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Social Selling | 5 Best Practices & Tools

Social selling

The omnipresence of Social Media has influenced Social Selling to be the most popular buzzword amongst successful salespeople.

Communicating with prospects, engaging with them, building meaningful relationships,s and ensuring conversions are incorporated under Social Selling features.

It helps salespeople delight their prospects via social media without interrupting their regular lives with cold calls and other hard sales attempts.

Businesses are quick to include Social Selling in their marketing strategy, per a study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Hootsuite.

“49 percent of B2B enterprises have developed a formal Social Selling program, and 28 percent are in the process of doing so.”

However, despite being so popular and very different from Social Media Marketing, people still misunderstand Social Selling with Social Media Marketing. That is why, to clear the air, I thought to come up with this post.

Social selling
How social selling is different from traditional selling

In this post, you will get to know what social selling is, why you need it, how you can do it on other social channels, etc., in 5 simple steps.

So, let us delve into those steps-

Understand Social Selling in 5 Simple Steps

A. What is Social Selling?

Social Selling is a practice that utilizes social media networks to recognize, connect, convince and convert sales prospects.

It is beneficial in nurturing meaningful relationships with potential customers to cajole them into considering you as a natural first point of contact whenever any of them is/are ready to make a purchase.

Businesses that have embraced Social Selling into their marketing strategy can influence potential customers throughout their buying journey and ultimately ensure sales success.

  • Social Selling is done by using online social tools that help successful sales professionals create and execute relationship-building strategies that convert potential customers.
  • With the help of a Facebook Business Page, a professional Twitter account, or a LinkedIn profile, we are already involved in Social Selling without knowing what Social Selling means. Therefore, you should only know how Social Selling differs from our regular social engagements.
  • Regular social engagements revolve around being active on different social platforms and accessing contacts. Still, in Social Selling, you need to build relationships by strategically comprehending the right moment to join the social conversations so that you are perceived as a solution to your audiences’ problems.
  • In Social Selling, you should never bombard strangers with unsolicited Tweets and private messages as those would be termed ‘Spam,’ and your prospects would swipe and delete your message. With Social Selling, you ought to make the life of your prospects easier.

Now that you have understood how to sell through social media by using Social Selling let us look at why you need it.

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B. Why do you need Social Selling

Social selling
Social selling benefits

The primary reason is that Social Selling works in the most conversion-oriented way possible.

Statistics prove that 78 percent of salespeople engaged in selling on social media are outselling their competitors who do not know what social selling is and how to use it for their business.

Following are the 2 of the most common and powerful reasons why you need Social Selling are-

1. Social Selling empowers the Sales Team to build relationships that sustain and convert

  • Cold calling is not going to offer any notable advantages to your salespeople. In Social Selling, you use social tools that help you go through the conversations relevant to your industry. This social listening guides sales teams in identifying new leads (who are already interested in your industry, business, or competitors). This lets you target them with the most relevant and helpful information at the right time.
  • Social tools reduce the time the sales team spends researching accounts and contacts. You can make your first point of contact personalized by using the information prospects provide about their preferences, wants, needs, and pain points on their social profiles. This will help you build deeper relationships with your prospects.
  • As per stats, having a strong Social Selling index ensures 45% more sales opportunities, plus 51% of those become able to hit their sales quota

2. Your prospects already use Social Buying & your Competitors have already embraced Social Selling

  • As salespeople use Social Selling to find target audiences, those prospects are already using social listening and social search to find potential vendors, which is termed social buying. This makes it extremely important to use the selling of social because if you are not showing up in your prospects’ social purchase research, you will miss the opportunity to optimize your sales conversions.
  • In one of the posts, Hootsuite says-

“The good news is that, according to LinkedIn, 76 percent of buyers are ready to have a social media conversation with potential providers, and more than 62 percent of B2B buyers respond to salespeople who connect with them to share insights and opportunities relevant to their business.

Even better, 92 percent of B2B buyers are willing to engage with a sales professional who is a known industry thought leader, a reputation you can establish by consistently posting thoughtful, relevant content on social media.”

Another important reason to use selling on social media is your competitors, who are already considering it to optimize their sales.

Approximately 71 % of sales professionals already use Social Selling tools, while most top salespeople prefer having Social Selling tools in their kitty.

After knowing why you need Social Selling, the next thing you should know is the best Social Selling practices, so let us dig deep into those.

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C. Best Social Selling practices

Some of the most essential practices are-

1. Identify leads by Careful Listening

a. Prospects share valuable information on their social channels that tell you about their preferences, and it is a must for you to pay heed to that information

b. You should monitor what prospects are saying about you, plus you should check your leads’ following and followers, as this will help you customize your messaging as per the information people share on their professional social profiles

2. Expose yourself and show up

a. It is essential to make yourself approachable and humane in building relationships. It would be best if you also optimized your social profiles across all social networks.

b. You should also ensure that your social profile shows up when your prospects search for influencers and experts in your industry.

3. Provide value & establish a meaningful relationship

a. Providing valuable insight to prospects at the right time is one of the most essential practices of Social Selling.

You should contribute valuable information to help your prospects and establish yourself as an expert in your field.

b. You should establish relationships on social profiles that can eventually lead to a sale and not for making a sale on the very first contact.

