Social Media selling is when salespeople use social media to interact directly with their prospects and leads.

There are a few different ways to engage in social selling, but if you want to embody the synchronized way of doing business, then your salespeople will provide value by answering prospect’s questions and offering thoughtful content until the prospect is ready to buy.

There are a lot of reasons to consider why social media is a perfect place for your sales team to engage in social media, One of them was through research done by Sirius Decision and it states that;

67% of the buyer’s journey is digital.

What that essentially means is that individuals are no longer going into stores and browsing or picking up the phone to reach a sales rep to make a decision. Instead, they are looking at online reviews, reading forum commentary, watching videos made by the company and by customers, and asking the internet about your products and services. And all of that happens long before they will reach out to the company.

It sounds like your team needs to become acquainted with social media, isn’t it?

Here are few tips to get started from Hubspot

First off, Consider your buyer persona.

This helps you to be more targeted in your approach. If you are selling swimming pools, for example, you aren’t going to care about people living in urban high rises. You want to reach homeowners, potentially with kids, and with a certain financial demographic. Narrowing down your buyer helps you become very focused in your outreach strategy.

Secondly, Use social listening to identify your audience.

It will help you determine which platform they are on, how they use the channel, and what topic they are talking about.

Next, follow the right people.

Don’t be indiscriminate and follow everyone. Instead, follow individuals who will do one of three things for you. Follow people who will;

1. Provide industry information that will benefit you or your customers and prospects.
2. Expand your network (for example, partners and suppliers).
3. Fit your buyer persona as a potential buyer of your product or service.

Following the right people, particularly on Twitter, will also help you build your audience.

What you really want to do with your prospects is build a relationship.

Very few people like to be sold to. What you want to do is build rapport first. And you do that when you;

Provide value.

Respond with information or ideas or casual commentary. Give information away for free. Provide advice. In other words, build trust.

You should also follow up.

Social selling takes time. Small touchpoints matter. Think about the long game. This is especially good for product launches or the early stages of a product roadmap. Begin networking early and build the rapport in the months before the product is available. That’s the perfect time to have a casual conversation that isn’t about your product but builds trust and rapport, so when the time comes to sell, your audience is more receptive.

Be authentic.

Don’t use canned messages in social. People can see your conversation history and see that you say the same things to everyone, and then you just become spammy.

Contribute to groups on Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. Again, it’s about being a valuable member of the group. Provide value, not a sales pitch. Build trust and rapport by demonstrating your expertise as a thought leader. This is also a tactic that will take time. But in a group, you are bringing value to a wide net of people, which means that your potential return could be that much greater

And last, of all, be yourself

People want to interact with real people, not with brands. So there you have it. Good luck and happy social selling in 2020!