Social Selling

There is no doubt that with the advent of social media, and as its popularity takes hold across the globe, its use for commercial purposes is clear. Social media platforms also act as a means of providing information on products and services that are now standard practice for most businesses seeking to offer their products or services. The term “social selling” is now an established term of art that describes the commercial application via social media for a business pursuing clients via the web. Social selling is accomplished by human beings (think of SAs) who communicate about products or services to a group of listeners, followers, buyers, investors and the like.

Steven MacDonald explains it as follows, “Social selling is when sales people use social media to find and engage with new prospects. Sales people use social media to provide value to prospects by answering questions, responding to comments and by sharing content throughout the buying process – from awareness to consideration, until a prospect is ready to buy.”

Hootsuite describes social selling as, “an important new approach to selling that allows salespeople to laser-target their prospecting, establish rapport and trust through existing connections and networks, and possibly even ditch the dreaded practice of making cold calls.”

According to “Social Selling: A New B2B Imperative,” a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Hootsuite in May 2017, organizations see promise in formalizing their approach to social selling. Forrester surveyed 265 sales and marketing leaders for the study and found that “49 percent of B2B enterprises have developed a formal social selling program, and 28 percent are in the process of doing so.”

Hootsuite indicates that there are three core reasons why social selling is important:

1. Social selling lets your sales team build real relationships.
   Let’s face it: Nobody likes cold calling, and the truth is that it’s not very effective anyway: 90 percent of top decision-makers say they never respond to cold calls.  Using social tools to listen in on conversations relevant to your industry—known as social listening—allows your sales team to identify new leads that are already talking about your business, your competitors, or your industry, so you can reach out to them slowly with useful information when the time is right. In a recent survey by CSO Insights and Seismic, one in three B2B professionals said that social selling tools increased the number of leads they had to work with. Even more—39 percent—said that social tools reduced the amount of time they spent researching accounts and contacts.

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   Primary Benefits of Using Social Selling Tools
   According to B2B Professionals Worldwide, July 2016
   % of respondents
   

   Source: CSO Insights and Seismic, “2016 Sales Enablement Optimization Study,” July 28, 2016
   www.eMarketer.com

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   With prospects socially sharing so much information about their needs, wants, and pain points on their public profiles, even your first point of contact can be personalized, relevant, and helpful, rather than intrusive and cold. That leads to more meaningful ongoing prospect and client engagement, with 31 percent of B2B professionals saying that social selling tools allowed them to build deeper relationships with clients.Better yet, building a strong network through various social media channels allows you to seek out introductions to new sales prospects through existing mutual connections, creating an immediate sense of trust and rapport. That trust is an incredibly important resource for both clients and salespeople, with 87 percent of B2B buyers saying they would have a favorable impression of someone introduced through their professional network.With social sellers accessing all of these important advantages that give them the jump on their less socially minded colleagues, it’s no surprise that internal LinkedIn data shows sales professionals with a strong social selling index—a measure based on how well salespeople build their personal brand, focus on the right prospects, engage with relevant content, and build trusted relationships—have 45 percent more sales opportunities than others, and are 51 percent more likely to hit their sales quotas.

2. Your clients are already engaged in social buying.
   What’s social buying? Flip the concept of social selling on its head. Just as sales professionals can use social listening and other social research strategies to find potential clients, those potential clients are already using social listening and social search to find potential vendors, research them online, and develop an opinion about which vendor is the best fit, all before making first contact with a sales professional.In fact, CEB found that customers are, on average, 57 percent of the way through the purchase process before they ever engage with a sales professional, and IDC found that 75 percent of B2B buyers and 84 percent of executives use contacts and information from social networks as part of their purchase process.If you’re not actively engaged in social selling, you’re not showing up in that social purchase research: that’s a lot of potential missed sales.The good news is that, according to LinkedIn, 76 percent of buyers are ready to have a social media conversation with potential providers, and more than 62 percent of B2B buyers respond to salespeople who connect with them to share insights and opportunities relevant to their business. Even better, 92 percent of B2B buyers are willing to engage with a sales professional who is a known industry thought leader, a reputation you can establish by consistently posting thoughtful, relevant content on social media.Beyond the initial sale, keep in mind that 53 percent of customer loyalty is driven by a salesperson’s ability to deliver unique insight, a skill that salespeople can initially demonstrate through their social media content sharing, and later confirm through their ongoing social connections with past clients. Perhaps that’s why data from Aberdeen shows that teams engaged in social selling have a customer renewal rate seven percentage points higher than teams that have not embraced social selling tools.
3. Your top competitors are already using social selling.
   A whopping 71 percent of all sales professionals—and 90 percent of top salespeople—are already using social selling tools. Among younger salespeople, the numbers are even higher, with 78 percent of all millennial sales professionals using social selling tools and 63 percent saying those tools are critical or extremely critical to their sales performance. If you’re not allowing your sales team to use social tools and equipping them to do so, it will be more challenging for you to recruit top sales performers, especially from the millennial demographic.

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   Ways in Which B2B Professionals Worldwide Use
   Social Selling Tools, July 2016
   % of respondents
   

   Source: CSO Insights and Seismic, “2016 Sales Enablement Optimization Study,” July 28, 2016
   www.eMarketer.com

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   And brands in just about every industry are embracing social selling tools, whether it’s Microsoft boosting productivity 38 percent by socially prospecting for leads for a new cloud computing offering, U.K. travel firm Corporate Traveller achieving £5.5 in new sales by using social selling to reach out to potential small and medium-sized business travel clients, or the Vancouver Canucks using social selling to help increase hockey ticket sales.