Social Selling: 7 Tips To Increase Sales on Social Media

Sales on social media are becoming a must for almost every brand that looks to boost its online presence. However, brands must also be aware that not every social media channel will yield the best results for them. Therefore, choosing where to do your social selling and which tools to use are as important as the quality of your products or services. 

In this article we’ll take a look at what social selling is, why it is important, and what are the benefits for your sales team. We’ll also take a look at what are the right social media channels you should use and what are some of the best social selling tips and tricks that can help you increase your sales. 

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What is social selling and why is it important? 

Social selling is when businesses and marketers are using social media as a sales tool. For most people, the term social selling usually refers to the use of social networks in the B2B trading space.

Besides B2B sales, social media sales are also valuable in B2C sales areas where relationships are important. As modern shopping is evolving, social media has become a key element of every company's sales strategy.

Buyers in both B2B and B2C now have instant access to information on their devices, which means they can connect with your competitors at any time. This is why more and more sellers are acknowledging the value of branding content marketing and social media assets. 

Social media is a must-have tool for any sales team, no matter what product you are selling, in what industry, and in what sales cycle. Use the power of social media to tell your story, rather than imposing ads on people who don't know you and don't want to know you, your company, or your products and services.

With Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn, buyers have unparalleled professional self-learning opportunities. In fact, data shows that 77% of B2B buyers study product reviews before contacting a seller. 

Benefits of social selling for your sales team

Shortening the sales cycle

As the traditional sales cycle breaks down, businesses make fundamental changes to their marketing strategies and quickly adjust to the social media selling ecosystem. 

Social media selling has created a world in which B2B buying processes begin, evolve, and reach the end point without face-to-face meetings. In turn, this is causing a real change in the sales mindset, as more salespeople understand the power of social media content as a sales tool and a way to create prospects. 

Building deeper relationships 

Building relationships is the key to sales success in any industry. In fact, many people choose to buy from salespeople they know. Otherwise, it is important to know someone who can refer you to the decision maker. Trust is everything, especially in business, using a single inbox management tool like Juphy is a great way to optimize your time.

Social selling is ultimately about relationship building, not cold calling. Good relationships take time and online relationships between sales and marketing, and their perspectives are equally human. By knowing what issues, questions, or information your followers and potential customers might be looking for, you can build better online relationships.‍

Increasing number of leads

It's very important to look at your wider audience and how you engage them in the conversation, and here social media plays an integral part.

Once you've been able to engage a user with your social media content, the critical moment is to move from interest to purchase. The simple step of adding a Buy button below your Facebook product photo can help turn leads into sales. 

Establishing yourself as an industry expert

An average user spends around 2.5 hours a day on social media. These statistics show that you need to use social media now more than ever.

Many marketers use social platforms like LinkedIn or Instagram to showcase their expertise, promote their services, and generate leads. 

Professionals can also use social media to showcase their expertise, add value, attract people, and attract job opportunities. Your small business can do this not only for growth and participation, but also to become a thought leader in their industry and in their community.

Supporting customer retention

Customer retention is when companies motivate current customers to keep buying their products and services, while keeping them out from their competitor’s reach. 

According to statistics, the probability of conversion for returning customers is 60-70%, compared to new customers, where this percentage is 5-20%.  This only illustrates how important customer retention is, and why you need to have it in your overall sales strategy.

Segmentation and personalization are your best allies for increasing engagement and sales. If you want your audience to stay with you, you must create targeted messages that speak to them and support them. 

The right channels for social selling you should use

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is where personal relationships and thought leadership are most valued. While most marketers tend to spend a lot of money advertising products and services on mass market social media platforms like Facebook or Instagram, sellers know that LinkedIn is where the action takes place. 

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Also, by using LinkedIn’s Social Selling Index (SSI), you can measure the effect and impact of your social selling. The tool is also helpful for building your network. 

There are several engagement factors that affect its score, such as branding, networking, building relationships, engaging with insights etc. 

Remember, branding isn't just for companies - it is also for professionals. This segment of the LinkedIn SSI includes the degree to which you communicate your professional skills, experience, education, and more. You can also improve your personal brand by demonstrating thought leadership through content.‍

Facebook

Facebook has over 2 billion users, making it arguably the biggest social network out there. Its user base also makes it the best social network where businesses can target audiences and place their ads.

Particularly for startups with limited marketing budgets, implementing a social media selling strategy on Facebook is a relatively inexpensive way to effectively engage a large target audience. 

Facebook also provides insights into the purchase potential of the audiences you want to target. When used properly, this can result in an increased return on investment. 

For example, the Facebook Audience Insights tool will offer information about user groups by age, gender, interests, marital status and profession. In addition, you will receive valuable analytics on the behaviour of the target audience: what time of day users are most active on the Internet and how much time they spend on Facebook on average. 

Once you have this information, you can determine the best time to post content to attract users at the peak of activity.

Twitter

More than 396 million people use Twitter every month, with around 500 million tweets posted daily. With Twitter accounting for 10% of the world's total social media user base, companies should take advantage of this powerful social network to promote their business and build their brand image.

The micro-blogging platform has also been voted as the third-best platform for generating leads. It can be a powerful network for reaching new audiences, provided you find a way to keep their attention. 

