Swarming your customers on social networks like LinkedIn is a new way to orchestrate a company’s business relations and boost sales. In the near future it has the potential to replace traditional CRM tools.
Most people think of LinkedIn as a business-related social networking site to keep track of business contacts and present own skills and professional experience to the world. But using LinkedIn to manage customer relations is still a hidden gem. With a critical mass of more than 120 million users in 200 countries, LinkedIn offers a vast opportunity to capitalise on a company’s unique business DNA – its relationship capital.
Innovisor, a European frontrunner consultancy specialised in organisational network analysis, is among the companies that have taken the use of LinkedIn to a new level. Innovisor has developed a simple yet effective method called Swarm the Target, which outlines staff relations on LinkedIn, thus using the insight to collectively target new customers and influence the business strategy.
“In most companies LinkedIn is a overlooked tool to reveal the implicit knowledge of a company’s collective relationships. Social networks can be used strategically to create competitive advantages and it is a very unique approach that can’t be copied by our competitors because it origins from the employees´ personal relations,” says founding partner Jeppe Vilstrup Hansgaard from Innovisor.
Swarming the target
The terminology swarm the target origins from the swarm behaviour, exhibited by animals that aggregate together. In short swarming is about moving in the same direction, remaining close together and avoiding collisions within a group. It is similar to the everyday sales practices of any organisation. Swarm the target offers a precise x-ray image of a company’s current relations, which falls in three categories:
1. Information Providers - provide critical knowledge and insight into the customer organisation’s focus and business areas.
2. Influencers – have strong influence within the customer organisation and often influence critical decisions.
3. Decision Makers – are senior executives calling the shots with a decisive role to play in the strategic direction of a company.
Once the process of categorizing relations is done, a company can intelligently target activities to those potential customers where the staff has strong ties. At the same time it becomes visible who needs to be involved in the process depending on who has the right connections.
“The method can orchestrate the dialogue and plan for interaction with customers. This makes a company more agile and able to act on the right contacts and business opportunities. It also gives employees a real say in how the overall strategy is executed, which ultimately impacts the level of commitment and job satisfaction in an organisation,” says Hansgaard.
Every relation counts
Swarm the target illustrates how managers can support businesses processes and staff in making better decisions by engaging the customer in a collaborative conversation. But managerially it also challenges the way many organisations operate, because people’s organiational level doesn’t necessarily reflect the true value of their network. A receptionist’s network can suddenly be as valuable as the one of a senior executive, if that person can provide information that enable a company to intelligently engage a potential new customer.
“Any industry and company can make use of methodology, but I especially predict that knowledge intensive companies are the ones who stand to benefit the most from integrating a more strategic use of social networks in their sales operations,” says Hansgaard.
In order to use Swarm the Target as a business asset it goes without saying that employees must be active on LinkedIn and encouraged to spend time to keep their contacts updated. In the long run Hansgaard predicts it will be a win-win situation for both the company and the employees, but it requires that managers acknowledge that time spent on social networks is adding value to the business.
