Survey: Twitter Inc. Beats LinkedIn Corp. As Sales Tool

Twitter Inc.

nosed out LinkedIn Corp.

as the favorite social media site used by salespeople in their work, according to a survey. http://www.kitedesk.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Impact-of-Social-Media-Usage-on-Sales-Performance.pdf Twitter obtained a weighted score of 1,301, versus 1,273 for LinkedIn, according to a survey of 524 salespeople performed by Tampa, Florida based KiteDesk and consultant James Keenan. Facebook Inc.

was ranked third with a score of 1,247 while Google Inc.

came in fourth, scored at 842. KiteDesk, a sales software developer which recently raised $4 million in venture capital, didn't elaborate on how it weighted responses to obtain results. "I like to describe Twitter as the bar after work – where you keep your tie on but loosen it a bit," sales consultant Vanessa DiMauro told KiteDesk. "LinkedIn is the conference room in the corporate office." Relatively high use of social media by salespeople is correlated with successful selling, according to the survey. Nearly half of respondents who said they missed sales quotas reported spending 10 percent or less of their time on social media. In contrast, 70 percent of those who said they exceeded quotas spent more than 10 percent of their time using social media. The percentage of underperforming sales reps that lack social media skills increased by 50 percent between 2012 and 2014, according to the survey. The company offers salespeople a platform that integrates email and social media with a customer relations mananagement system.