think the phone call was impressive.

  • Yes, I totally agree. Although, as I’ve told the story, people have found the story to be VERY creepy. 🙂