Selling”; where the sales process is now tapping into social media
conversations and the impact of social networks in driving brand
awareness or buyer consideration. Most sales and marketing leaders
would concur that the sales process has completely changed. Sales people
need to adjust their skill set as tactics like cold calling has a low
return for allot of effort so learning how to harnessing the power of
selling via social media is important.
A social selling strategy should be about a genuine effort to share
value and content prior to engaging in any sales conversations. Social
selling is not SPAM, too often the simplistic approach is for sales
people to spam sales messages on Twitter, Facebook, on LinkedIn groups,
or to a new connection with a vanilla flavored sales message and a
self serving web link. If you do this stop, as the moment anyone gets
these messages, the brand loyalty and any trust gets flushed away.
Connecting and building your social network just to SPAM them is NOT
social selling.
The biggest social selling tip is to truly build value over time with
your social network by sharing content that people find useful and
helpful. In time when you personally message to a social tie to engage
in a sales discussion your chances of a positive response will be
greatly improved.
So a great social selling tip that will benefit all social marketers,
sales people and businesses is to take the time every single day to do
the following. Connect to your social network community with news,
images, videos, snippets of information. Another tip is to find ways to
connect your network together (as this provides value) and offering to
help others connect. Pause a minute and think about this scenario. You
see a message posted on LinkedIn that says, “Where could I find some
inspiration for a presentation?” Instead of posting of reply such as, I
would be interested in this myself or have you tried PowerPoint? (True
reply!). Why not see if anyone in your network is a presentation expert
or does allot of presentations that you could offer to put in touch
with your connection that is looking for some presentation inspiration.
Act as a conduit, a connector who brings value by taking the time to
listen and connect your social ties
Social Selling Steps.
Step 1. Listen to and monitor social media conversations across
several social networks to get a comprehensive view of what’s being said
about your specific focus
Step 2. Start to identify interests, most liked news, influencers and prospects through the listening process
Step 3. Track your prospects. Review their posts, timelines and understand what they are interested in or saying.
Step 4. Share quality content (not just your own). Seek out some
information of mutual interest, and then share. The information must be
professional and relevant to them. You can also like or even re-tweet
their content.
Step 5. Position yourself as an expert by sharing real insights and
proven research you have gained in the industry or with working with
customers
Step 6. Gradually become a valuable connection, one worth listening
to. Once you have established yourself as a valuable connection, you can
nurture and build a buyer/supplier relationship far more quickly.
These steps are the foundations of social selling, and too many
marketing and sales people forget that selling is all about firstly
building relationships and secondly providing value. Start now to
implement these social selling steps and you will have set yourself to
gradually drive more sales then cold calling can ever do.
Another social selling tip is to remember that selling is inherently
social so social selling is nothing new. Rather look at social selling
as a sales tool to help you sell more effectively that will evolve over
time.
Next up on the tip list is to break ‘social selling’ into two main areas:
(1) Direct and
(2) Indirect.
In social selling the direct aspect is utilizing social media
networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and Tumblr to look
for conversations where you share content to make connection to people
you want to target and nurture relationships with. Take the example, the
CIO of a prospect tweeted something about their focus on reducing IT
costs in the coming year. (See step 1, 2 and 3 above)
So now share some articles or research on reducing IT, then if your
product or service can help with reducing IT costs, at an appropriate
time you can tweet them about it, message them or send a personalized
e-mail explaining the value you might be able to add to their focus
based on what they said (see step 4 above). This is a shortened version
of events but the point is to look for information about what people or
companies are doing or saying so you can be highly relevant to them when
you reach out on social media.
The indirect aspect of social selling has to do with building your
own personal brand so over time your social audience (connections and
weak ties) eventually value your shares and see you as an industry
expert, not just another sales person (see steps 5 and 6 above). However
please do realize this does take time and does not provide the instant
hit that sales leaders think should happen these days. Social selling is
all about adding value to your target market.
I write articles on sales and marketing, I try to add some value by
not just talking about the theory of selling or business but actually
giving my readers some useful tips on sales, marketing and business. I
share suggestions on what to do and how to do it. I also regularly post
or re-tweet articles from other sources not just about sales but about
business topics that I think are important to my audience.
On a daily basis I review discussions on my groups in LinkedIn and
give honest answers to questions people have without plugging my
business or telling them I wonderful I am or how I can help solve their
problems if they meet me. So, let me wrap up by saying, really take the
time to think through your “Social Selling”
goals, expectations and approach while using social media lead generation. Spend time looking for articles, news
and research you can use to connect with people without interrupting
them while at the same time position yourself as an industry expert by
sharing quality information that is on the money. This will help you
throughout your sales career no matter what product or service you are
selling.
Social Selling Tips – The Bitter Business
No comments:
Post a Comment