Download - How Sales Leaders Engage on Twitter

A Social Insights report from Leadtail in collaboration with:

November 2014

How Sales Leaders Engage on Twitter

Introduction Sales leaders come in many flavors – from hospitality to high tech. The one thing they have in common? They are embracing social media to engage in conversations, share what interests them, and to do their jobs better. These sales professionals know that shaping perceptions and building relationships with prospects and customers starts long before, and continues long after, the sale. With that in mind, we developed this report: “How Sales Leaders Engage on Twitter”, using Leadtail’s Social Media Insights technology to analyze data from Twitter. The goal of this special report is to help you answer questions such as:

}  How do sales leaders describe themselves on the Social Web? }  What topics are they talking about? }  Which content sources are these savvy sales professionals consuming and sharing? }  Who are the most influential publications and people with sales leaders?

Armed with these social media insights, you can now take a more informed look at your strategy for reaching, engaging, and influencing sales professionals, and getting them to take the actions you care about most.

2 Social Insights for Decision Makers | Sales Leaders 2014 | Leadtail

Methodology and Data Set

The methodology the Leadtail team used to create this report:

1.  Identify sales leaders active on social media based on criteria such as job title, type of company, location etc., to create the target audience data set.

2.  Use the Leadtail Social Media Insights technology to extract insights around key social media activities, such as what links are shared, who is mentioned and retweeted, popular hashtags, popular platforms used to share content, etc.

3.  Review, analyze, and package these insights into this report.

The specific data set analyzed for this report is comprised of:

}  580 North American sales leaders, active on Twitter during the report period

}  Includes sales leaders from both B2B and B2C industries, and both inbound and outbound sales operations

}  Total of 68,310 tweets, and 44,043 shared links

}  Total follower reach: 1,182,357; median # of followers per sales leader: 356 }  Tweets published between July 1, 2014 – September 30, 2014


Key Takeaways

}  Sales leaders on Twitter are early adopters and entrepreneurial in nature, and turn to social media to learn about marketing and sales, become better leaders, and share expertise and personal interests.

}  Marketing, social selling, leadership, technology and (no surprise) sports,

are top of mind conversations for these sales executives.

}  Sales leaders consume mainstream and industry media to grow as entrepreneurs and sales professionals, and to stay on top of current business news and sporting events.

}  Somewhat surprising is how much these sales leaders read, share, and engage with marketing oriented content. Clearly, they have embraced how sales and marketing are converging with social media.


A Sample of the Sales Leaders We Analyzed

5

@jtmaddenjr

@justinendres

@markroberge

@PSandler2

@TrishMartinNYC

@Lameshia_eCMS

@JessicaRickson

@HeatherMSharkey @Gary_Kravitz

@jzaudtke

@jetismyname

@highlyranked1

@CailleyLynn

@Tahoe1022

@frehbein

Frederick Rehbein Sales LeaderXO Communications

Patricia Sandler Nat’l Sales DirectorOmeros Corporation

James Madden Regional Sales VPiPR Software

Justin Endres SVP of SalesAlienVault

Mark Roberge Chief Revenue OfficerHubSpot Sales Division

Gary Kravitz Nat’l Sales ManagerThompson Reuters

Trish A. Martin Exec. Director of SalesHalstead Brooklyn, LLC

Lameshia Mathews Sales ExecutiveeCom Merchant Solutions

Jessica Rickson Director of Sales@GetLittleBird

Heather Sharkey VP, Major Account SalesADP

Jason Teller VP, Customer SolutionsPuget Sound Energy

John Zaudtke Sr. Sales ExecutiveBrink’s Money

Robert Buchanan Director of SalesAxiom Financial

Cailley Lynn Chakeen Director of Sales & MediaSki Utah

Melanie Silva VP of SalesSmart Furniture

Social Insights for Decision Makers | Sales Leaders 2014 | Leadtail

Where Are They Located? While many of the sales leaders we analyzed are located in major metro hubs, many are also hard at work in smaller markets across North America.

Based on the location provided in the Twitter profile.


How Do They Describe Themselves? The way these sales professionals describe themselves reveals keywords that can help you reach and engage them across the Social Web.

Based on keywords used in the Twitter profile. 7 Social Insights for Decision Makers | Sales Leaders 2014 | Leadtail

What Do Sales Leaders Talk About? Hashtags reveal the topics and events, global and local, business-related and personal, that captured the attention of sales professionals during the report period.

Business Personal


Which Social Networks Do They Share From?

