Your customers and prospects are spending time on social media. Are you connecting with them there?
A few decades ago, point of sale (POS) and payment solution provider sales reps only had a few ways to contact a prospect or follow up with a customer. They made phone calls, sent mailers, scheduled appointments, or arranged to meet at industry events. Today, however, reps have another option: social selling.
Social platforms have become an important part of many businesses’ sales strategies. In fact, 78% of businesses that use social selling outperform those that don’t. If you aren’t engaged in social selling, it’s time to take a look at this technique to see if it can provide a lift to your sales performance.
The modern cold call.
When people became accustomed to screening calls to avoid phone scams and nuisance communications, it became more difficult for a team to see ROI from cold calling. At the same time, email became ubiquitous. But it didn’t take long for prospects’ inboxes to become flooded with more email than they had time to read.
Social platforms have become a viable alternative, with many of your customers and prospects receiving notifications of updates. They browse the platforms daily, and a direct message or a post with their link, handle, or hashtag can catch attention that an email will not. And it works — sales teams leveraging social selling close 40-50% more new business than those that don’t.
Which platform should you use for social selling?
When it comes to social selling, 89% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn to generate leads. Of those, 62% indicate that LinkedIn generates leads at twice the rate of the next-best performing social platform. LinkedIn allows sales and marketing teams to engage in the following behavior.
- Target business types by attributes like industry and geographic area.
- Direct message target prospects.
- See who has viewed personal and business profiles, which is a trigger for measuring prospect engagement.
- Use tools for publishing educational content and for enabling social selling.
Whether you use LinkedIn or another platform, proper decorum and strategy, including the following best practices, are essential to success.
1. Separate the personal from the professional.
Prospects are looking at your profile. Prospects don’t respond well to professionals whose feeds mix thought leadership with a recent night on the town. Have a company page for business, and send any social selling messages from this page. Keep personal connections with friends and family separate on another platform or profile.
2. Interact with your network.
Post-it and forget-it won’t work on social platforms designed for conversation and engagement. Posting for the sake of posting and then “going dark” only to come back and post again when it’s in your best interest will tell prospects that you are insincere. For social selling to work, you need to spend time responding to conversations and developing relationships with prospects.
3. Consider prospects’ ages.
Just as marketers wouldn't place an ad meant for empty-nesters in a teen publication, selling on social media is no different. Social selling requires that you take time to understand which platforms your target audience is using and the content that resonates with them. For example, Millennials are the largest generation on LinkedIn, while your Gen X and older prospects may prefer Facebook.
4. Don’t come across as needy.
Social media users frown on spammy or “needy” actions. For example, joining several groups on a platform only to post the same promotional message in each will quickly get you flagged as a spammer. Some platforms or groups may even permanently block your profile. Additionally, continually asking your network to “re-post,” “like,” and “follow” will signal to other users that you are only on the platform for self-serving needs.
5. Comply with privacy rules.
Every industry is different, and if yours is in a highly regulated space, learn the rules for reaching out to business prospects without their permission or opt-in. This will impact your social selling strategy. Related: If you are leveraging influencers or third parties to endorse a product or service, transparency of the relationship is critical from both a social media etiquette and a legal standpoint.
6. Rethink bots.
It’s tempting to consider the use of bots to generate automated engagement. The thing is, since social media platforms are intrinsically personal, it is nearly impossible for bots to simulate genuine interactions. Using spam bots to inflate likes on your own posts and boost numbers is seen as unethical by social platform users and will harm brand reputation. Additionally, as social media algorithms become smarter, bot engagement will be more easily and quickly detected, resulting in potential penalties and possible suspension from platforms.
Remember: Social media is all about relationships.
The most important thing to remember is that social platforms are about building relationships. It’s unlikely that you’ll make a sale immediately after connecting with someone on social media. But if you use social media to learn about businesses in your market, start conversations, and encourage engagement, you can fill your sales funnel and close more deals.
