What is Social Selling?

What is it and how to get the most out of it

Do you want to reach more people and grow your company online? Social media platforms can help!

According to Backlinko, over 4 billion people globally use social media to engage with others and discover helpful products and services. This number keeps increasing, and because most users log on daily, you can use this opportunity to reach a wider audience. 

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Social media allows you to do many things for your company. Here are some of them: 

• Observe your competitors and learn their best practices 
• Create content for your target audience 
• Share links to blogs and resources from your website 
• Introduce your products and services 
• Increase your sales through social selling 

Although five social media usages are mentioned above, this guide will focus on social selling. Let's define and discuss what it is. 

What is social selling?

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Social selling is the process of getting leads by engaging with prospects on social media. 

It's different from cold pitching and spamming people with the same message about your products and services; instead, social selling focuses on building relationships by interacting with your audience and providing helpful content. 

Many companies have experienced incredible results through social selling strategies. In fact, around 50% of sales generated by 14 different industries are from social sales, according to a LinkedIn study. Furthermore, CSO Insights state that almost 70% of sales experts also utilize this strategy to boost leads. 

Another study by Small Biz Genius shows that over 84% of executive managers and 75% of B2B buyers check social media before making a purchase. 

Why is social selling beneficial for companies?

Social selling is helpful in many aspects. Here are some of the main advantages: 

Increases brand visibility

As you continuously share valuable content and optimize your company’s profile, you'll attract more audiences that are willing to engage. People become educated about what you do and what you are offering. Once they are convinced your products can improve their daily lives, they will purchase. 

Brand visibility is crucial in improving your sales. It exposes you to potential customers and opportunities. Without brand visibility, people won't know that your company exists. 

Drives more high-quality leads

Lead generation and brand visibility go hand-in-hand. If the number of people familiar with your company increases, so does the number of people willing to click or subscribe to your list. 

With social selling, you're not just mindlessly posting and messaging people. You're investing your time in building genuine connections with your prospects and earning their trust, which can help you attract high-quality leads. 

These leads have a higher chance of converting to sales and, therefore, can help your revenue grow. 

Boosts web traffic

One method of social selling is sharing useful blogs or resources from your website to your social media. This effort will show that you want to solve your audience's problem. Instead of promoting your products directly, you provide quality content while mentioning your product strategically. 

Boosted web traffic can help your brand’s visibility. It can improve your brand recognition and enhance your local search engine optimization (SEO). When people find your content useful, they will share it with others. Therefore, you'll be able to reach more people and get more leads. 

According to research, websites and blogs with higher social shares and engagement can rank better on search engines. 

Increases sales results

Since social selling can improve visibility and increase leads, this also impacts your sales. Better sales open your company for more opportunity and growth. You can add equipment, tools, or people to increase the quality of your products. This also gives you more money to invest in new products or services. 

Social selling tips for success

After learning the benefits of social selling, it's time to apply it to your strategy. Before doing so, remember to follow these tips: 

Track social selling performance

Tracking and monitoring your performance is always essential. By doing so, you'll know whether your method is effective or not. You'll also know which actions work best, so you can put more time and effort into doing them. 

Nowadays, there is software that can help you track and assess your social selling performance. You can use several tools like LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Bambu, Hootsuite, LinkedIn Social Selling Index, and Reachable. 

If you're running a bigger company, you can integrate this software into your customer relationship management (CRM) software for better access. 

Train the team

Your team should know why social selling is important and how it works to ensure proper execution. If your team isn't on the same page, achieving results will be challenging. 

The best way to train your team is to conduct training programs to teach them the foundation of social selling. If you have the budget, you can invite experts to conduct the training. 

However, you can also use cheaper alternatives like videos, blogs, emails, e-books, and webinars. Do your research and give your team helpful resources.

Take advantage of content

Content plays a huge part in letting your target audience know who you are. It should be the heart of your marketing strategy. 

When creating content, don't need to limit yourself to texts. You can share videos, infographics, images, articles, e-books, etc. Provide options so you can accommodate different people. 

However, make sure to discuss the content with your marketing team. You need to create content that aligns with your product launching, campaigns, and marketing efforts. 

Sharing content that is too self-promotional isn't advisable as well. People are not attracted to ads-like blogs or social media posts. You need to show you genuinely want to provide useful information for your audience. 

Conclusion 

When done right, social selling can help your company succeed. But first, you need to do your best when planning, establish a good foundation, and find the right people and tools to help you do it better and more effectively. 

Photo by Tracy Le Blanc from Pexel