2%

3%

3%

4%

6%

19%

19%

25%

36%

39%

100%

Quora

Pinterest

Vimeo

Swarm*

Vine

SlideShare

Facebook

Instagram

LinkedIn

YouTube

Twitter

% of Sales Leaders that shared between this network + Twitter during the report period.

Twitter continues to be a “hub” for cross-posting content between social networks, particularly content easily consumable in both the desktop and mobile environment like video, pictures, and slide decks.

*Swarm is the location-based spin-off of the Foursquare app.


How Do Sales Leaders Engage with Content?


3%

4%

4%

4%

5%

6%

14%

15%

16%

18%

21%

36%

56%

60%

63%

Post with Klout

Foursquare

Twitter Mobile Web

Facebook

TweetDeck

Buffer

Hootsuite

Instagram

Twitter for Android

iOS

Twitter for iPad

LinkedIn

Twitter for iPhone

Twitter for Websites*

Twitter Web Client

% of Sales Leaders that published at least 1 tweet originating from this platform during the report period.

What Apps + Platforms Drive Twitter Sharing?

The relatively prominent showing for social media management tools like TweetDeck, Buffer, and HootSuite suggests Sales Leaders are actively focused on building their presence and credibility on social media, using a variety of apps to create, publish, and curate relevant content. Desktop Mobile

Twitter for Websites includes the Tweet Button and embedded Twitter widgets.


What Types of Content Do They Share?

Mainstream media sites are the most common type of content shared by sales leaders. The majority of mainstream media content shared is news, business, and strategy focused – typically covering broad business and technology issues and trends. Industry media plays an important role in defining the conversations sales leaders have with each other, their prospects, and ultimately clients and customers. Many of these publications feature submissions from sales and marketing thought leaders, and have robust email and social media distribution that keeps their content in front of this audience every day. The social media content shared by sales professionals includes everything from highlight videos of local sports teams, to personal photos on Instagram. % of 100 Most Popular Shared Content Sources

Mainstream Media 48%

Industry Media 38%

Social Media 11%

Other 3%


Which Topics Are Most Popular? Which topics grab the attention of sales leaders? Our analysis of headlines shared by this audience provides insights into the topics and keywords that engage them most.


11.  BusinessWeek 12.  WIRED 13.  USA Today 14.  Medium 15.  Time 16.  The Washington Post 17.  CNN Money 18.  The New York Times (Free) 19.  Bloomberg 20.  BuzzFeed 21.  CNBC 22.  Yahoo! Finance 23.  The Guardian 24.  MarketWatch 25.  ABC News

Following are the Top 25 Mainstream Media Content Sources shared by sales leaders during the report period, based on the number of unique people who that shared each source.

What Are the Most Shared Mainstream Sources?

1.  Forbes 2.  Inc. Magazine 3.  The New York Times (Paid) 4.  HBR Blogs 5.  Entrepreneur 6.  The Wall Street Journal 7.  The Huffington Post 8.  Fast Company 9.  WSJ Blogs 10.  ESPN


11.  MarketingProfs 12.  The Sales Blog 13.  Gigaom 14.  Salesforce Blog 15.  The Verge 16.  Re/Code 17.  ZDNet 18.  Buffer Blog 19.  Marketing Land 20.  Social Media Today 21.  Top Sales World 22.  MediaPost 23.  Digiday 24.  Social Media Examiner 25.  Sales Benchmark Index

Following are the Top 25 Industry Media Content Sources shared by sales leaders during the report period, based on the number of unique people who shared each source.

What Are the Most Shared Industry Sources?

1.  Business Insider 2.  Mashable 3.  TechCrunch 4.  HubSpot Blog 5.  The Business Journals 6.  VentureBeat 7.  Adweek 8.  Business2Community 9.  AdvertisingAge 10.  The Next Web


11.  Pinterest 12.  Quora 13.  Yelp 14.  Google+ 15.  SoundCloud

Following are the Top 15 Social Media Content Sources shared by sales leaders during the report period, based on the number of unique people who shared each source.

What Are the Most Shared Social Sources?

1.  YouTube 2.  LinkedIn 3.  Instagram 4.  Facebook 5.  SlideShare 6.  Twitter Photos 7.  Paper.li 8.  Vine 9.  Swarm 10.  Vimeo


Which Publishers, Brands, and People Are Most Influential with Sales Leaders?


Publishers & Brands Sales Leaders Retweet the Most

As social media continues to reshape how information is consumed and shared, creating high-quality content on a regular basis is no longer enough to succeed as a publisher. Successful publishers must also develop high-quality social audiences, and get their content in front of those audiences on a regular basis. (After all, you have to tweet to get retweeted!) The word cloud to the right reflects the publishers who are doing the best job creating content for, and reaching, sales leaders in a way that drives retweets of their content.


