US MRKT believes that #SocialSelling is the key to gaining traction, with more followers, likes, and leads (interested people). The SA should understand that they must create a balance between providing information via their use of PO information (videos, images and messaging) that are posted to and that are purely to generate sales, and messages and follow-up that helps any interested follower or person seeing the social media feed.
I encountered an interesting article from 2011 (ages ago in social media terms!) by Katie Morell, that focused on selling on Twitter. I think it applies equally today to all social media.
Here are some of excerpts from “How to Sell on Twitter Without Pissing Off Your Followers”, dated June 17, 2011.
“So how do you craft tweets that will turn into sales?
First, remember not to get drunk on self-promotion.”
and
“Twitter is like a cocktail party; it is a place to build relationships, not just talk about yourself,” says Christy Cook, founder of Teach My, a Toronto-based company that sells learning kits for children and then,
“Alex Levine, a social media strategist at Paco Communications, a multi-cultural marketing agency in Chicago, recommends balancing your regular tweets with your sales-driven tweets. “I recommend tweeting at least three times a day and limiting your direct sale tweets to one in four,” she says.”
The idea behind social selling is to provide support and information to any interested follower so that they are better informed and able to make decisions as they make buying decisions. You will recall that the SA is seeking to create interest through his/her various social media feeds and whose goal is to produce as many “leads” as possible. Those leads are entered in the US MRKT CRM which triggers a notification to the PO – who is then responsible for contacting the lead. The SA’s primary goal is the maximize lead generation since each converted lead (into a sale) will produce a commission for that SA payable weekly in US dollars.
The idea, as expressed by Ms. Morell, is to not anger or “turn-off” the interested person with overly aggressive postings that are purely sales oriented. This is accomplished by mixing in informational and helpful postings that will be appreciated by a viewer who might be interested in the product or service being offered or discussed.