Staying in touch with your new social contacts over time and paying attention to the content they’re posting will help you establish a meaningful relationship with them.

c. Sending a quick note of congratulation to your contacts when they move to a new position or company or offering solutions to the queries of your prospects will help you have conversion-driven relationships with your prospects

d. Empowering the life of your prospects will help you ensure better relationships with them

D. Social Selling on Different Social Media platforms

Social selling
Social selling on different social platforms

I. Social Selling On LinkedIn

LinkedIn is the most powerful social platform to do effective Social Selling. Especially in the B2B space, it is highly result-driven.

Overall, 50 percent of B2B purchasers utilize LinkedIn as an asset when settling on their buying decisions- And that is why you should be dynamic on LinkedIn to position yourself as a player in those choices.

To ensure Social Selling on LinkedIn-

a. It would be best if you were valid, which you can do by building your credibility on LinkedIn. You can ask for recommendations and endorsements from connections, as these are posted on your profile and can give you believability with the new contacts.

b. Expand your network for which you can utilize LinkedIn Advanced Search, which reveals potential new connections by utilizing existing connections.

c. Join LinkedIn Groups important to your industry to begin organizing with associates and prospects. You can also utilize the search feature on your LinkedIn home page to discover new Groups or look over LinkedIn’s proposals of Groups you may like.

d.You can also try Sales Navigator of LinkedIn, which is the professional Social Selling tool of LinkedIn.

ii. Social Selling On Twitter

To ensure selling on Twitter-

a. Use the list of Existing Customers to reply to or like their Tweets, as this will help you keep yourself on their radar.

However, it would help if you did not try too hard; making your engagements genuine and significant is advisable.

You should “like” Tweets that you like and comment when you have something profitable to state.

b. You should identify your prospects and wait for the right time to engage with them. Lists of prospects should always be private.

You should never let your clients know that you have distinguished them as prospects until there is more right than wrong to connect.

c. You should have a list of competitors that ought to be private. This will give you a chance to monitor them without really following them.

Valuable insights from this can help you have some great ideas for your own particular Social Selling endeavors.

iii. Social Selling On Facebook

You must be more watchful when selling on Facebook, as Facebook is the most personal of the three social platforms discussed in this post.

A few people would never prefer to blend business and fun on Facebook, so sending them requests as business prospects may appear creepy instead of supportive.

You might need to make a Facebook Business Page instead, and then you can incorporate the following strategies for your Social Selling on Facebook-

a. Connect with other businesses through Facebook; it is easy to connect with them via shares, comments, or likes.

If you give valuable comments and share valuable content, your effort will probably reciprocate too. In return, other businesses would also share and like your content.

b. You should engage with your followers, which you can do by asking a question that can spark a conversation amongst your followers.

This will also enable you to participate in the discussion and connect specifically with the followers, creating a feeling of compatibility and establishing yourself as an expert.

c. However, using questions directly related to your product or service is not always essential.

E. Social Selling Tools

These Tools are essential for targeting and monitoring leads, nurturing relationships, building a social media presence, and tracking leads.

Following are the five most useful Social Selling Tools are-

  • Mi8 is quite effective in building interesting customer profiles over time that help sales professionals comprehend the buyer’s journey of a prospect. Plus, it also updates about the critical interests of the prospects
  • Hootsuite is one of the best-selling tools on Social Channels for easily sharing content over different social platforms. Plus, it also helps in social listening and engaging with prospects on social channels
  • Nimble combines CRM with social that, keeps you alert on what is going on in social and helps you manage customer relationships
  • Linkedin Sales Navigator is quite helpful in identifying critical stakeholders at accounts. Plus, it provides insights that assist salespeople in starting a dialogue with your prospects
  • Meltwater helps salespeople in social monitoring and listening

Final Words

The four pillars of lead generation, conversions, and sales are-

  • Building Relationship
  • Establishing Rapport
  • Increasing Credibility
  • Right Solution to Right People at Right Time

Social Selling helps you do all these. It also alleviates the whole task and optimizes the advantages of existing relationships and connections to build an extended social network of prospects and potential buyers.

I hope over mentioned five steps would have helped you understand what Social Selling is, but in case you wish to know more about it, Social Media Marketing Course can help you in the most helpful way possible.

Amongst the aforesaid Social Selling Practices, which practice made you curious?

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Share your thoughts in the comments.

FAQ

1. What is social selling?

Relationship-building in the modern day is social selling. Engaging with prospects on social media can help you stand out as the first company they think of when they’re ready to buy.

2. What is the social selling index?

The Social Selling Index (SSI) is a technique that measures our ability to promote a business or item on social media.

3. What are the best networks for social selling?

Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are excellent channels for communicating with clients.

4. What is social selling the inbound way?

When a salesperson adds value by providing customers with relevant information and responding to their queries

Avatar of satyendra tewari
Satyendra Tewari
A Certified Corporate trainer involved in Leadership and Life Skills coaching with a holistic 3Q approach. As an E-business Influencer and Digital Media Trailblazer, my forte includes Business leadership, Branding, Social Media and Digital Marketing, Online Advertising, Global Marketing Strategy and Refining of Marketing Processes.

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