Chances are your business abuses how to connect with people on social media and you don’t even realize it. Your business is not special or unique. In fact, I bet I could find ten other businesses in your community that do exactly what you do. (Don’t believe me just go to any networking event hosted by your local chamber of commerce.) The only thing that differentiates your business from your competition is you.

The other day on Twitter I had a conversation with a member of Hootsuite’s customer service team about the benefits of upgrading my account. The next day I received the following tweet from a sales person that does not follow me that works from a company I have never heard of before. As you will see it is obvious that he was searching Twitter for leads. You can see our exchange below. (Apparently they sell a similar product or service to Hootsuite.)

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Here are a three takeaways from my brief interaction with uberVU

Dan did not even know me before he pitched me.
Dan assumed that the price was more important to me than value or functionality.
Dan assumes his product might meet my social media management needs
How To Effectively Engage Someone On Social Media That You Want To Sell Something To.

Follow them. Read their bios and their posts. In essence get to know them before they get to know you.
Listen to them closely. If Dan followed me he could have created a list called prospects and added me to it. (Lists allow you to follow and listen to what someone is saying without all the noise and other chatter.)
Engage them. Dan could have responded to a post or tweet I wrote & started a conversation. (Try to respond with something of value and something that requires a response. I have been very active on Twitter lately it would have been very easy for Dan to engage me in a conversation on a variety subjects, yet he didn’t.)
Share something of value. I am passionate about a variety of things, the best way to engage me is to