What is Social Selling (& How to Get Started)

Reputation Staff Writer

Building and strengthening relationships is the foundation of the sales cycle. But gone are the days of connecting with prospects through mailers, advertisements, and catalogs. With people spending more and more time on social media, the internet has proven itself to be a strategic place to form those relationships. In fact, it’s become so vital to sales teams, that there’s now a term for it — social selling.

In this article, we’ll tell you everything you need to know about social selling and how to get started. We’ll do so in the following sections:

What is Social Selling?

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Source: Zoovu

Social selling is the process that takes out the middleman for sales teams so they can easily leverage various social media channels to find, research, and build relationships with potential buyers and customers. 

With consumers spending more time on social media, sales representatives need to pivot to a more targeted, personalized outreach on appropriate social networks. With the analytics offerings that social media platforms can provide, sales teams can leverage those insights to help individual representatives scale and perfect their efforts in ways that aren’t possible with more traditional sales tactics.

Benefits of Social Selling

Social media has become a necessity for marketers, customer service representatives, and more. So it shouldn’t be much of a surprise to see social become a vital part of the sales cycle. Here are a few benefits of utilizing social selling:

Drive More Leads — As a salesperson, you always need leads. As of 2020, Statista reports that the typical internet user spends an average of 2 hours and 25 minutes a day— so it makes sense for sales teams to go where prospects are spending their time. 

By connecting with potential customers on social media, you’ll have an opportunity to get to know them on a more personal level. Since engaging with people is a little easier and more natural on social media, you’ll have higher odds of turning prospects into leads. 

Related content on the Reputation blog: The Complete Guide to Social Listening

Boost Website Traffic — Anytime you engage with a prospect or customer on social media, you have an opportunity to link to your website. You can send blog articles, videos, or even just the link to your home page in messages. Increased traffic offers a number of benefits to your company, such as brand awareness and increased search engine optimization. 

Shorten the Sales Cycle — By utilizing social selling instead of a technique such as cold calling, you can spend a little more time researching your prospect. That means you’re able to reach out at the exact ideal time for that prospect. As rockcontent states, you’ll also be able to answer the questions your leads have exactly when they have them.

Benefit Your Sales Teams — While social selling directly benefits the company at large, it’s also beneficial to the salespeople who participate. Social selling helps your team members scale their efforts, meaning they can create a variety of new contacts. That will help with both internal and external career opportunities. 

Own Your Online Reputation — Building a positive relationship with prospects on social media can help to quickly boost your online reputation. By engaging directly with people on various social networking sites, you can both increase brand awareness and build trust. 

On the flip side, you’ll be able to quickly respond to any negative customer feedback they might have. If a prospect has a positive view of your business, they could very well end up becoming a repeat customer.

How to Get Started With Social Selling

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Follow these easy steps from Salesforce to get started with social selling:

Related content on the Reputation blog: How to Add Multiple Locations to Your Facebook Business Page

How to Measure Social Selling Success

If your team is new to social selling, you may be a little unsure how to measure success with this technique. Here are a few metrics from Marketo and Social Sellinator to keep in mind:

Social selling starts with a solid sales team, but can’t succeed if your team doesn’t have a strong handle on its social media content and brand presence. By utilizing Reputation’s complete social media suite, your team can start connecting the dots and capitalize on these social selling trends. Book a consultation today.

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