Interested in a Sales/Marketing Position? You’d Better Start Tweeting

Traditionally, companies promote sales by initiating one-way, and often persuasive messages to influence buyers’ purchasing decisions, but social media has destroyed the “one-to-many-communication” model. And because of that, if one wants to work in the field of sales and marketing, s/he must know how to communicate effectively on social media.

Well, many people have already been active on Facebook and Instagram. Isn’t it enough? Probably, at least they know how to “talk” as a customer. The challenge is B2C (business-to-consumer) communications are very different from C2B (consumer-to-business) and C2C (consumer-to-consumer) communications because everything posted on a company’s Facebook page or Instagram profile must reflect a brand’s or a company’s core value. Do you notice any differences between the Facebook messages posted on McDonald’s page and the ones on Chick-fil-A’s page?

A good sales/marketing manager must also know how to measure and document the ROI (return on investment) of a company’s effort on social media marketing. Very likely, most internet users do not even pay attention to how many friends they actually engage on social networking sites. If that’s the case, can they determine if a B2C communication strategy is working or not based on measurable outcomes?

Additionally, a good sales/marketing manager must go beyond Facebook and Instagram. At a minimum, s/he must also be active on LinkedIn and Twitter. According to the Wall Street Journal, Twitter now has over 230 million monthly active users. Some companies have already gained great success in promoting sales on Twitter. For a hotel, Twitter can be an “easy and inexpensive way to get in touch with its audience and to form community bonds.”

If you still feel doubt about Twitter, let’s hope the following Bloomberg video will add some weight to my argument. In your opinions, what are the important skills that a sales/marketing manager should possess in the social media era? What can a candidate do to better prepare himself/herself for the challenges facing sales/marketing managers these days?

References:
The picture was downloaded from Guladigital.com.

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