The Importance of Social Selling
Social media is more than just an outlet for your company to field questions from your established customers. Social networks put you in front of scores of potential clients and investors. Social selling presents endless opportunities for meaningful interactions with new and established clients. With social selling, you’re doing more than selling a product or service—you’re representing your brand.

What is social selling?
The difference between social selling and traditional selling methods is you’re utilizing social networks like Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook to find new business prospects. However, the same successful methods you use for traditional sales can be applied to social selling. At the most basic level, you don’t want to throw pitch after pitch at a client and hope for a sale. Instead, your goal will be to build long-lasting relationships with your social network followers that could eventually lead to a lucrative sale. “Successful salespeople on social networks understand their clients' needs and are prepared to offer them valuable content to make them keep coming back for more.” Explains Barbara Higley, President of Franchise Rankings.
Successful Social Selling 101
A successful social selling strategy will start at the creation of your company’s profile pages. Businesses should have complete transparency and have a comprehensive profile available highlighting your company’s areas of expertise. Use your company’s branding on all of your social media profiles to develop a clear message of who you are. Follow industry leaders and forge connections with these professionals in order to improve your credibility in the field.
For social selling to work, every post put online must be thought out carefully. Although typing out 140 characters on Twitter may take seconds, it is very easy to send out a Tweet that could end up offending your followers. According to Allen Stanley, President of Best Attorney Rankings, “Social networks are consistently shaping the way we associate with a brand or product. The smallest misstep on social media can prove detrimental to your bottom line.”
Taking the time to nurture online relationships can help you move the interaction offline. “Social selling has a proven success rate of 40 percent more than cold calling,” states Greg Taylor, President of Rehab Facilities. The increase in success can be attributed to the personal aspect of connecting via social networks. With cold calling, the client is hearing an unfamiliar voice on the line. Meanwhile, social selling gives prospects the sense that they know you and in turn can trust using your business. Don’t think of each online interaction as a transaction. There is a definite give and take to be successful in sales. Send out thoughtful and personal replies when sent messages via social networks. Promote others online by sharing their tweets and Facebook posts with your own followers.
B2B Social Selling
Business to business sales via social networks is also experiencing a recent boon. Many small businesses are utilizing Twitter and LinkedIn for lead generation. Digital connections can easily blossom into real-life business associates. One tip to achieve this is to take the advice of Cheryl Miller, President of Best Retirement Destinations and understand that “content is key.” Plan out what you’ll post to social media pages and how the content is relevant to your followers. For business prospects, share their content on a regular basis and get them to notice you by referencing their work in the content you post online.
An important tip to remember is not to use social networks as ad placement only. No one wants their Twitter or Facebook feeds full of product endorsement after product endorsement. Find your company’s niche and use that for content development. For instance, if you’re a tech business, share interesting tidbits on breakthroughs in the industry. Get in the conversation. Find out what your customers are talking about and offer your input. There are plenty of research tools available for social marketers. Examples include Reachable, a web tool that scans prospects' data across social networks and Hoot suite, which allows you to manage and monitor all social networks on a single platform.
The bottom line is replacing social selling techniques with traditional selling methods will decrease the amount of time needed to close a deal. Successful social network relationships will help spread positive word of mouth about your company and lead to an increase in revenue.
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