The Hottest Thing in Sales: What Is Social Selling and How It’s Done

It's no secret that social media currently rules the world. So why not use it for generating leads? Find out here what is social selling and how it' done right.

By Kompass International

The Hottest Thing in Sales: What Is Social Selling and How It’s Done

It’s no secret that social media currently rules the world. So why not use it for generating leads? Find out here what is social selling and how it’ done right.

The dawn of social media created new channels for marketers and salespeople. Taking advantage of the powerful benefits of social media is crucial to increasing audience segmentation and dominating your verticals.

Finding leads on social media is not easy. Many sellers are bad at sales using social media platforms. Thank goodness there’s social selling.

Social sales are not new, but it grew with the platforms it uses. With how big and powerful the social media landscape is today, you need this now.

What is social selling? In this article, we’ll define social selling.

What Is Social Selling?

Before we teach you how to take advantage of this method, we need to start with the social selling definition.

Social sales is a technique where salespeople use social media channels. At the heart of it, they use it to reach the audience that they want.

Much like how landing pages work, you convince your target audience. You still do it by relieving their pains. You would want to provide robust content with them, until such time that they’re ready to buy.

When you define social selling, traditional sales techniques are not part of it. You’re not here to cold call or push a hard sell. You’re here to show customers that it’s worth it to work with you.

It’s crucial, in this regard, to throw away all the traditional sales moves you have. Are you ready to learn social selling? Take a look now.

1. Establish Your Professional Brand

The first thing about social selling is to make sure you have a complete, professional brand. B2B customers are a picky bunch, and they will work with people they think are trustworthy.

If you are targeting a certain prospect, here’s a tip. You want to show off how much you’re an active participant in your verticals.

Through earnest activity, you go for the social selling definition of “community expert.” This will help lead to more connections and more inquiries. You’ll get prospects to accept your business faster.

Join networking groups and forums such as LinkedIn and Facebook groups. Find out where your potential targets take part in and join groups. Pitch your ideas in.

When it comes to social sales, you contribute like a regular member of the community. You don’t make traditional sales here but rather work as a useful cog of the community.

2. Watch Your Community and Be A Pillar

As being a helpful part of the community define social selling, your next move is to watch over the community for possible needs. Make it clear what you are good at so you can make recommendations when you need to.

When looking at the community, here’s a tip. You would want to connect with prospects that may need your products and services. You want to focus on building connections and showing your expertise.

Whether it’s LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter, you need to be ubiquitous. Social selling will happen if you can be a pillar within your network. You want to build authority and become someone people rely on when it comes to your niche.

3. Finding Sales Opportunities

You want to find sales opportunities within social media without doing a hard sell. Spot those you think will need the products and services you sell in the future. Look at their issues and find how your brand can help.

Find out who you want to target within a particular organization. Social selling means you want to have access to key decision makers within the team. You want to engage them with industry knowledge without overwhelming them.

Learn to listen. Many B2B clients would prefer that the vendors listen first. If you can show yourself as someone who cares about the business, you build a better modicum of trust.

4. Selling Through Authority

The one social selling definition you need to remember is authority. Your ability to persuade prospects, especially the B2B crowd, is to be a subject matter expert of your niche. This is possible by providing industry-relevant content, active commenting and showing your brand’s quality.

Target audiences have a reasonable tendency to buy from sellers who know what they’re talking about. If you are looking to be ahead of the pack, update your knowledge. Learn the newest ideas and trends in your industry.

Make sure to build your network and ask for recommendations. A growing network means you have a bigger audience. Social sales will happen if you have something that will resolve the problems of decision makers.

5. Creating Profitable Relationships

When you define social selling, having robust and trusting relationships with your connections is vital. You want to provide expert perspectives when they need to relieve pain points. You want to be there when they need help.

What all this means is you want to focus on genuine conversations. Discuss with them what you think is the correct resolution. Nudge them in the right direction but don’t focus on an immediate sale.

Offer recommendations of areas that you think will work. If it’s not within your product line, but they need it, give a laundry list of what can help them. Once they need something from your products, they’ll remember that you helped them.

You can also recommend people within your network who can fulfill something out of your niche. This ingratiates prospects to you, which can net you social sales in the future.

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When you define social selling, it’s 100%, not your traditional sales techniques. It’s leveraging your skills, expertise, and connection to make it work for your prospects.

What is social selling? It’s how you work your way to a sale through authority, expertise, and relevancy. If you know more, you’ll get more for sure.

Are you looking for ways to streamline your marketing and sales? Do you want a way to make prospection faster and easier? Talk to us at Kompass.

Kompass helps businesses find the right ways to boost their company. If you need an expert partner in the B2B world, we’re the right choice.

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