Social selling is the practice of using social media to market items and products. With the millions of users on social media, connecting has never been simpler. If you can make connections, you can utilize them for marketing more services and products. However, suppose you’re unfamiliar with how social selling works. In that case, this blog will explain the fundamentals of what social selling is, how it differs from social media, and why it’s crucial for your business.
Table of Content
What is Social Selling?
Social selling is using a company’s platforms on social media to interact with potential customers, build an affinity with them, and connect with potential leads. As a result, the strategy can assist businesses in meeting their sales goals.
Think of social Selling as modern relationship-building. Connecting with potential customers via social media could help you become the first company that a potential buyer considers when looking to buy. And it can replace outdated relationship-building and sales techniques like cold calling!
Your decision should be based on the audience you are targeting and how you approach social selling.
Twitter, as well as Instagram are excellent platforms to interact with customers. They provide tools to respond to customer queries and are informal virtual spaces where communication occurs naturally. In essence, they’re excellent at building connections.
For instance, Destination BC creates new connections with users and builds connections by commenting proactively on user’s posts:
Then Left On Friday responds to influencers and users’ comments to maintain existing relationships:
On the other hand, LinkedIn is a much more formal platform for business that is ideal for B2B businesses that want to discover and communicate with key decision-makers in the business. There, companies can connect with customers who are interested in building professional relationships:
In fact, according to LinkedIn:
89 % of B2B marketers rely on LinkedIn for leads.
62 % of B2B marketers believe that LinkedIn produces leads at twice the speed of the next highest performing social media channel.
Also, make sure you use the social media platform that your target audience is most comfortable with — and also the one your company will be in a position to consistently use!
Benefits of Social Selling
Greater brand recognition
If more employees post material and optimize profiles on social media, their networks are clicking and engaging. Unfortunately, often they are employees who don’t know about the business and don’t know what they are missing.
Higher leads
As brand awareness grows, so do lead volumes and quality. Your social sellers equipped with relevant content can inform their social networks, particularly on LinkedIn. People also are more likely to trust recommendations from friends or colleagues than any other type of marketing.
Reduced Sales Cycle
Social selling is a way to can reduce the length of your selling cycle and gain greater satisfaction. Social media and Google have made the purchase research process faster and more convenient for buyers. Modern-day buyers are savvy enough to make their choice before even speaking with an agent for sales.
Suppose your sales reps have successfully integrated Social Selling into the sales processes by communicating valuable information and engaging with potential customers on a personal level. In that case, prospective buyers might decide to work with them, even before contacting to speak with them. This is because social selling provides credibility to your brand and makes your business appear as an authority in the area.
Increased Web traffic
With increased brand awareness and increasing the number of employees sharing company content and news, you’ll witness an increase in visitors visiting or searching the official website.
Manage your online reputation
One of the biggest benefits that social selling offers is controlling your company’s image and reputation online. Numerous studies have demonstrated the online review site’s huge influence on consumers who decide to purchase the product or service they are interested in. For instance, 65 percent of buyers think that the reviewer’s reviews directly impact their purchase decisions, according to SalesForLife. Your website’s presence can lead to the popularity of your website, provided that you’re promoting it correctly. A positive image among potential customers on social media can help attract more people interested in your company. Conversely, negative reputations will directly impact your company’s fundamental processes and its success.
Better sales results
Apart from the increased high-quality leads that could aid in sales as well, social selling can be an effective way to increase the size of deals and increase the win rate. Social selling is a great way to get more buyers in an organization, increasing the total size of the deal. More potential customers mean more potential customers, which will result in more income for your business.
Social selling strategies
1. Track Results
The best way to become better at social selling is by studying your previous efforts. Learn from your efforts to discover what’s working as well as what’s not. Based on the information, think about what you could be doing differently and what you could improve upon. This will help you get more clarity on improving and modifying your approach to get more effective outcomes.
For instance, perhaps you’re monitoring the activities of your social media followers and discovered that the majority go away within minutes. This could indicate that something isn’t quite right on your landing page, and you need to examine it more closely to determine how you can make it better.
2. Engage in Relevant LinkedIn Groups
LinkedIn Groups are an excellent source of potential customers for B2B firms. All you have to do is locate relevant groups, make an application to join and then begin to interact with other members after you’ve been accepted.
You can offer your knowledge and experience, Ask questions relevant to the topic or interact with other members of the group to develop a rapport.
The relationship you’ve built with prospects who are relevant through LinkedIn Groups can be crucial to nurturing them into leads. Based on the conversations, you can notify them about new product launches or suggest appropriate services they appear to require.
3. Consistently Provide Value
Social media are a long-term commitment, and that’s exactly the reason. Once you’ve begun following the most appropriate people, you need to continually contribute to the community. Make sure you select your networks carefully, and be sure to spread yourself thin. Every tweet, comment, and post counts, and you don’t want to go under over a period of stretch. A neglected network appears unprofessional.
There is a myriad of ways to be active on social media.
- Do share your knowledge.
- Provide solutions.
- Keep your eyes on the prospective buyer.
- Utilize pertinent hashtags from Twitter to help you target your content more effectively.
- Follow influential industry figures to remain relevant and up-to-the-minute.
4. Serve before selling
Being human and building a rapport are excellent social selling strategies. However, sales professionals who are experts have to be able to offer the value prior to a person likely to believe what’s communicated. Although they might have chosen to join or show an interest, it doesn’t mean that they’re telling you, “please sell me something.”
Serving before selling is offering valuable information at no cost. It is about finding solutions to problems and providing solutions with no price associated with them. Thinking, “how can I help you?” instead of “what can I sell you?” can mean that you’re on the right path.
5. Don’t neglect existing customers
It’s easy to overlook your existing customers on social networks; however, that’s an error. Be aware you’re six times more costly to acquire an additional customer than it is to keep an existing one. If they’ve purchased from you before, it is likely that they will purchase another time, but it cannot be assumed that they’ll.
For customers who are already clients, Ask more detailed questions and maintain relationships to keep them feeling valued. Explore their social media profiles and bios to gather as much information as you can and keep them on the right track.
6. Create valuable content
Social selling can’t be done without content. The most effective way to communicate with your prospects is to deliver relevant content.
Inundating your customers with promotional posts will make them unfollow your page.
Based on Sprout Social, 46 % of users say they will not follow an account when they see too many promotions, and 41% of users will stop following the brand if it posts too many irrelevant posts.
The majority of your followers on social media do not lead. Providing relevant content that builds curiosity will result in more interactions, which will, in turn, transform your followers into hot leads.
Conclusion
Since 70 % of salespeople employ the social-selling tools, which makes them the most commonly employed sales technology in the current highly competitive market, knowing how to make use of these tools can benefit your business tremendously.
Every business should adopt social selling to better reach their customers and turn them into customers.
Make sure that social selling is an integral element of your automation strategy at the end of the day. So, you’ll be able to accomplish more when you leverage the data of your customers that you collect from your automated marketing tool to enhance the effectiveness of your social selling efforts.
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