Social selling: A sales rep’s guide to success Introduction
Not that long ago, consumers didn’t have information at their fingertips and marketers and sales representatives were often successful in using outbound methods such as cold calling and email blasts to close sales.
The buyer and the buyer’s journey have changed thanks to the internet of things (IOT). We now live in a global digital economy and the way we behave, communicate and interact has evolved. Now, 57% of the purchase decision is complete before a customer has even called a supplier (CEB), plus, 67% of the buyer’s journey is now done digitally (SiriusDecisions).
It’s safe to say the sales and marketing landscape has changed, especially with the prevalence of social networks. As of 2019, there were 3.48 billion active social media users worldwide, presenting a huge opportunity for sales professionals to use various channels for social selling (Data Reportal). As I’ve highlighted, buyers are now actively seeking information online and it’s important that you are visible in and around their ecosytems. Introduction
Many people ‘switch off’ from overt marketing and don’t like the feeling of being sold to.
Social selling provides a solution to this problem by engaging with prospects on social channels and creating relationships with buyers.
This demonstrates that you’re taking an interest in your audience. You are actively taking the time to truly understand your audience, you’re offering them value through your content and interactions, and you’re engaging with your audience on their terms. In return, this positions you as an expert, someone who is authentic and trustworthy. Naturally they will be more likely to show interest in you and see you as the go to person for that specific problem or challenge they’re facing.
An effective social selling strategy will generate relevant leads and ultimately increase conversion rates. However, many businesses face challenges when it comes to social selling, often mistaking it for social media marketing.
This guide discusses social selling and how to develop an effective strategy.
By reading it you’ll learn:
• How you can achieve social selling success
• The business benefits you can’t afford to ignore
• Social selling tips that actually work
• How to devise your social selling strategy 78% of salespeople using social media outperform their peers. Reply
4 What is social selling?
Social selling is the process of researching, connecting, and interacting with prospects and customers on social media networks - notably Twitter and LinkedIn. Through commenting on, liking, and sharing prospects’ and customers’ posts, salespeople create relationships with buyers and boost their credibility by taking an interest in what they’re interested in (HubSpot).
It involves nurturing leads and therefore isn’t a quick win for sales reps. However, it builds authenticity and trust with prospects and is proven to be influential, as 84% of senior executives use social media to support purchase decisions (Super Office).
What’s my definition? As buyers go digital savvy, social selling offers a rewarding way for businesses to generate and nurture leads. Combining the elements of social listening, lead generation, and sales practices, it is primarily about establishing and building relationships. Leverage your relationships by adopting a new mindset and approach that applies to the audience of today.
The key to social selling success is to provide value to your audience through content, insight and ‘real conversations’ throughout the buying process, from the awareness stage through to purchase.
And, the statistics don’t lie.
18% 21% GREATER PIPELINE INCREASED PIPELINE VOLUME Social selling VELOCITY
Sales teams using social selling experience 18% greater pipeline volume and 21% increased pipeline velocity than those who don’t. - Sales for Life
5 What is social selling?
Top-performing sales reps who close deals 51% more than their peers consider social networking platforms "very important" to their success. % 51 - LinkedIn Business
Social selling also makes it easier for sales reps to get referrals within their LinkedIn networks, which is significant considering 84% 84% of buyers now begin their buying process with a referral. - HubSpot
75% of B2B buyers now use social media to research. 75% - IDC
90% of decision makers say they never respond to cold outreach. % 90 - Harvard Business Review
You can’t beat human to human interaction, whether it is at a networking event, seminar or social gathering. Getting in front of someone, building rapport and having a conversation is king. But in today’s world we all are busy people with limited time. Social selling gives you an opportunity to nurture a warm relationship online to the point people want to meet in person rather than trying to go in cold.
6 The benefits of social selling
Social selling is a massive business opportunity in both instances – for those creating the market for social selling, as well as for businesses looking to leverage social selling.
Below are just a few of the benefits of using social selling to engage your prospects.
1. Social selling appeals to the modern buyer
B2B buyers have 12 to 18 non-human and human interactions along the buyer’s journey (Sirius Decisions). It’s vital that this behavior is central to your sales and marketing efforts. You can do this by building content to address their specific pain points and challenges.
Furthermore, 68% of buyers prefer to research on their own online and 62% develop selection criteria or finalise a vendor list based solely on digital content (Forrester). So, when you create content that follows the buyer journey, you are influencing your buyers’ research process. This is how you appeal to the modern buyer and buyers journey.
Old sales model New sales model
Cold Social calls network
Sales Qualify demo leads Educate Engage
Sales 1.0 Social sales
7 The benefits of social selling
2. Social selling lets your sales team build ‘real’ relationships
Nobody likes cold calling – it’s intrusive and the statistics show it’s ineffective. Using tools to perform social listening on topics relevant to your industry allows your sales team to identify new leads that are already talking about your business, competitors, or your industry, so you can reach out to them in an appropriate way.
In a recent survey by CSO Insights and Seismic, one in three B2B professionals said that social selling tools increased the number of leads. What’s more, social tools help automate the process and reduces manual research of individuals.
