Why You Should be Social Selling (While Socially Isolating)

Four months into virtually all sales teams working from home nationwide, it’s fair to say that salespeople – often sociable and outgoing by nature – could use more human interaction in their daily routines. While face-to-face interactions are not yet possible, your salespeople can interact virtually with others via social selling.

Now that potential buyers are spending more time than ever interacting with others via their computers, there is no better time to start social selling. This approach involves salespeople interacting with prospects directly via social media platforms such as Reddit, Facebook, and perhaps most importantly, LinkedIn. While virtually interacting with others can’t replace social interaction, it can improve sales. In fact, social sellers attract 45% more opportunities than their peers, and are 51% more likely to achieve quotas and outsell their peers.

Too maximize the benefits of this approach, make sure to:

• Build your brand and credibility
• Take part in social listening
• Join relevant conversations and groups
• Track your success

The first step in successfully social selling is building your brand and credibility.

Before you start reaching out to prospects, first build your credibility by having an active presence on your platform of choice. Whether this means sharing content, writing original posts, or interacting with other posts, taking the time to establish yourself as a credible source of sales insights, or a leader in your target industry of choice, will set you up for social selling success.

Next, take part in social listening:

Pay attention to what industry influencers and potential customers are saying on social media. Get to know their pain points, and from there tailor your outreach to their needs. Doing so, you can create a personalized customer experience – which can only benefit your social selling strategy.

Not to mention, only 24% of brands practice social listening. So, it’s safe to say that a salesperson who takes their time to build their credibility and practice social listening will be at an advantage from the get-go.

Join relevant conversations and groups:

Joining popular sales groups (or target industry-specific groups) is a productive first step to growing your presence online. After all, social selling is an effective way to get noticed; 92% of B2B buyers are using social media platforms to engage with thought leaders in their industry.

Utilizing social selling enables salespeople to target key decision makers, target the right leads, position themselves as thought leaders, and nurture relationships – all which are made easier and more effective when you find yourself in the most relevant groups to reach the right audience. Establish a presence in these groups by commenting on relevant threads or messaging contributors to practice your outreach strategy before targeting prospects.

Finally, track your success:

Almost 40% of B2B professionals say that social selling reduces the amount of time they spend researching potential leads, and can increase win rates by 5%, deal size by 35%, and quota attainment by 51%.

Testing and tracking different types of outreach strategies (whether it’s responses to a comment or replies of interest to direct messages) can help salespeople narrow down what works, and what doesn’t, to tailor their social selling presence to potential prospects and turn them into actual leads.

Learn more tips to help your sales team generate more leads with Gryphon.