[{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"BlogPosting","@id":"https:\/\/aokmarketing.com\/surprising-habits-top-30-social-sales-influencers\/#BlogPosting","mainEntityOfPage":"https:\/\/aokmarketing.com\/surprising-habits-top-30-social-sales-influencers\/","headline":"Surprising Habits of the Top 30 Social Sales Influencers","name":"Surprising Habits of the Top 30 Social Sales Influencers","description":"On our quest for better social ROI (return on investment), our marketing team found a great infographic about the top 30 social sales influencers (you can find it here). It identifies 30 of the most influential online social sales professionals from over 500 candidates. So What’s the Problem? Once I read the article I thought … Continue reading Surprising Habits of the Top 30 Social Sales Influencers<\/span><\/a>","datePublished":"2014-09-30","dateModified":"2015-10-30","author":{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/aokmarketing.com\/author\/admin\/#Person","name":"Marketing Team","url":"https:\/\/aokmarketing.com\/author\/admin\/","identifier":1,"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5311011b36cb17ae06c1100cd53c0f90da9795882826a13e06256b06b500fcd3?s=96&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5311011b36cb17ae06c1100cd53c0f90da9795882826a13e06256b06b500fcd3?s=96&r=g","height":96,"width":96}},"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"AOK Marketing","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/aokmarketing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/AOK-Marketing-Logo.png","url":"https:\/\/aokmarketing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/AOK-Marketing-Logo.png","width":126,"height":53}},"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/aokmarketing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/SUPRISING-HABITS-OF-THE-TOP-30-SOCIAL-SALES-INFLUENCERS_FINALDESIGN-01.png","url":"https:\/\/aokmarketing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/SUPRISING-HABITS-OF-THE-TOP-30-SOCIAL-SALES-INFLUENCERS_FINALDESIGN-01.png","height":"29383","width":"1313"},"url":"https:\/\/aokmarketing.com\/surprising-habits-top-30-social-sales-influencers\/","commentCount":"3","comment":[{"@type":"Comment","@id":"https:\/\/aokmarketing.com\/surprising-habits-top-30-social-sales-influencers\/#Comment1","dateCreated":"2014-10-06 13:20:00","description":"Thanks so much for including me in your analysis, which as Matt said was extremely comprehensive. You made an interesting point about my Instagram account which I think is important for any social media account: To try to make a personal connection with others as a way to spark a relationship. I believe a lot of businesses in social media forget about this point and simply use it as a one-way broadcasting tool. For that reason, I agree that engagement is a key factor for success - but the thing you need to remember is that when sharing links, one of the biggest types of engagement - a click on the link - is not visible to others. I have found some tweets and Facebook posts with very little engagement but LOTS of clicks. Just something to think about ... but once again, excellent analysis!","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Neal Schaffer","url":"http:\/\/windmillnetworking.com\/"}},{"@type":"Comment","@id":"https:\/\/aokmarketing.com\/surprising-habits-top-30-social-sales-influencers\/#Comment2","dateCreated":"2014-10-01 17:09:00","description":"Wow, that is a very comprehensive analysis! I love seeing stuff like this. Tons of great implications and takeaways. Thanks for pulling this together!","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Matt Heinz","url":"http:\/\/www.heinzmarketing.com"}}],"about":["Facebook","Google Plus","Infographics","Instagram","LinkedIn","Online Marketing Essentials","Online Presence Comparison and Tracking","SEO","Social Media","Social Media Marketing (SMM) and Content Marketing","Tips & Tricks","Twitter","Uncategorized"],"wordCount":2545,"articleBody":"On our quest for better social ROI (return on investment), our marketing team found a great infographic about the top 30 social sales influencers (you can find it here).It identifies 30 of the most influential online social sales professionals from over 500 candidates.So What’s the Problem?Once I read the article I thought it would be great to follow them on Google Plus. \u00a0I\u2019m a huge fan of Google Plus (You can join our community of 70,000+ members here https:\/\/plus.google.com\/communities\/100620726524375035717) and I thought \u201cHere are some people I can learn from!