Primary benefits of using social selling tools
Reduced account/contact research time 39%
Increased number of leads 33%
Deeper relationships with clients 31%
Improved lead conversion rate 24%
Shorter sell cycles 14%
Increased win rate of forecast deals 13%
Not sure 38%
(% of respondents) Source: CSO Insights and Seismic, “2016 Sales Enablement Optimisation Study,” July 28, 2016
8 The benefits of social selling
Prospects use channels such as LinkedIn to share information about their professional needs, wants, and pain points and this enables outreach to be personalised and helpful from the outset.
Developing a network of targeted and relevant contacts that will inform your strategy and find your content engaging is mutually beneficial and from a sales perspective, enables you to seek out introductions to new sales prospects through existing mutual connections.
87%
This quickly establishes trust which is important, as 87% of B2B buyers say they would have a favourable impression of someone introduced through their professional network (LinkedIn SlideShare).
9 The benefits of social selling
3. Your prospects are already engaged in social buying
Sales professionals can use social listening and other social research strategies to find prospects, but those contacts are already engaging with social media to find potential vendors, perform independent research, and make an informed decision, all before contacting a sales professional.
According to LinkedIn, 76% of buyers are ready to have a social media conversation with potential providers, and more than 62% of B2B buyers respond to salespeople who connect with them to share insights and opportunities relevant to their business. Even better, 92% of B2B buyers are willing to engage with a sales professional who is a known industry thought leader. You can build this reputation by consistently posting thoughtful, relevant content on social media that you know will resonate with your audience.
By using social listening tools you can learn the words your audience tend to use when they talk about your industry or challenges they have. This in return will give you a good sense of what kind of insights are most useful for you so you can resonate with your audience.
Here are a few a keywords and topics that you can start to monitor:
• Your brand name and handles
• Your product name(s), including common misspellings
• Your competitors’ brand names, product names, and handles
• Industry buzzwords
• Your strapline and those of your competitors
• Names of key people in your company and your competitors’ companies (your CEO, spokesperson, etc.)
• Campaign names or keywords
• Your branded hashtags and those of your competitors
• Unbranded hashtags related to your industry
10 90% of top salespeople use social selling tools. zoominfo
11 The benefits of social selling
4. Your competitors are already using social selling
71% of all sales professionals are already using social selling tools, so if you aren’t it means you’re putting yourself at a disadvantage (LinkedIn Business).
Ways in which B2B professionals worldwide use social selling tools
Lead development 68.9%
Account research 64.9%
Call preparation 60.3%
Contact/stakeholder research 58.6%
Awareness building 50.3%
Building own social brand 41.4%
Content curation 24.5%
Competitive analysis 16.9%
(% of respondents) Source: CSO Insights and Seismic, “2016 Sales Enablement Optimisation Study,” July 28, 2016
What’s more, brands across multiple industries are implementing social selling tools, including technology and travel. Microsoft is one such organisation that has seen the power of social selling. Their social selling pilot program started out with 15 people selling Microsoft Azure using their LinkedIn accounts to find their own customers. This boosted productivity by 38% and the program scaled to 3,000+ sellers as more employees witnessed the success of using LinkedIn and Sales Navigator to prospect leads (LinkedIn Business).
12 The benefits of social selling
5. Social Capital
Social capital is where someone in your network has a pain point or a problem and they automatically think of you. This comes down to your positioning on social networks and your activity.
To gain social capital you need to take into consideration social proximity first. This in a nutshell is your connection philosophy. Instead of connecting with just anyone, try and connect with people in a target manner, those who you can genuinely help and where there is rapport. Then it’s about social presence.
You need to present and share your insight and contribute towards discussions and groups to build your presence. This will give you more visibility which will strengthen your social capital.
With pain point With pain point
With pain point
SOCIAL CAPITAL
With pain point
With pain point
13 The benefits of social selling
6. The Mere Exposure Effect
The Mere Exposure Effect was first discovered in 1968 by social psychologist Robert Zajonc. According to this social phenomenon, the more a person gets exposed to something, the more they develop a preference towards that thing over time.
As we now live in a digital world, we have the perfect opportunity to take advantage of the Mere Exposure Effect. With the vast range of online channels, your messages can be seen as someone scrolls through their LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and even Instagram feeds. These platforms make it possible for you to share content and have touchpoints with your target audience multiple times a day, which can increase your visibility. But, what you share will determine how successful this approach is for you.
If you are just going to share sales messages and CTAs, then you will annoy your audience. Instead, share content that adds value, offers insight and information. And, don’t forget to inspire and educate your audience too. This will allow you to take advantage of the Mere Exposure Effect.
14 The benefits of social selling
7. The Reach
The diagram below from statistica shows the number of active users across the key social channels. This puts into perspective the potential reach you can have when it comes to engaging with your target audience.
Facebook 2414
YouTube 2000
WhatsApp 1600
Facebook Messenger 1300
WeChat 1133
Instagram 1000
QQ 808
QZone 554
Douyin / Tik Tok 500
Sina Weibo 486
Reddit 330
Twitter 330
Douban 320
Snapchat 314
LinkedIn 310
Pinterest 300
(Number of active users in millions) Source: Statista 2020
15 Preparation is key…
To successfully leverage social selling, you need to optimise your social channels to showcase yourself and your expertise. Little things make a big difference, for example statistics show that LinkedIn members with a photo receive far more engagement: 21 times more profile views and nine times more connection requests (LinkedIn Business).