For that, it's important to have an effective Twitter marketing strategy. Before you create your Twitter marketing strategy, it's important to know your audience. To interact effectively with them, it is helpful to know about their age, gender, location, usage statistics, and so on.

To get the most out of social selling on Twitter, companies need to focus on maximising their efforts for creating, posting, and distributing content on this social platform. This includes writing and sharing interesting tweets, managing unique profiles and knowing how to effectively use hashtags. 

Social selling tips to increase your sales

Social selling can be a great way to increase your sales and boost your brand reputation. However, you always need to strive to have content that adds value to what you are selling. 

Another helpful tip is to know what to post and when to post it. This can also have a big effect on how the audience reacts to your posts. Next, we share some tips on how to make the best out of your social selling:

Share only content which brings value 

Surrounding your customers, both online and offline, with valuable content from people in your brand network is the best way to create social proof for your product or service.

Therefore, always ask yourself what value you can deliver to your audience - whether it's helpful product tips, an information-rich article, or a product discount. Offering something valuable to your target market for nothing in return will often lead to a successful social selling campaign.

The only thing that you need to use this type of content for, is to connect with your customers. Offer them something of value, without asking them to click, fill out a form, or even leave feedback. Just aim to connect with them.

Once the connection is there you have several options and your goal then moves on to the engagement. 

Offering content in connection messages is the first step towards providing this interaction. If they are interested in this content offer and request it, then they are fully engaged.

Carefully schedule your content 

Determine what is the best time to post for optimal engagement and schedule your posts to be published at that time.

A huge amount of content is created every day. Therefore, marketers need to be able to quickly organize content promotion on social media to make the most of it.

This is where a social media content calendar comes in handy. Simply put, a social media content calendar is a spreadsheet or app that you use to schedule social media posts. It helps you plan and track your social media content campaigns.

Social media scheduling tools are also an effective way to manage your content and have an overview of what is posted and when. This way, it will be easier for you to keep an active online presence and promote your business.

Make your social selling measurable

Measurable social selling means that if you can't measure your goals, they're not specific enough. You need to get a complete overview of your progress towards your goal and say whether you are getting close to online success or not. 

Use numbers and other hard data to measure the outcome of your social selling. Use numbers and other hard data to measure the outcome of your social selling. You may even wish to build a report, like a Facebook insights report or one for other social platforms to measure the effectiveness of your marketing.

If you are not following the increase in retweets and followers, then it is impossible to know if you are close to your projected number of followers and social media engagements, or far from it. 

So, every time you sit down to strategize on your social selling, you need to come up with measurable KPIs and goals.‍

Pay attention to what customers say and provide support 

When you know what issues, questions, or information your followers and potential customers are looking for, you can build better online relationships.

Social selling is also about identifying the right audience and keeping them engaged until they make a decision that results in a purchase. 

People enjoy getting immediate attention and they enjoy talking to people they know. Social selling often provides both.

Communicate closely with your subscribers. Use a webinar platform to offer live sessions to connect with prospects or your customers and help them become more efficient and better educated in their field.  Lastly, don't forget to Answer their questions, feedback, requests and wishes. Build relationships with new and regular customers. All of this will help you gain trust, influence purchasing decisions and ultimately keep your customers satisfied.

Leverage power of social listening 

Social listening is monitoring your company's social media channels for any customer feedback and direct mentions of your brand or discussions on specific keywords, topics, competitors, or industries.

In short, you set up a list of words, keywords and key phrases in social media monitoring tools such as HubSpot, and you sync those tools with your database. The tools will then notify you if anyone uses any of these keywords on social media platforms.

Once notified, you can jump into the conversation and influence, educate, or even guide the discussion.

Be part of relevant groups and forums

When someone is interested in your product, he’ll do an online research before buying it. And apart from your website, where do people go and do their research? Most likely, to forums or other relevant groups. 

There, you may also find many potential customers asking different questions about your product or services. 

These question-answering opportunities also offer the possibility of engagement with a potential customer that you would never have known about without social selling.

They can find the answer to their question in the piece of content you shared, or come up with some other information that they didn’t know before. No matter how you help them, you solve the problem, build trust, and get one step closer to selling.

Don't underestimate consistency

Consistency is about understanding how your audience reacts to the content that you are sharing, and then repeating or improving your actions. Like any other aspect of sales, consistency is a key ingredient in sales success.

Businesses that implement consistent social selling processes are 40% more likely to meet profit goals than those that do not practice social selling.

Building a brand on social media isn't hard. In fact, it becomes much easier when you understand the importance of consistently crafting the right messages. However, keeping a brand at the highest level is a challenge.

It doesn't matter where your brand is on social media in terms of popularity. You should try to be consistent in your messages from the beginning. Every social media channel can help your brand grow, given that your audience can count on your consistency.

Conclusion

When it comes to making the best out of social selling, it is up to every brand to find the right approach and implement the right strategy. Getting there can be a time consuming process though, so by making sure that you follow our tips and practices, hopefully you’ll get there sooner. An efficient social selling strategy can also make your sales team more productive, and in turn, this will increase your sales too.