You typically assume using social media to reach prospects is a marketing technique, but did you realize that salespeople can also benefit from using these platforms? Through a technique known as social selling, sales professionals can use social networking to interact and establish relationships with potential leads.
If you aren't already aware of the ins and outs of social media networking, it can be difficult to adopt this technique. To help you make the most of your profile, we'll talk about the worst social selling blunders your team should steer clear of in this piece.
1. Using Social Media As A Means Of Advertising
Running paid advertisements is simple on social media, but that is only one option available. For business professionals, social media is a platform to join and connect with others.
Utilize social media in the same way you would a face-to-face networking event. Make connections with those you believe would profit from learning more about you and your company. Engage them in conversation in a way that will pique their interest. After creating those connections and communities, you may start selling to them.
2. Skipping Out On Social Selling Education
If your team is undertrained, you shouldn't expect great outcomes from your social selling plan. Training in social selling should cover subjects like:
- Cohesive personal branding that works
- Gaining credibility in your niche
- Study and identification of your target market
- How to create and keep long-lasting partnerships
- Designing social media content for your target audience
Finding the appropriate audience, message, and content for your company is essential for social selling success. Before your team uses any platform, create a detailed social selling training process for them to follow in order to make sure they can establish profitable connections.
3. Ignoring The Benefits Of Digital Technologies For Social Selling
Salespeople who exceeded their quota by more than 50% were twice as likely as those who didn't to have grown their LinkedIn network in the previous year. So, how can you use digital tools to see this kind of success?
Utilizing technologies for streamlining content sharing across several platforms allows you to post in less time, freeing up more time for other tasks. In social selling, salespeople use practical tools to complete the task at hand rather than spending all of their time glued to their computers on social media. Among the useful resources for social selling are:
- Sales Hub: A sales CRM solution that enables teams to manage their pipeline more efficiently, build relationships, and close more deals.
- A digital solution that makes virtual selling easier to handle is LinkedIn Sales Navigator. You can engage in tailored outreach, target the right customers, and comprehend vital insights with its assistance.
- Using Feedly, you may keep tabs on insights from reliable websites throughout the internet for topic ideas and trending issues in your sector.
4. Not Making The Most Of Your Social Media Profile
43.5% of internet users use social networks for online brand research when making buying decisions, according to HootSuite's 2022 Digital Marketing Trends. With such changes, I would want a polished and eye-catching social media profile. Your company profile should accurately represent your brand's attributes and the caliber of the goods you offer.
Your social network accounts will be visited by your prospects as their initial point of contact in social selling. Make a solid first impression since leads may use what they see to determine if you're someone they should follow or whether they should buy your product.
5. Making An Effort To Sell Without Building Trust
Continuing from the last point, you should put yourself out there to meet new people, but avoid opening those contacts with a pitch for your products or services. Since trust is a deciding factor for 80% of consumers when making purchases, you don't want to alienate them.
Consider introducing your company and solutions more gently throughout your text rather than starting with the product and price. You'll have a better chance of reaching people who are interested in your service if you can do this efficiently.
6. Prospects With Inadequate Research
Social media algorithms are designed to help you connect with your market, so you'd be doing yourself a disservice if you didn't spend more time understanding them.
According to a McKinsey study, when a business does not anticipate its wants, more than 50% of customers transfer brands. You can be wasting your time and money if you're attempting to market to a population that hasn't been sufficiently studied. Your competitors might succeed in reaching the people you need to target instead, and they might not be as responsive to your social selling efforts as you anticipate.
7. Ignoring The Problems With Your Intended Audience
If customers believe your product may relieve their ongoing pain spots, they are more inclined to make a buy. You would know your prospect's biggest problem and what drives the company's decision-makers if you did some study on them.
Utilize this information to produce relevant and distinctive content for your social media platforms. When you gradually offer them more solutions, your engagement will change.
8. Disseminating Irrelevant Material At Random
You don't want to waste time sharing content that has nothing to do with your sector or expertise or become one of those people that treat professional networking sites like their personal Facebook.
Early in the buyer journey, your connections are following you to educate themselves. They will turn to you and your business for reliable solutions once they have interacted with, saved, or downloaded consistent content from you. Keep the memes and animal pictures on your own account for the time being.
A Science Called Social Selling
Your success rate in generating leads will depend on how well your social selling approach is implemented. Make sure your sales team is working hard to develop a social media network and presence that potential customers want to access and engage with.