Top 50 Publishers & Brands Most Retweeted by Sales Leaders

* Based on unique # of sales leaders in the sample who retweeted the person.

11.  @nfl 12.  @ForbesTech 13.  @EntMagazine 14.  @Adweek 15.  @salesforce 16.  @Sports_Greats 17.  @bridgegroupinc 18.  @BleacherReport 19.  @HuffingtonPost 20.  @MLB 21.  @TIME 22.  @USATODAY 23.  @adage 24.  @ESPNNFL 25.  @linkedinselling 26.  @socialmedia2day 27.  @WIRED 28.  @VentureBeat 29.  @cnnbrk 30.  @AP

31.  @BuzzFeed 32.  @InsideSales 33.  @CNBC 34.  @ABC 35.  @MarketWatch 36.  @PGATOUR 37.  @TheTweetOfGod 38.  @washingtonpost 39.  @StanfordBiz 40.  @TheNextWeb 41.  @NBCNews 42.  @lifehacker 43.  @businessinsider 44.  @MensHumor 45.  @MLBGIFs 46.  @DepressedDarth 47.  @CNNMoney 48.  @Sports_HQ 49.  @SAI 50.  @MensHealthMag

1.  @Inc

2.  @Forbes

3.  @HarvardBiz

4.  @WSJ

5.  @mashable

6.  @SportsCenter

7.  @TechCrunch

8.  @HubSpot

9.  @nytimes

10.  @FastCompany


People That Sales Leaders Retweet the Most

Whether their tweets are timely, topical, provocative, or data-driven, the people who sales leaders retweet the most are an indicator of who shares content that not only engages sales people, but drives them to share it with their networks. And while it helps to be an eccentric billionaire curing diseases or flying into space, we mere mortals can increase our impact by taking a page from the playbooks of these influencers. Each has built a personal brand based, in large part, on the type and quality of content they create, curate, and share.


Top 50 People Most Retweeted by Sales Leaders

* Based on unique # of sales leaders in the sample who retweeted the person.

11.  @gitomer 12.  @levie 13.  @Leadershipfreak 14.  @ManagersDiary 15.  @mike_weinberg 16.  @LeadToday 17.  @MeghanMBiro 18.  @GlenGilmore 19.  @kokasexton 20.  @BrennerMichael 21.  @DanWaldo 22.  @motoceo 23.  @dmscott 24.  @BruceVH 25.  @ShawnUpchurch 26.  @jillkonrath 27.  @jeffbullas 28.  @2morrowknight 29.  @AdamSchefter 30.  @AnnTran_

31.  @jowyang 32.  @gabevillamizar 33.  @GerryMoran 34.  @conradhackett 35.  @jeffweiner 36.  @funnelholic 37.  @evankirstel 38.  @SteveGutzler 39.  @JoelOsteen 40.  @srichardv 41.  @pmarca 42.  @RussThoman 43.  @markroberge 44.  @StuartScott 45.  @kenkrogue 46.  @Benioff 47.  @chrisbrogan 48.  @gerhard20 49.  @BillGates 50.  @JohnCMaxwell

1.  @ValaAfshar

2.  @jill_rowley

3.  @iannarino 4.  @richardbranson

5.  @darrenrovell

6.  @JeffSheehan

7.  @LollyDaskal 8.  @HeinzMarketing

9.  @jeffshore

10.  @DavidRoads


Publishers & Brands Sales Leaders Mention Most

Which publishers sales leaders mention on Twitter can give us yet another perspective on the forces that shape their views on trends, techniques, and strategies. As with mentions of individuals, mentioning a publication or brand can be a reference to an experience, a thank you, a question or even a highly-coveted social recommendation. That means mentions can represent a deeper level of engagement than a retweet. In any case, the publications that are frequently mentioned have captured mindshare with the sales leaders that they’re looking to engage.


Top 50 Publishers & Brands Most Mentioned by Sales Leaders

* Based on unique # of sales leaders in the sample who mentioned the publisher or brand.

