Social selling is a skill that almost anyone can learn and apply in their professional life. While social selling has traditionally been used by sales professionals, it can be applied to anyone who uses relationships and relational marketing in their career. By establishing relationships, social selling addresses the issue of needing to fill a pipeline and connect with customers.
Recruiters, for example, can use social selling practices to identify prospects, build relationships, and develop trust with potential candidates prior to the occurrence of a job opportunity.
Social media does not take the place of your existing selling or relationship-building tools. Instead, it is a different tool that assists in leveraging the selling and relationship-building skills that one has already developed throughout their career.
To demonstrate how social selling can help to grow one-on-one customer relationships, consider the following five strategies:
1-Recognize what social selling is (and isn’t).
The art of using social media to find, understand, connect with, cultivate, and nurture potential sales prospects is known as social selling.
This procedure consists of four major steps:
- Find prospects on the internet.
- Fill out ideal contract profiles
- Display your knowledge and expertise.
- Create one-on-one relationships.
- While it may seem self-evident, it bears repeating: Social Selling is not the same as Social Media Marketing.
Despite the fact that both take place on social media platforms, marketing and sales take very different approaches to achieve very different results.
With multiple audiences in mind, social media marketing helps to drive attention and build affinity on a large scale. Organic social media marketing contributes to an organization’s overall vision and goals. Compare this to the messages delivered through social selling, which are tailored to a specific audience through more personalized content. While the Marketing team communicates from one to many, social selling is ideal for one-on-one communication.
2-Expand Your Network
Understanding who is in your audience is critical to understanding how to use social selling effectively. When we lift the curtain to reveal who is truly in our social media audiences, the results are always unexpected. Remember that those who are watching your channels are not necessarily the most active.
Outside of the brand pages, we must delve into our respective audiences in social selling.
Consider your LinkedIn connections and Twitter followers. They are most likely made up of the following individuals:
- Prospects Coworkers and coworkers
- Peers and competitors in the industry
- Competitors and peers nearby
- Group, event, or networking event peers
- Friends, family, and strangers
What kind of people do we want in our audience? Prospects are in our direct line of sight when we are social selling. However, don’t dismiss the importance of establishing connections with adjacent peers, competitors, or others in your network’s periphery. This is especially true when looking for someone who can introduce you to a second-level connection.
Increase your connections by adding value to their newsfeeds. Convince & Convert is a firm believer that Youtility marketing pays dividends. When we build relationships because we want to help rather than sell, we become indispensable. Online transactions can take many forms — you may not receive a direct sale, but an introduction or recommendation from your network can lead to additional opportunities.
Focusing on helping people first, rather than the next sale or deal, can help us build trust with our audience. Youtility can take many forms, including information, entertainment, and perspective. Youtility can be used in a variety of ways.
When you are relevant enough to capture someone’s attention, they allow you to earn their trust. Every salesperson understands that building trust is the key to unlocking that relationship and moving closer to the desired outcome.