\u201dAs I went down the list trying to add them to a new circle… I couldn’t find some of them at all on Google Plus. \u00a0When I was able\u00a0finally track them down, some of them have very low interaction rates. \u00a0And some had multiple profiles?!?This was baffling! \u00a0How can the top 30 social sellers actually be in the top 30, but not have a decent presence on one of the largest social networks?So I decided to do some research of my own using a great app called Rival IQ and find out where these social sellers are actually investing their time and resources.\u00a0 We included their company pages where applicable in the research.Who is walking the walk and not just talking the talk?We are sharing a summary of results with you in the infographic below. \u00a0If you’re interested you can get the entire 167 page PDF report that has even more insights and information for each company across the social platforms. \u00a0Just sign up to get our email updates and we\u2019ll send you the report for free!The results are from the 90 day period of June 17, 2014 to September 14, 2014.\u00a0 We analyzed information from their public profiles on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Plus, YouTube, and Instagram. \u00a0We also included a bonus SEO analysis at the end.So let’s get to it! Companies With Social PresencesLet\u2019s start off with the overall social matrix. \u00a0The first thing that becomes obvious very quickly is everyone has a presence on Twitter. \u00a0That is followed by 26 of the 30 profiles studied have a presence on Facebook.\u00a0 The third thing of note only 6 of the top 30 have any presence on Instagram. \u00a0This was an eye-opener.Total Social AudienceThe social audience number consists of the totals of all potential viewers of a post \/ update across each social network.\u00a0 This number includes likes, follows and plus ones depending on the network.Maximize Your Social (http:\/\/maximizeyoursocial.com\/) leads the way with a total social audience count of 99,721.\u00a0 This audience is followed closely by SalesGravy (http:\/\/www.salesgravy.com\/) with 92,735 and Don Cooper (http:\/\/www.doncooper.com\/) with 68,295.\u00a0 The top 8 are rounded out by Sales Benchmark Index (http:\/\/www.salesbenchmarkindex.com\/) with 43,265, Heinz Marketing (http:\/\/www.heinzmarketing.com) with 43,155, The Sales Blog (http:\/\/thesalesblog.com\/) with 40,847, Closing Bigger (http:\/\/closingbigger.net\/) with 32,282 and rounded out with Fill the Funnel (http:\/\/www.fillthefunnel.com\/) with 28,121.Activity LevelWho posts the most? \u00a0Sales for Life!Going back 90 days (June 17 to Sept 14) the most active company was Sales For Life (http:\/\/www.salesforlife.com\/). \u00a0They have a total of 3,635 posts and updates in that timeframe. \u00a0These posts are mostly Twitter (@mysales4life), Facebook (https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/SalesForLife), and Google Plus (https:\/\/plus.google.com\/+Salesforlife\/posts). \u00a0The Google Plus posting is an exception to the others in the top 14. \u00a0The vast majority of activity from the other companies analyzed\u00a0are Twitter interactions.How Engaging Are They?Engagements are retweets, likes, favorites, plus ones, and other indicators of response from their audience depending on the channel.Maximize Your Social (http:\/\/maximizeyoursocial.com\/) had almost 6 TIMES the engagement of their nearest competitor with 31,256 engagements. \u00a0Interestingly the vast majority of their engagement (22,396 engagements) was from their Instagram followers (http:\/\/instagram.com\/nealschaffer).The Sales Blog (http:\/\/thesalesblog.com\/) \u00a0was the second most engaging company across all networks, with a split between their Twitter account (@iannarino) and Facebook (https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/thesalesblog).It should be noted again the vast majority of engagements across all networks are from Twitter. Individual Social Network SummariesTwitterOf the top 50 tweets, 62% were photos, 6% were status and 32% were link updates. \u00a0The most popular day for top