TL;DR: Social Selling the inbound way is an attraction based marketing approach. Most social selling involves a mix of personal branding, content marketing and starting conversations. This approach is more difficult because you are in effect reliant on prospects initiating the conversations. For most this is a preferred approach, however, with reach on LinkedIn falling and feeds becoming more crowded, for the average user this is a very difficult approach to social selling.
Social Selling the inbound way is a trust first, content heavy approach to getting clients on platforms like LinkedIn. The process involves connecting, engaging with prospects and sharing content to drive inbound leads. Typically, a prospect needs to consume 13 pieces of content across the whole buying journey.
Over the past 4 years, a number of changes have made this method less effective, these include:
- Algorithm changes: Organic reach has fallen more than 60% for the average user. 360Brew now favours topic authority, past engagement and alignment which means talking to diverse audiences is more difficult.
- AI Content Boom: LinkedIn has seen a surge of content generated by AI which has reduced the quality of the feed and made it harder to stand out.
- Circular engagement loops: In a recent study, it was noted a significant proportion of engagement on LinkedIn content was self-serving – with many posters engaging to get reciprocal engagement.
Whilst you can get inbound leads from social selling on LinkedIn, it is more difficult to build consistent revenue relying on content to deliver all your leads.
How does social selling work now?
Building a successful social selling strategy now requires a tight strategy and process. Social Selling hasn’t died, but it is more a combination of content and conversation starting.
There are some key parts to your success on social selling, these include:
- Profile Optimisation: Aligning your profile with your audience, offer and services so your profiles as an education and trust building asset.
- Network growth: Connecting with your key decision makers consistently so you have a quality network of the right people.
- Pre-Selling content: Content that builds awareness and trust on a consistent basis – 2-3 posts per week.
- Strategic engagement: Building relationships and awareness by creating touchpoints so prospects are more familiar with you.
- Conversation starters: Sending long-winded sales pitches will get you silence or blocked – you need to start conversations and move those conversations onto calls.
Typically, a prospect will need 7-11 touchpoints to become open to a conversation, what many don’t realise is that most touchpoints, a message, a post, a like or a comment often trigger a second touch point – the prospect visits your profile.
We created the 7 Steps of Social Selling as a structured approach to building a pipeline from LinkedIn. The method is simple – every prospect needs 7-11 touchpoints before you ask anything of them.
Can social selling the inbound way work for me?
Yes, it can, but it requires a significant investment in outbound engagement and content creation. It may take 6-9 months to master it and get it working for you. Whilst AI can help, the platform and your audience need your original insights and opinions – it needs your voice and expertise.