How to optimise your social profiles
Sales professionals’ social profiles are the first impression for potential prospects, so it’s important that every channel they are active on is consistent and helps build a positive reputation.
There’s not much space on Twitter to sell yourself through your profile alone but the following can help show thought-leadership and consistency with your other channels.
• Post a professional picture
• Write your bio to give an insight into what you do on a professional level
• Link to your company’s Twitter account (Example: Sales Rep @company)
• List your LinkedIn profile
• Include hashtags that your prospects likely follow
• Create Twitter Lists to monitor content from specific groups of people
16 Preparation is key…
LinkedIn provides you with more space to effectively sell yourself, so optimising your profile will require more time and effort. It’s worth it though, as 80% of B2B leads generated on social media come from LinkedIn (Hootsuite).
To optimise your LinkedIn profile for social selling, you should:
• Upload a current, hi-res, professional-looking profile picture
• Include your job title and who you help in your headline
• Write a summary of around three paragraphs to elaborate on what you do and the value you provide. Include a call to action to make it easy for connections to contact you
• Seek recommendations to increase your credibility
• Join LinkedIn Groups that are relevant to your industry to start networking with peers and prospects. Repost content in groups to widen your potential reach
• Extend your network using LinkedIn Sales Navigator and connect with people through existing connections
17 If you can get better at your job, you should be an active member of LinkedIn, because LinkedIn should be connecting you to the information, insights and people to be more effective. Reid Hoffman, Co-Founder of LinkedIn
18 How to sell socially…
Now your profiles are all fully optimised and ready to be rolled out, it’s time to kick off your social selling strategy.
Social selling best practices
Effective social selling takes time and must be consistent to build meaningful relationships with your audiences. Below are the best practices to sell socially.
1. Dedicate yourself
Being present on multiple channels can be time consuming and you might be inclined to use automated tools for social interaction. However, your audience is likely to notice when your liking and commenting seems inauthentic and in turn, this can damage your personal brand.
Dedicate a realistic amount of time each day to monitor social channels, engage with others, and post native content. The goal is to make yourself seem more human and approachable.
2. Perform social listening
Prospects are sharing valuable information on their social channels, often sharing their pain points and need for a solution.
Don’t miss out on this and use social lists and monitoring streams to collate what people are saying about you, your company, your industry, and your competitors.
If you identify potential leads through social listening, check their following to see if you have any mutual connections and use this in your favour to establish an immediate connection. When you message leads, make sure to personalise messages based on their professional social media profiles.
3. Provide value
Social selling at its core is all about providing valuable insight to the right prospects at the right time.
Focus on providing relevant, informative posts and content when it’s apparent your audience want it. This will help to establish your position as a thought leader, as well as adding your take on curated content.
Avoid social posts that just promote your products and services as many followers will find it spammy and switch off. Social selling is a slow burner, and you will eventually convert more leads to customers by establishing relationships rather than trying to sell from the outset.
19 How to sell socially…
4. Maintain meaningful relationships
Once you’ve made new connections it’s important to stay engaged with them over time. Comment and like content they’re posting and that is relevant to you. If a contact asks for help or advice, contribute a meaningful answer, even if it doesn’t directly promote your product.
5. Share testimonials
Success stories from other customers have a lot of weight. Research suggests 92% of buyers trust recommendations from peers and 70% trust recommendations from strangers (Pretty Links).
This will help build your credibility with prospects and allows them to relate their challenges to those faced by customers who have had their pain points addressed by your product or service.
6. Track engagement
Tracking metrics such as likes, comments, and shares will demonstrate the content that best resonates with your audience, and ultimately prove your social selling efforts are paying off.
The ability to see what content gets the most engagement means you can adjust your content if needed. If you notice content about a particular topic gets more engagement, it indicates that your audience are interested, and you have license to discuss it more.
7. Know when to take your connections offline
To land a sale, you’ll need to escalate the connection by offering a prospect a call to continue the conversation on a deeper level. Again, it’s important not to try and push a call before prospects are ready, as this will damage all of your nurturing efforts.
8. Have a content plan
The purpose of a content plan is to create meaningful, cohesive, engaging, and sustainable content that engages, resonates and attracts your target audience. In today's social web environment, getting the right message to the right customer at the right time is crucial. To stay front of mind, to build rapport and trust and to position yourself as an expert you need to have a solid content plan in place.
20 Content examples
21 Final Note
I hope this guide gives you enough direction and insight to start embracing social selling.
If you would like me to expand more on any of the topics mentioned in this guide, or you are interested in finding out how our social selling team can support your business today, just drop me an email on [email protected] or call me on 07764 993622.
Or, you can connect with me on LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/in/sudhirkumarorigin. Sudhir Kumar, Marketing Director at Origin & Origin Blurbs.
22 originblurbs.com T. +44 (0)203 856 4491 E. [email protected]