engagement is Thursday, with very little engagement on the weekends. \u00a0The number of followers impacts everything in twitter. \u00a0Maximize Your Social (@nealschaffer) leads the way with 94,174 followers, with SalesGravy (@salesgravy) close behind at 91,719 followers.How Often Do They Tweet?Maximize Your Social (@nealschaffer) is again the leader, with an average of 36.21 tweets per day. \u00a0The top 11 Social Sales Influencers analyzed all tweet more than 10 times per day.What Is The Engagement?Maximize Your Social (@nealschaffer) has the greatest number of total interactions at 8,786 retweets and favorites. \u00a0Heinz Marketing (@heinzmarketing) is the most engaging per individual tweet, irrelevant of follower count. \u00a0With 6.39 engagements per tweet, they are more than twice as engaging as the second most engaging company Inside Sales (@InsideSales) with 2.81 engagements per tweet.Twitter Takeaways:#1 \u2013 Have a presence on Twitter \u2013 all the companies are engaged in some way on twitter, and the more frequent the tweets and engaging they are, the larger the audience.#2 \u2013 When posting on Twitter, 62% of the top 50 tweets were photos, and the top 11 Social Sales Influencers analyzed all tweet more than 10 times per day.\u00a0 That\u2019s something to note for your future posts.#3 \u2013 Look at the content Heinz Marketing (@heinzmarketing) is posting.\u00a0 They are getting more than 6 interactions per tweet! FacebookOf the top 50 posts, 58% were photos, 2% were status and 40% were link updates. \u00a0The most popular day for engagement of the top 50 posts was Friday.\u00a0 The least popular day is Saturday, and all the other days of the week were about even.\u00a0 With the algorithm changes that Facebook has implemented, the number of followers impacts your reach and engagement. \u00a0The Sales Blog (https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/thesalesblog) company page leads the way with 4,357 likes.\u00a0 Inside Sales (https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/InsideSalesdotcom) has 3,813 and Ace of Sales (https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/aceofsales) is third with 2,888 followers.How Often Do They Post?Fill the Funnel (https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/FilltheFunnel) is the most prolific poster.\u00a0 With an average of 12.08 posts per day they are really working this channel. \u00a0Sales For Life (https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/SalesForLife) follows with 7.99 posts per day and Heinz Marketing (https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/pages\/Heinz-Marketing-Inc\/206245739402391) posts 3.12 times per day. \u00a0Everyone else posts an average of less than once per day.What Is The Engagement Rate?The Sales Blog (https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/thesalesblog) has the greatest number of total interactions at 1,926. \u00a0The Sales Blog is also the most engaging per individual post, irrelevant of follower count. \u00a0With 12.93 engagements per post they lead Maximize Your Social (https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/nealschaffer) with 10.57 per post and SalesLoft (https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/SalesLoft) with 8.32 interactions per post.Facebook Takeaways:#1 \u2013 Have a presence on Facebook \u2013 26 of the 30 companies are engaged in some way on twitter, and the more engaged and engaging, the larger the audience.#2 \u2013 When posting on Twitter, 58% of the top 50 posts were photos.\u00a0 That\u2019s something to note for your future posts.#3 \u2013 Look at the content The Sales Blog (https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/thesalesblog) is posting on Facebook. \u00a0They have\u00a0the most engagement on this platform. LinkedInDue to platform restrictions the information is truncated on LinkedIn and only shows for the last 7 days.It is difficult to identify trends, but Tuesday and Thursday had the highest engagement rates during the week reviewed.\u00a0 SalesGravy (http:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/salesgravy.com) have the most followers with 3,463 followed closely by Inside Sales (http:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/insidesales.com), Sales Benchmark Index (http:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/sales-benchmark-index) and Heinz Marketing (http:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/heinz-marketing-inc).How Often Do They Update?Sales For Life (http:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/sales-for-life) has the most updates with 7.29 average updates per day.