The growth of digital channels and evolving buyer behaviour are fundamentally changing the sales landscape. Today, prospects are increasingly researching businesses before engaging with salespeople, with digital channels serving as their primary mode of communication. Traditional outbound tactics, like cold calls, are losing effectiveness, with studies showing that 90% of C-suite executives ignore them.   

Meanwhile, social media holds significant sway, influencing 75% of B2B buyers during the purchasing journey. With billions of users on platforms like LinkedIn – including your target audience and employees – social media presents a powerful opportunity for engagement.   

With more than 900 million users on LinkedIn, there’s a strong chance that your audience is active on social media. And so are your employees. In this social selling guide, we’ll show you how to sell on social media, share best practices, and offer tips for how your business can stand out in a highly competitive digital marketplace. 

Did you know?

75%

of B2B buyers are influenced by social media during the buyer’s journey.

What is social selling?

Social selling is leverages social media activity and engagement as a central part of the sales process. Selling with social media embraces two-way communication to build and nurture relationships that may eventually turn into business opportunities. 

Social selling isn’t about selling in the traditional sense. Instead, social selling activities are less transactional and driven more by building authentic relationships. When done well, social selling can lead to sales, but that isn’t the point. Instead, social media gives sellers a platform to enhance existing relationships, nurture new ones, and build trust at scale. 

Social selling isn’t the content shared from a branded corporate account. It isn’t individual users repurposing said branded content from a corporate account to share with their network. Instead, social selling is a soft skill that asks sellers to build their brand by interacting with their network, engaging with content shared by others, participating in organic conversations, and sharing timely, relevant third-party content. 

The path to success in social selling starts with setting the right expectations. The first rule of social selling is that it isn’t about selling in the first place. It’s about building relationships and enabling trust at scale. With that in mind, a successful social selling strategy is built on authenticity. Equipping your employees with a platform that allows them to post content that aligns with their interests, opens a gateway to building new relationships. And over time, these relationships can mature into opportunities and, eventually, customers. 

Think of social selling as if it were a networking event. The event is crowded and there are countless opportunities to make new connections and take part in conversations with like-minded individuals. Social selling is an opportunity to take part in an interesting conversation where believe you can bring value. The approach is no different on social media platforms. If someone shares interesting content, let them know that you’re interested with a comment or reaction.

The way that you post content on LinkedIn and then also the way you sell, it can earn you trust at higher levels [than traditional selling can].

Sam McKenna

CEO of #samsales Consulting

What are the benefits of social selling?

Businesses compete to gain customer attention, and social selling is an additional tool for organisations to break through the noise. Customer engagement on social media generates actionable insights that help sales and marketing professionals optimise the way they communicate with their audiences and ideal prospects. Engaging with new connections on social media offers insight into what a lead is interested in and, when used effectively, this information can lead to stronger relationships. 

With fewer buyers responding to cold calls, social media offers an opportunity to connect in a meaningful way. Social selling holds a significant advantage over traditional outbound tactics in that it enables a less-intrusive approach to communicating with prospects. More buyers are embracing social media in the buyer’s journey. Most customers want to be in control of the buying process, with B2B buyers reading 13 pieces of content before speaking with a sales representative. Instead of interrupting with a phone call, customer engagement on social media allows sales professionals to engage with content or a message that buyers can interact with on their own terms. 

The true power of social selling is that it allows your team to cast a wider net. For example, if a business development manager (BDM) spends seven hours cold calling and schedules a second call with two prospects, is that time well spent? If, on the other hand, a seller leverages social selling on LinkedIn to share useful content with their network of 1,000 users, that content isn’t limited to their direct network. Compelling content gets shared and ultimately extends the reach of your communication beyond traditional methods. So, in the long run, dedicating an hour each day to customer engagement on LinkedIn or your social platform of choice can go a long way.  

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The importance of a social selling tool

To scale your social selling programme in a way that keeps employees aligned on key messages and best practices, you need a dedicated social selling tool. Social selling tools allow users to easily find and share highly relevant content that educates buyers and sparks conversations.  

Here are five different components of a social selling tool that can be helpful for a B2B sales manager: 

1. Content curation: The ability to curate relevant content empowers them to share high-quality content with their network. 
2. Analytics and measurement: Analytics and measurement capabilities allow sellers to track their social selling efforts and connect them to revenue generation.  
3. Ease of use: Sellers can effortlessly search for content and share it with their network in a just a few clicks. 
4. Audience understanding: Insights into the target audience’s needs and preferences help sellers tailor their social selling posts so they resonate with readers. 
5. Compliance and industry regulation: With compliance features, social selling tools guarantee that shared content adheres to industry regulations and organisational policies regarding confidentiality and privacy. AI-based compliance platforms also review content at scale, ensuring that the content shared by advocates adheres to company and industry standards 

By harnessing the power of social selling tools, businesses can elevate their sales effectiveness, enhance their brand reputation, and drive sustainable growth in today’s competitive marketplace. 

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Social selling best practices

Launching a social selling programme in your organisation requires a well-crafted plan, dedication, and collaboration from many different teams. Here are five tips for social selling success.  

1

Define your strategy

Organisations launch a social selling programme for different reasons, and it’s important to determine the reasoning behind your efforts. Are you trying to beat out the competition? Do you want to shape a key narrative in your market? By determining your reasoning and overall social selling strategy, you’ll be able to easily identify what you’re trying to do and how to do it.

2

Set expectations and goals

Defining expectations and program goals is critical to the success of your programme. What goals and milestones do you expect to hit with your social selling programme? Set aggressive, yet achievable goals for your program. Then, measure them after you launch your program.

3

Align with compliance and legal departments

It’s important to make sure that what you’re inviting your employees to share about is always compliant. Be sure that your programme and content adheres to relevant data privacy and compliance standards. Then, be sure to educate your team on these regulations.

4

Provide social selling training

Speaking of training — you can’t launch a social selling programme and just expect your team to take to social media. You need to ensure that your employees are well-trained in social selling best practices. This includes providing an overview of different platforms, how to build a personal brand, tips for crafting effective posts, and how to engage with prospects. Because authenticity is so important in social selling, your team members need to understand how to engage with others in a genuine, helpful manner rather than using promotional or spam-like tactics. Show them effective social selling examples and provide ongoing resources.

5

Develop a content strategy

Content is at the heart of social selling but remember — effective social selling doesn’t focus on exclusive content that your organisation creates. Provide your employees with access to high-quality, third-party content to prevent oversharing of corporate content. Content should also include a wide variety of topics that address different markets and interests.

Harness the power of social with Seismic LiveSocial

Seismic LiveSocial is a social selling platform that makes it easy to activate sellers on social channels and builds trust and relationships at scale. The platform enables customer engagement through a continuously updated library of credible, high-quality, third-party content for sales and marketing professionals. Seismic LiveSocial uses artificial intelligence (AI) to curate relevant content for each individual seller and allows them to share, measure, and connect their efforts to revenue generation. Get a demo to learn more, or watch this on-demand video.