11.  @WSJ 12.  @salesforce 13.  @nytimes 14.  @nfl 15.  @USATODAY 16.  @washingtonpost 17.  @TopSalesWorld 18.  @VentureBeat 19.  @BW 20.  @B2Community 21.  @marketo 22.  @SlideShare 23.  @united 24.  @EntMagazine 25.  @espn 26.  @Uber 27.  @WIRED 28.  @MLB 29.  @twitter 30.  @Starbucks

31.  @MakingTheNumber 32.  @AmericanAir 33.  @SportsCenter 34.  @Digiday 35.  @guardian 36.  @Microsoft 37.  @buffer 38.  @businessinsider 39.  @CMIContent 40.  @BuzzFeed 41.  @CNN 42.  @AA_ISP 43.  @Seahawks 44.  @gigaom 45.  @inc5000 46.  @Delta 47.  @Marketingland 48.  @CMO_com 49.  @TIME 50.  @SAI

1.  @LinkedIn

2.  @Forbes

3.  @YouTube

4.  @Inc

5.  @HarvardBiz

6.  @ShareThis

7.  @HubSpot

8.  @FastCompany

9.  @mashable

10.  @TechCrunch


People That Sales Leaders Mention Most

Mentioning a person by name can mean a few different things in social media: giving credit to someone for an idea or piece of content being shared, engaging someone directly in conversation, or giving a shout-out to a person you’ve recently met. In any context, being mentioned is a sign that a person is an active part of the social conversation, and those mentioned most are the people you’ll find at the center of engaging conversations between sales professionals. This word cloud shows the people mentioned most by sales leaders during the report period.


Top 50 People Most Mentioned by Sales Leaders

* Based on unique # of sales leaders in the sample who mentioned the person.

11.  @scoremoresales 12.  @jill_rowley 13.  @markroberge 14.  @TiborShanto 15.  @TheSalesHunter 16.  @motoceo 17.  @funnelholic 18.  @nflcommish 19.  @Mike_Kunkle 20.  @BarackObama 21.  @mcuban 22.  @ReferralSales 23.  @keenan 24.  @simonsinek 25.  @jeff_haden 26.  @jimmyfallon 27.  @RobertTerson 28.  @jeffbullas 29.  @bhalligan 30.  @darrenrovell

31.  @StuartScott 32.  @GrantCardone 33.  @kenkrogue 34.  @babettetenhaken 35.  @barbaragiamanco 36.  @DanWaldo 37.  @markwschaefer 38.  @jamietshanks 39.  @srichardv 40.  @jaybaer 41.  @gerhard20 42.  @JoePulizzi 43.  @milesaustin 44.  @BrennerMichael 45.  @rwang0 46.  @Steveology 47.  @TimHowardGK 48.  @iSocialFanz 49.  @chiefmartec 50.  @jeffshore

1.  @iannarino

2.  @jillkonrath 3.  @MarketingProfs

4.  @HeinzMarketing

5.  @KingJames

6.  @Sales_Source

7.  @dmscott

8.  @davidabrock

9.  @kokasexton

10.  @ValaAfshar


Conclusion

Imagine if you could listen to the daily conversations of sales leaders. How would you use that information to better reach, engage, and influence these sales professionals to take the actions you care most about? For example, would it provide you insights into where to advertise, what content to create, whom to build relationships with, and how best to develop and implement your social media strategy? Sure it would. We created this special report to provide you with social media insights to help you make more informed decisions about how to reach, engage, and influence sales professionals. And since the topics, content sources, and influencers are constantly changing so, too, are the social media insights. Sign up to receive new social insights reports, studies and blog posts at Leadtail.com


About Hoover’s

Hoover’s Inc., a subsidiary of The Dun and Bradstreet Corporation (D&B), offers proprietary business information through our online platform and integrated workflow solutions. Whether you are looking for leads, companies, or industries, our data on more than 85 million corporations, 100 million people, and 1,000 industries fuels powerful data cleansing, analysis, list building, and corporate linkage capabilities that accelerate your sales and marketing cycles. See how we help you use social media data to better understand your customers. Visit www.hoovers.com/knowyourcustomers Want more tips? Learn why you should say YES! to social media advertising. Visit www.hoovers.com/socialadvertising


Bizmology.Hoovers.com

@Hoovers

About Leadtail

Leadtail came about from our desire to help B2B marketing leaders tap into the power of social media to get closer to target buyers and radically improve their marketing strategies. We work with innovative companies to create social media strategies and leverage social insights research. Our team has developed and implemented programs for leading business brands and venture backed startups including: WageWorks, Trend Micro, Adaptive Insights, Peoplefluent, DNN, and NetBase. We also publish social insights reports about different decision maker groups such as digital marketers, HR executives, and CFOs. These reports are a must-read if you sell to businesses and have been referenced in major publications including: The Wall St. Journal, Business Insider, Forbes, Huffington Post, Adweek, and MarketingProfs.

Interested in collaborating on a future social insights report? Email us: [email protected]


LinkedIn.com/company/Leadtail

Leadtail.com/blog

@Leadtail

Download - How Sales Leaders Engage on Twitter

Top Related