Social Selling should be led by sales
- José Maria Vich
- Jul 24
- 4 min read
In the world of digital marketing, many marketers believe they know what social selling is, but in reality, there are many myths surrounding this concept and few apply this technique correctly.
If you search for the hashtag #SocialSelling in any social media monitoring tool, you will notice that the amount of information you find is overwhelming, which is just an indicator of how popular the topic is.
It is a technique that uses social media to attract potential customers to your brand, generating conversation and a relationship of trust even before proposing a sale. Specifically, it means leaving cold calls behind to encourage a more social and personal interaction with the customer.
#SocialSelling is all about sales! The successful programs we have implemented are led by sales, not marketing. This does not mean that marketing is not important—it is—but this is really about sales, about increasing revenue.
#SocialSelling is NOT bombarding people with product updates and marketing campaigns through the sales team's personal social media accounts in the hope that some contact will be interested.
To train your sales team, you first need to take a step back and distinguish what this digital marketing technique is and what it is not.
Social selling IS...
1. A customer-centric approach to sales
According to Jill Rowley, the best description of #SocialSelling is “the use of social media to conduct relevant searches and build relationships that generate revenue.”
Through well-implemented SEO and content marketing strategies, companies can empower their sales team to be more effective in attracting prospects by understanding the needs and challenges of existing and potential customers in order to offer them products and services that can truly benefit them.
When this happens, results follow. According to a Forbes study, sales professionals who use social media as part of their sales techniques achieve better results than 78% of their peers.
2. The best way to align marketing and sales
Here's the real key: sales and marketing together! Not each on their own; listening to the voice of the CUSTOMER and generating valuable content.
By creating a communication channel and providing the necessary tools for information to flow from marketing to sales and vice versa, you can strengthen your Inbound Marketing and Inbound Selling strategies at the same time.
3. An assessable strategy
When it comes to social selling, real results will be seen when companies establish a program with defined objectives and key performance indicators (KPIs).
This is where many plans fail. It's not about measuring clicks, likes, or recommendations; all of that is fine, but the real metrics are:
Messages sent, replies received, meetings, proposals submitted, and finally, #SALES!!!
It's about turning the success vs. contact ratios around. Years ago, with huge sales teams, we considered 1% in this area to be good, but today, with Social Selling, you can achieve 32% sales vs. 100 messages sent if you apply the concepts correctly.
If you are a sales manager, the SSI (Social Selling Index) can help you understand whether your team has truly understood the concept.
Now let's clarify some concepts that are not entirely true and that you find on the internet.
Social selling is NOT...
1. Something completely new
It was invented more than 14 years ago, so it's not new, and there is a lot of literature on the subject, but essentially this strategy is based on best human practices.
For example, if you add someone to your LinkedIn network and immediately want to sell to them without strengthening the relationship or trying to understand their challenges and needs, you will not get anywhere. Doing that is the equivalent of cold calling.
2. Posting content all the time on your social media
If your plan is to use your sales representatives as billboards and ask them to fill their own social media with promotional content, you will not achieve anything.
The modern CUSTOMER doesn't like to be sold to, they like to buy.
This strategy, when applied correctly, focuses on the prospect, on creating a lasting, customer-centric relationship, which is more in line with how sales need to be done today.
How can you do this correctly?
To ensure you apply this technique correctly in your digital marketing strategy, follow these tips:
Research which social platforms are relevant to your buyer persona and where they are most active. (LinkedIn for B2B, other social networks such as Instagram and Facebook for B2C; although LinkedIn applies to B2B2C
Build a brand image (profile) that is closely aligned with your company's strategy; it is in both your interests, not just the company's but yours too.
Build an asset: your network. But do it wisely and strategically; you need to have the people/companies you need to sell to in your network.
Use the tools offered by the social media platforms themselves to connect with new prospects, such as LinkedIn alerts that notify you when users who match your selection criteria join the network.
Generate dialogue and join conversations in groups of interest to you on LinkedIn or other social networks to demonstrate your knowledge, share interesting content, and position yourself as an opinion leader.
Create and disseminate content that is interesting and useful to your buyer persona to attract them, but also to extract more information about their needs and propose the solutions they are looking for through increasingly personalized messages.
“Read” and interpret the signals from your network, interact with your CUSTOMERS and prospects, and let the magic happen.
It's about focusing more on socializing than on selling, on showing yourself as an expert in your field, on generating value so that you, and not someone else, get the business.
It's about always being connected, not just connected. It's not the same thing.
In short, Social Selling is results! It equals #sales; otherwise, it's useless.
If you want to know more about this strategy, let's connect! We'll be happy to help you achieve your goals.
There is a #different #way of doing #things Follow us on Bogota Business Leadership and on our website “www.apasiona-t.coEs” (The Art of Selling). It is good manners to be grateful, and I will personally be eternally grateful to people like Jorge Zuazola, who taught me the magic of #socialmedia, and of course to the best salesperson I have ever known, Ronald C. Stern.
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