You might have heard the term social selling going around and like many people you might be wondering what exactly it is.

Social Selling is creating relationships as part of the sales process.

With the advent of the internet everyone has become obsessed with getting likes and followers but very few people are working on turning these followers into dollars.

Now imagine if you spent all your effort into turning those 100 followers into $100 instead of only focusing on getting 10 000 followers but be receiving $0 from these followers.

In the olden days selling involved making cold calls to people and convincing them to buy but in the Digital Age most buys are completed online and people are not responding to these calls anymore.

So How Does Social Selling Work?

With Social Selling, salespeople laser-target their prospecting, pick and choose people who are already on their buyers journey, establish rapport and trust through existing connections and networks and guide them through their journey down the funnel and eventually convert them into a sale.

This is the modern way of utilising social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram in order to develop a relationship with your customer and making sure your brand is the first point of reference in your customers mind when they are ready to make a purchase.

If you have a Facebook Business Page, LinkedIn profile, or professional Twitter account, you’re already engaged in the basics of social selling.

Social Selling is not about just receiving contacts and bombarding them with messages of your product or service. That’s called Spamming. Process of actually creating a lasting relationship with your potential customer is true social selling.

According to LinkedIn Sales Solutions, 92% of B2B buyers engage with sales professionals if they are thought to be industry thought leaders. Demonstrating knowledge and sharing insightful opinions is a great way to distinguish yourself as a trustworthy source.

What to do?

1. Identify your audience and which platforms they utilise. There’s no point of being on every single social network if your potential customer is not present on that platform.
2. Make sure to create thoughtful and engaging content. Emotional content that is relevant to your brand is a great way to engage your potential customer early on in their buyers journey.
3. Engage with your audience past just selling to them, this will make sure that your brand stays on top of their minds and you will be their first go to when they are ready to purchase your type of products or service
4. Also share content from other industry leaders in your field this will affirm that you are a trust worthy source
5. Most of all remember that although you need to be both knowledgeable and approachable, you need to keep your brand professional

Equally important to understand what is social selling is the ability to measure it. Most social networks can provide useful insights and it is important for your company and your brand to continuously measure and check which aspects of social selling are working best for you and what you need to improve on.

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