Social selling is a strategy that is widely used nowadays and which has replaced the habit of cold calling. In fact, the times when I had to pick up the phone and make a few cold calls to persuade a new potential customer to come and buy have changed. 

There are countless strategies for making more leads: Social sales is one of them. Let's see in detail what it is.

 

What are social sales?

Social sales is a sales strategy that is applied using social media to find new potential clients and communicate with them. 

More specifically, social relationships are used to build business relationships with potential customers. How? By answering open questions or comments and sharing content throughout the purchasing process. 

Social Sales is the new Sales Model 2.0. Active and proactive connections and interactions with potential customers on social media can help a company or brand consider the user as the first choice to buy.

 

8 ways to get started with social selling

 

Choose the most relevant social network

It's easy to be attracted to new social platforms. But the real winners of social sales are those who are active on the portal where their potential customers are present. 

Then, start identifying social networks that match your potential customers. 

There is no single answer to the "best network for social sales" question. It depends. The choice should depend on the target audience and the sales method on social media. 

Here are some helpful tips on how to start social sales on three popular platforms:

 

Linkedin 

Build your credibility: If you have a good relationship with your acquaintances, ask them for confirmation or advice. These are posted on your LinkedIn profile and can help give you instant credibility with new contacts.

As a brand, make sure your profile highlights potential leadership skills and how you have helped previous customers achieve their goals. 

Only share useful information and content from trusted sources and make sure you keep a professional tone throughout your LinkedIn business. 

Expand your network: Use LinkedIn's search feature to expand your network to find connections to your existing contacts. 

Join LinkedIn groups relevant to your industry to network with colleagues and potential customers.

 

Use LinkedIn Sales Navigator: This is LinkedIn's professional social sales tool. It can help you reach the right possibilities through personal communication and better understand your performance through in-depth analysis.

 

Twitter

Existing subscribers: Use this list to track your existing subscribers and find opportunities to reply to or like their tweets. This will help put your brand on their radar. Don’t overdo it, though. Try to make your conversations with customers meaningful and relevant.

 

Probability: Once you have identified the probabilities, add them to your personal list. Don’t interact with existing customers with a familiar consciousness like yours. Instead, keep an eye out for help requests or complaints about your competitors; That way, you can reply with a helpful comment.

 

Contestants: Adding competitors to other personal lists allows you to track them without actually following them. It can help them monitor their behavior and strategies and take an indication of their success.

 

Facebook

Communicate with other organizations: It's easy to communicate with "likes", comments and shares, but take it one step further: create thoughtful and valuable content. Doing so will be a great opportunity to share content and increase brand reach.

Communicate with followers: Always respond to your brand's comments and mention building a trusting relationship. Also, when writing your posts, include questions or a call to action to start a conversation with your audience.

 

The best way to sell socially

No matter what platform you use to reach your audience, here are the best practices to keep in mind when practicing social sales:

 

Give value to your brand

When communicating with potential customers through social networks, it is important not to be too commercial. Especially if your brand is new, don’t start selling right now on social media. 

Before moving on to actual social sales, establish your position as an expert in the industry. One way to do this is to share interesting, valuable, and shareable content. 

Basically, it shows potential customers that you’re not just there to get something, you’re also there to give something.

 

Listen and build relationships with the right people

Social selling also means paying attention and listening. Observe what people are saying about your company, your industry, and your competitors. Pay attention to pain points and needs, both natural opportunities to provide solutions.

 

Personalize your sales message

Instead of writing a message to countless potential buyers, take the time to personalize your social sales messages. 

This means, for example, recognizing mutual contacts, mentioning the content you are responding to, and highlighting a shared interest or something in common. 

When it comes to selling on social media, nothing beats interacting with a real human being. 

 

Be consistent

Finally, don’t expect immediate results. If your relationship-building efforts don't pay off immediately, don't give up and try to figure out if you're doing something wrong. 

Some potential customers may not be ready to buy your service or product but still, keep in touch. 

Maintain a meaningful relationship by offering. Congratulations on moving to a new location or company, for example interacting with their content on LinkedIn or Facebook. 

Be prepared to offer advice or help without promoting your product or service directly.

 

Create a mind map for your marketing strategy 

Mind maps are known and mainly used as an intelligence and memorization tool. From a word or phrase placed in the center, the semantic links slowly branch outwards to create a potentially infinite map. This method of representing ideas stimulates creativity and combines them more easily for visual effects on the map. By taking advantage of this feature, you can create a really effective marketing strategy with the help of a map. 

To do this, however, it is important to follow the right steps. 

First, you need to set goals that you want to achieve with strategy. Because it allows you to better identify its effects and conceptual paths. Then you need to find the right keywords for your visual marketing strategy. It’s true that people don’t read it, but they are attracted to the words of their minds. 

With the purpose in mind and a well-chosen list of keywords, you can of course start building your map starting from the center. And from that word or idea that you believe should be the core of the whole strategy. 

After the first mapping where you will probably be tempted to add everything, start skimming first to remove the excess. At this stage, it is important not to be afraid and try to be objective. Once you have eliminated unnecessary, you can try to combine the most important words left to create new meaningful sentences. 

In conclusion, social selling is not a one-time activity. But it is a time-consuming strategy and it should be used in conjunction with existing sales expected strategies. In fact, creating original and high-quality content will enhance your reputation and authority. You can do this through regular posts or by taking advantage of the audience-engagingmarketing platform. 

The platform lets you verify which users visit your profile. Contact them without delay, if they find you they may be really interested in you. Also remember that whenever someone accepts a connection request, thank them by sending them a personalized ad hoc message and take the opportunity to start a conversation. 

We can give you other useful tips and move forward to find new customers including social sales. But in between you can get the first results starting from these; The rest, you see, will come by itself. 

Although it can be difficult to get started, the benefits far outweigh the challenges, especially for those unfamiliar with social media.