Using Social Media as a Sales Strategy

For anyone that has been in sales for at least five years, you’ve likely recognized that the way we prospect and sell has drastically changed. The days of using the phone and email as the singular sales strategy for connecting with prospective clients is long gone. Digital media has become an important part of the buyer’s journey and it is critical for salespeople to meet their prospects where they are by implementing a social selling strategy.

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So, what is social selling? While a somewhat new concept, social selling consists of salespeople leveraging social platforms to engage with prospective clients and share meaningful content. Different from social media marketing, social selling is meant to drive revenue, not brand awareness. Unlike social media marketing, social selling is about adding connections to people, providing relevant content to your network and interacting one on one with your prospective clients.

Before implementing a social media sales strategy, it’s critical to understand the channels that are most relevant for your prospective clients. This should be done as part of your buyer persona development. Meet with your best clients, ask the questions, accumulate your data and target those channels. As you develop and implement your prospecting sequences, social media should be an integral part of that strategy for touch points throughout the buyer’s journey.

The key to social selling success is recognizing that you’re trying to develop a one-to-one relationship with a prospect. More one-to-one social media conversations generated by salespeople will result in more sales opportunities. Whether it’s LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, what you’re doing is using a one-to-many medium to support a one-to-one sales approach. While it may be easier to blast a message to multiple people at the same time via social media, the right strategy for better results is to develop a one-to-one relationship with individual prospects.

Avoid inconsiderate behavior on social media, such as pressuring a prospect.

Through social selling and a focus on developing relationships, salespeople will increase the quantity and quality of leads. Salespeople equipped with meaningful and relevant content can become viewed as thought leaders, offering education and value to their professional networks. On LinkedIn, for instance, professionals are particularly interested in this type of information. And, by sharing great content with their networks, salespeople amplify their reach and credibility.

It’s clear that social selling works. A recent LinkedIn study shows that salespeople who engage with social selling have 45% more sales opportunities than others and are 51% more likely to hit their sales quotas.

Tip: A very important rule of your social media strategy is to not overwhelm or bother the prospect. If a potential lead declines your connection on social media, then it’s not appropriate to continually message them or try to connect on another network.