VAR Sales Tactics for the Latest Twitter Updates

For IT solution providers and managed service providers who need to make their numbers each month, those who oversee VAR sales face a never-ending battle for continuous improvement.

Keeping up with what is going on across the various social media platforms can be a full-time job.

Here, are the two latest pieces of news from Twitter, both of which require just a few minutes of your time to implement. It’s to your advantage as a VAR, MSP, or computer consultancy business to take action in response to both of these, as each can positively impact your VAR sales and conversions.

Twitter Advertising for Small Businesses

Twitter is positioning itself further as a “for business” platform by rolling out Twitter advertising, which is called Promoted Tweets, to small businesses.

The plan is currently only open to businesses that are American Express Card Members or merchants.

The first 10,000 members to sign up get $100 worth of free advertising. So if you are a VAR or MSP and qualify, it is well worth testing.

Sign up to get your free advertising and increase your VAR sales through Twitter advertising.

Extensive UI Changes

Twitter, like many other social media platforms, is in a constant state of change. Many of the big players have made significant changes to their UIs in recent months. Twitter first announced its changes in December 2011, but it only more recently rolled out the changes globally.

Here is a quick overview of where everything has moved to and how to navigate around the new action bar:

• Home – This is the default view that shows your stream and trending topics.

• Connect – This view shows your interactions with other accounts and mentions of your Twitter handle. Plus “Connect” changes the default search box to @ searches.

• Discover – This provides an interesting change that allows you to discover information based on stories, categories, and recent actions by your connections. Discover also provides you with suggestions of accounts to follow based on a variety of criteria. The default search in this view is by # (hashtag) or keyword.

• Search – Once you have carried out a search in the search box, the opportunity opens up for you to carry out a more advanced search. If you haven’t used advanced search in Twitter before, you should check it out; it’s a powerful tool.

• Profile – This provides you with a view of your timeline. This is the view that you need to look at to make sure that your branded design still works well with the new UI. If it doesn’t, spend a few minutes tweaking it to get it right. You can also access all of your account information from the menu in this view.

• Write – You can now change your location, attach a file, and tweet a message from this pop- up box.

Action Items

1. Sign up for the Amex offer if you qualify.

2. Make sure that your branded profile still looks great with the new UI.

In an upcoming article, we will be looking at what IT resellers, IT solution providers, computer consultancies, and MSPs can do to improve the VAR sales process using Twitter.

What are your thoughts on what seems like endless changes being made to the social media platforms? Do you embrace the changes or wish that they had just stood still for a while? Please share your thoughts in the COMMENTS below.

 Image Source: Twitter.com About/Resources