Selling has changed, no longer able to have physical meetings, cold calling is ignored by many etc. So businesses need to think of new ways to connect with leads and potential clients. One strategy that can help is answering these social selling questions.
What is social selling?
In a time where networking and business meetings have moved online, social selling is the digital alternative to cold calling, with a twist. It is a modern way to connect with potential clients, develop meaningful relationships and guide them towards choosing your products and services.
The process relies on using social networking sites to grow your network, connect with people in your industry and increase your brand awareness. If your business is already on social media, you’ve probably tried your hand at social selling, even if you haven’t realised it.
Social selling works to build long-term relationships with your customers. Instead of pushing them into a sale, you allow them to engage with your content willingly, building up trust and loyalty over time. Often, it works best for B2B industries.
Why should you use it?
Social selling allows you to connect with leads and customers that you might have missed before. While the process can take time to develop into sales, it provides numerous other benefits for businesses as well. These include:
Identifying high-quality leads
Increasing brand awareness
Boosting web traffic
Growing your network
Higher engagement from potential customers
By implementing a social selling strategy your network is more likely to have a positive interaction with your business without feeling pushed into a sale. This can help to increase brand loyalty and will lead to future sales without the negative pushback of cold calling or spam emails.
Where should you use it?
There are many different platforms that you can use when social selling. For example, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat all have their benefits. However, LinkedIn is widely regarded as the best social networking site for social selling in B2B industries.
LinkedIn allows you to easily search for and connect with new people in your industry while sharing relevant information and engaging with your network. The professional tone of the site means you are more likely to find connections on there who are open to doing business in your target industry.
Who should use social selling?
Ideally, you should have all of your sales team on LinkedIn, using their profiles to start social selling for your business. You can even encourage non-sales team members to start social selling as they can always refer any interest back to the sales team at a later date.
It may be difficult to get your employees interested in social selling, especially when they have to use their profiles to promote your business. However, there are benefits for your employees too. As they build their connections and their engagement, it provides them with more future opportunities while helping their current business too.
How should you use it?
Okay, so here’s a bonus section for you. You know what social selling is, why you should use it, where and also who, but you also need to know how to implement it. When it comes to social selling, you’re only going to be successful if you have a strategy in place.
Developing a social selling strategy is a big process. Being active and engaging with people in your network is as important as posting and providing high-quality content yourself. At the end of the day, it is about nurturing your connections and gently encouraging them to buy from you.
Can you answer these social selling questions?
Your social selling strategy should detail everything from your measurable goals to ensuring your employees have optimised their LinkedIn profiles. The process of creating this strategy can be daunting and explaining it here could take a while…
Luckily at Maverrik, we’re experts in social selling on LinkedIn. We can show your team how to confidently and successfully use LinkedIn to grow your brand awareness and engagement, all while working towards generating leads and sales.
