Advanced Social Selling Strategy

By Rick Rea: Top 1% Endorsed for Advertising in the USA

The Benefits of Social Selling

Proper social selling generates higher quality leads, increases your sales pipeline, and exponentially increases your closed sales rates with higher revenue sales. Most think of social selling as a process for sales teams only, social selling has expanded well beyond just sales teams and is now a critical component for most all organizations today.
In my experience I would estimate 95% of businesses could execute their social selling program with their current staff!

Social Selling And How Do You Do It?

Social Selling / Social Sales is in more demand today than ever before. Especial since the COVID19 Coronavirus Pandemic, and for so many other reasons. Stopping by an office or business for a sales call, or calling a person at a business is going to lead you nowhere in today's world. 

Being active doing social sales since 2009 when I opened my first Twitter account I can honestly say in todays world, Social Selling is where it's at... BAR NONE!

Social Selling is so authentically awesome, Forbes and other amazing business publishers often write about the benefits of organizations utilizing a good Social Selling Social Sales plan.

Proper Training is key...

Today's consumers are well informed and in this modern age we are all way more informed than ever before. With just a few clicks we have a world of research at our fingertips. 

Hubspot research shows that 74% of B2B buyers conduct most of their research online before contacting a salesperson or making a purchase on their own.

Since social buying is so common, YOU NEED TO BE WHERE THE BUYERS ARE!  It is a no brainer. We are not advising or recommend that you use some social automated software to get leads either. Especially since the coronavirus pandemic people are wanting real conversations and connections with real people online when it comes to B2B sales. 

The most successful Social Selling Sales Programs are real employees connecting with real clients and customers online.  This is where social selling comes into play.

What is Social Selling?

Social Selling is a way to connect sales teams with prospects on social media platforms providing valued content and engaging with them. Your goal is to engage buyers on an on-going, long-term basis creating a relationship where you are considered a valued resource for the prospect. 

And this engagement definitely pays off.

LinkedIn research concludes that 78% of social sellers outsell in comparison to colleagues who don’t use social sales. Social media can help you immediately and actively engage and communicate with accounts, and develop your prospects. You will have the ability to look for opportunities or signals when it’s a good time to reach out to your prospects. This allows you to have a greater understanding of when to send that message you’ve wanted to send and have it well well-received. Social selling definitely helps you connect to your prospects and remain relevant which will develop valued long term relationships.

6 Social Selling Fundamental Steps:

Making Sales Through Social Media. A huge part of the sales process is establishing relationships and getting to know your prospects. Social media helps you accomplish relationships quickly and easily.

Follow these steps to make sales using social media easier.

Social Selling Step 1: Join a social media community

• Always start by spending some time with the social platforms you plan to use in the communities that interest you. 
• Build up a personal account.
• Have conversations, and become acquainted with expectations of the social media communities that interest you. 
• Do not misrepresent yourself, create a persona that's likeable and trustworthy within that community.

If you're a none tactful person or non relevant when I see you on a social media site, myself nor is anyone else going to do business with you.  If you just comment a lot to get people to go to your site, I will not listen to you nor will worthwhile prospects. You can't abuse or misuse social media. Many do not know the do's and don'ts of social media edicate to create a network that see you as a trustworthy resource. 
Note:  Seek "social sales training" from "social sales experts" to get this right!

Social Selling Step 2: Decide the ideal way to connect with the community

• B2C (Business to Consumer): Facebook is an ideal arena for B2C sales.
• B2B (Business to Business): Probably the most effective for B2B sales is LinkedIn for products and services.
• B2B and B2C: I personally like Twitter as it is effective for all types of sales. Twitter can be employed for all kinds of sales of products and services in all parts of the world.
• B2B and B2C: I'm a FIRM BELIEVER that you shouldn't limit yourself to the big 3 social media platforms. Live Chats, website blogs such as your websites and Tumblr to name a few are awesome.
• Branding: For brands one must absolutely consider Instagram, Pinterest and Facebook to increase their reach which leads to sales.
• increase their reach and branding efforts, all of which leads to sales. 

For all my and our clients I really stress it is not about posting products and services for sale. One must present valued information that fits your community in a fun way that drives engagement. You must engage with the community, and more importantly connecting with the user or potential user of your products or services. if you are not connecting with them you will not get the results you want or deserve.

You can and will make sales where the conversation is happening, so go where your prospects are having conversations and join into the conversation. 

Social Selling Step 3: Connecting with individuals

Many don't know a good way to find, friend and connect with the right people.  So many people just search social media platforms, I will let you know there is a much easier way.  I have used many tools and recently discovered Social Searcher and really find it very good.  Best part you can sign up for free.  I recently did a search and found most of the contacts were on Reddit, and the client didn't even know what Reddit was.  

You will want to comment on their posts and reshare the posts when appropriate.  Answer questions on posts and when it becomes apparent the contact is a good fit you should follow them at this time after a relationship has somewhat been established.

Social Selling Step 4: Building Relationships

• Focus on Developing Relationships more than focusing on just getting leads.  The more true relationships you build the more leads you will develop!
• Monitor and understand to what people are really saying so you can engage into a meaningful conversation.
• Once you develop a relationship you can then tell the prospect about your products and services may help them.

Social Selling Step 5: Engage in Conversation

Everyone seems to get a ton of Direct Messages with a pitch and a link to a site. This leads to a lot of uninterested people.  PLEASE think about this:  If you are only pitching your products to people you have built a relationship with you will ONLY HAVE INTERESTED PROSPECTS.  In my point of view people who just pitch and send links, most of which is an automated app solution, I CONSIDER THEM AS SPAMMERS! You don't want to be known as a spammer.

Engage in conversation that they are already having and develop a relationship based on value and you will NEVER COLD CALL AGAIN!

Social Selling Step 6: Post Valued Content

As you are engaging into conversations with people that are on others peoples posts you will need to post valued content as well.  This is where you will shine if your write on your own website blog post, you know what they say; "Content is King"! Yes, content is king.  I find the more how to and tips pieces you write the better.  Great headlines get clicked, and boy do they. Did you know that less than 1% of headlines get clicked.  We have an extraordinary Social Selling employee advocacy software that tracks clicks and I can personally average around a 30% CTR (Click Through Rate) on articles. So practice and follow industry leaders and learn how they do it.  I and we at Social Selling HQ offer training on this.  I have found this as one of the biggest ways to excell your Social Selling efforts. 

How Do I Do Social Selling Successfully

1. Follow the Social Selling HQ steps and get training from Social Selling HQ if possible.
2. Don't be creepy, don't be the one sending un-invited direct messages without building a relationship first. 
3. Engage with prospects daily with valued points of conversation. 
4. Write and post content.
5. Share and post relevant content from others.
6. Join LinkedIn and Facebook groups.
7. Use relevant and proper hashtags. Do not abuse!
8. Measure your results, there are a few decent programs out there.  We were disappointed with many we researched in the market but we did find an excellent solution. So, we partnered with them and Social Selling HQ now has an app for Social Selling that incorporates employee advocacy at the same time, called SSHQpro.

Rick Rea
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