Social selling is increasingly becoming one of the most important methods of connecting with potential customers and generating new business. While this used to happen through traditional forms of selling, in shops, door-to-door, cold-calling, and on the street, nowadays this happens primarily on social media. The purpose of this blog is to give you an introduction to social selling, so that you can incorporate it into your marketing and sales strategies. In this blog, we will focus on social selling for B2B companies.
What is social selling?
Social selling is the process of developing relationships through social media, as part of the sales process. It is all about developing, using, and engaging with your network to build trust, cultivate meaningful relationships, and generate leads for your business.
It allows you to precisely identify your target prospects and establish a rapport over time. Although it is often a gradual process, it can be very fruitful in establishing long-term business and customer relationships based on trust. According to LinkedIn, 78% of social sellers outsell peers who don’t use social media!
Social selling is not quite the same as social media marketing, although the areas overlap. Generating meaningful content is a key part of raising brand awareness, so plays a part in developing trust in the social selling process.
Identifying prospects
Your first step should be to identify the type of prospect that you are after. Think about what kinds of new business you want to generate. Elements to consider for B2B are:
- What industry?
- What types of company?
- What size of company?
- What level do you want to reach? (e.g. CEO, junior managers etc)
- What job titles might your ideal prospects have?
- What will they need from you?
- Which product or service do you want to sell more of?
- Where are they located?
- Are there any particular companies you’d like to work with?
This will allow you to narrow down your search and precisely target your new prospects.
A really useful tool for this is LinkedIn Sales Navigator. This is a paid-for part of LinkedIn which is designed especially for sales professionals.
It includes more sophisticated search filters than the regular LinkedIn search engine, such as company size, the length of time a person has been at a company, and job level. You can also save your searches as lead lists, giving you a ready-made prospect list to pursue.
Building awareness
Before you can start sending out connection requests, you need to build a presence for yourself on LinkedIn. Most people will not connect to somebody they don’t know without good reason, especially if they can’t find out anything about them on their profile.
For some tips on optimising your profile, take a look at our blog on the subject:
You will also need to be regularly posting content. This will allow prospects to get a good idea of what you can offer, and will also generate awareness and credibility for your business. Would you ever buy from a business without looking at their website, trying to find out more about them, or reading reviews? Most people would not – it’s up to you to make sure you have a solid online presence that instils trust in any new prospects.
You want to come across as:
- Professional
- Knowledgeable
- Trustworthy
- Approachable
This will maximise your chances of a prospect accepting a connection request and beginning a conversation.
Making connections and building relationships
The next stage is to reach out to your target audience and invite them to connect.
When sending connection requests, avoid generic messages. This can significantly increase your chances of getting accepted and starting a conversation. Always include a personalised message with your connection request – this way, your prospects will know that you are not simply reaching out for the sake of it, but have a real reason for wanting to connect.
Additionally, don’t start with a straight sell – you need to build a relationship before anyone will consider buying or engaging with your business. Otherwise, they will see you as simply spamming their inbox – at best, you will be ignored – at worst, blocked.
Focus on quality over quantity, and nurture your connections by staying in touch, offering support, and providing value.
Keeping your prospects engaged
Your best chance of building a professional relationship on LinkedIn is to find common ground where there might be mutual opportunities. This will only happen through genuine conversation and meaningful interactions. However, many people on LinkedIn will not immediately be open to chatting with a stranger.
After connecting, you need to warm up your leads and build trust by engaging consistently and providing value. This might include:
- Liking and commenting on their posts
- Sending them messages about any of their posts that you particularly enjoyed or resonated with
- Sharing interesting articles and content with them
- Leveraging any mutual connections or groups that you are members of
This stage is all about finding the right balance – too much activity and your prospect will immediately read it cold calling, but too little and they will forget you exist!
When engaging on LinkedIn, it’s crucial to maintain authenticity and avoid overwhelming others with excessive connection requests or unsolicited messages. Remember, the goal is to cultivate genuine relationships through social selling.
Stay consistent – it will take time, but it will pay off!
Selling – taking it off social media
Eventually, you will be able to take the conversation off of social media – you might be asked to send an email, or you might arrange a phone call or Zoom meeting.
You will be able to tell if this is someone you want to work with – do you have a genuine rapport?
This is when you will be able to identify if there are any opportunities of mutual benefit, or whether the timing is right for a sale. You might also be able to utilise more traditional sales methods such as brochures.
At this point, the final sale is up to you – if you have laid the groundwork well, you have every chance of generating business – good luck!