\u00a0 This update rate is almost 3 times Heinz Marketing\u2019s (http:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/heinz-marketing-inc) with 2.57 and is more than 3 times No More Cold Calling (http:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/no-more-cold-calling) with 2.14 updates per day.What Is The Engagement Rate?Sales Benchmark Index (http:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/sales-benchmark-index) has the greatest number of total interactions at 12 likes and comments on their company page. \u00a0Inside Sales (http:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/insidesales.com) is the most engaging per individual update.\u00a0 It should be noted that only 6 companies had any engagement at all and they lead the way with 2.67 engagements per update.LinkedIn Takeaways:#1 \u2013 Only 6 companies got any engagement at all.\u00a0 However the date range is significantly smaller than the rest of the analysis due to platform data access restrictions. Google Plus, YouTube, & InstagramWe have grouped these last social channels together.\u00a0 This is because these channels are the focus of very few companies in the overall analysis.This is very interesting and raises the question: \u201cWhy don\u2019t they get more attention and resources allocated?\u201dGoogle PlusNimble (https:\/\/plus.google.com\/+NimbleCRM\/posts) leads the way with 3,805 plus ones.\u00a0 Sales for Life (https:\/\/plus.google.com\/+Salesforlife\/posts) leads the way with an average of 7.79 posts per day to the network, and A Sales Guy Consulting (https:\/\/plus.google.com\/116995629227188621377\/posts) has the highest total engagement with 111 plus ones, comments, and reshares.YouTubeInside Sales (http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCZMEVlLm5XdRHl11rvO_GjQ) leads the way with 1,168 channel subscribers.\u00a0 Sales for Life (http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCGdoQ6cjCJUSbfQoCxChRdQ) leads the way with an average of 0.37 posts per day to the network, and it is worth noting that a total of 6 companies total posted to the network at all in the last 90 days.\u00a0 Sales for Life (http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCGdoQ6cjCJUSbfQoCxChRdQ) also has the highest total engagement with 43 likes, dislikes, and comments.InstagramMaximize Your Social (http:\/\/instagram.com\/nealschaffer) dominates this channel with 4,080 channel followers.\u00a0 Of the 6 companies with any presence at all Maximize Your Social leads the way with an average of 2.01 posts per day to the network.\u00a0 It\u2019s also no surprise that Maximize Your Social has the highest total engagement with 22,396 likes and comments.\u00a0 It should be noted that the Instagram channel is a personal channel (http:\/\/instagram.com\/nealschaffer) and personal posts about Southern California and Japan lead the way.SEOThis is a quick bonus analysis that I wanted to include so you can get some insight into the websites of these leading companies.\u00a0 The vast majority of links and updates point back to their sites.\u00a0 Thus I wanted to check the health, relevance, and optimization of the sites in question.Homepage TitleThe average homepage title length is 53.7 characters long.\u00a0 This fits well as Google typically displays between 50-60 characters in a 512 pixel display.\u00a0 Best practice is to keep your titles under 55 characters long and it will show correctly in 95% of search results.\u00a0 Here\u2019s a great tool to see how yours looks provided by Moz (http:\/\/moz.com\/learn\/seo\/title-tag)Homepage Meta DescriptionThere is a great resource here (https:\/\/support.google.com\/webmasters\/answer\/35624?hl=en) from Google about how they generate titles and descriptions for your site that show in search engine results pages.\u00a0 The ideal length is between 130 and 160 characters, and uniqueness is key.\u00a0 While almost all of the companies have a unique description (several don\u2019t have any at all) 13 of the descriptions are too short, and 6 are too long.Meta KeywordsSEO LOGIC did such a good job of describing what these are and why they are important, I have copied part of their article here.\u00a0 You can read the rest here on their site: http:\/\/www.seologic.com\/faq\/meta-keywords\u201cLong ago in Internet time, the meta keywords tag was very useful in helping pages to win on search engines. Unfortunately, so many unscrupulous webmasters have abused the meta keywords tag that search engines have had to de-emphasize their importance. Still, you should not leave the meta keywords tag off your pages.Meta keywords tags should adhere to the following guidelines: (1) keep your list of keywords or keyword phrases down to 10 – 15 unique words or phrases; (2) separate the words or phrases using a comma (you do not need to leave a space between words separated by commas); (3) do not repeat words or phrases; (4) put your most important word or phrases at the beginning of your list.\u201dFollowing this best practice above, 16 of the websites do not have any meta keywords at all, 6 would fall into the best practices above, and the remainder have included too many keywords.Takeaways Summary:This is just a glimpse into the world of online social sales influencers.\u00a0 When analyzing their engagement and presence we have to keep in mind who their target market is, and how they go about attracting new business.\u00a0 Taking that into account, here is what I\u2019ve learned:#1 \u2013 HAVE A PRESENCE ON TWITTER!\u00a0\u2013 all the companies are engaged in some way on twitter, and the more engaged and engaging, the larger the audience.#2 \u2013 Look at the content Heinz Marketing (@heinzmarketing) is posting on Twitter.\u00a0 They are getting more than 6 interactions per tweet.#3 \u2013 On Twitter and Facebook more than half of the top 50 posts to both networks were photos, and the top 11 Social Sales Influencers analyzed all tweet more than 10 times per day.#4 – Look at the content The Sales Blog (https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/thesalesblog) is posting on Facebook.\u00a0 They have\u00a0the most engagement on this platform.#5 \u2013 Of the other social networks, only a few companies are even spending any time at all.\u00a0 This is interesting and could offer some insight into your own marketing efforts.#6 \u2013 Make sure your site is following best practices for optimization.\u00a0 What is \u2018best\u2019 changes all the time, but very few of the sites analyzed have all the best practices implemented.ConclusionHow you measure success varies greatly.If the size really matters, then the size of your social audience is the key indicator of success.\u00a0 Maximize Your Social would be #1 using this indicator.If social activity including volume of posts and updates is the key, then Sales For Life would be #1.I would like to think that Social Engagement Volume is THE key indicator of success.\u00a0 Real people are interacting, and you\u2019re not just posting and posting.\u00a0 If your audience responds, shares, likes and retweets your content, then to me that indicates relevance and success.\u00a0 After all, this is \u2018Social Media\u2019 we\u2019re evaluating.Using this as an indicator, I would like to narrow down the original list of 30, to my own top 10 Social Media Influencers (with website and twitter handles):AOK Marketing’s Top 10 List of Social Sales InfluencersMaximize Your Social – http:\/\/maximizeyoursocial.com\/ – @nealschafferThe Sales Blog – http:\/\/thesalesblog.com\/ – @iannarinoJill Rowley – http:\/\/www.jillrowley.com\/ – @jill_rowleyHeinz Marketing – http:\/\/www.heinzmarketing.com\/ – @heinzmarketingJill Konrath – http:\/\/www.jillkonrath.com\/ – @jillkonrathInside Sales – http:\/\/www.insidesales.com\/ – @InsideSalesNimble – http:\/\/www.nimble.com\/ – @NimbleSalesLoft – http:\/\/salesloft.com\/ – @SalesLoftA Sales Guy Consulting – http:\/\/asalesguy.com\/ – @keenanNew Sales Coach – http:\/\/newsalescoach.com\/ – @mike_weinbergNow that I’ve chosen my top 10, it\u2019s time to come full circle and answer the question: Where Do The Top 30 Social Sales Influencers Actually Spend Their Time?The undeniable truth: Twitter."},{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Surprising Habits of the Top 30 Social Sales Influencers","item":"https:\/\/aokmarketing.com\/surprising-habits-top-30-social-sales-influencers\/#breadcrumbitem"}]}]