By now the benefits of social media for your business are no doubt drilled into your memory: build a following, post your content, increase your sales.
But if you’re working in generating sales, how exactly can you use it to increase your profits? That’s what this guide explains—find out how you can make social work wonders for you.
Social selling
First of all, what is it? Well, it’s a way for your sales employees to use social media as a lead generation tool.
Sales strategies are changing all the time in the modern era. Traditional forms of interruption marketing—the increasingly anachronistic cold calling—are dropping by the wayside.
And there are plenty of new ideas touted as replacements.
Is social selling just another buzzword? In fact, according to CSO Insights, it can increase win rates by some 16%.
Curbing social media use?
For many businesses, the digital era has involved learning how to deal with excess use of social media. This is to stop procrastination and various other time wasting activities.
So it may seem contradictory to encourage a social strategy for your sales team, but the reality is the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube offer huge audiences and exceptional sales opportunities.
A shorter sales cycle
78% of salespeople outsell their peers thanks to social media. Forbes confirmed the power of social a 2013 report—and with the reach of social having improved exponentially since then, it’s no surprise social selling can decrease the time involved of a sales cycle.
Building your brand’s reputation
But the power of social also ensures you’re also building your connection with customers, plus their appreciation of your brand.
Your digital presence is essential in the modern era of business. From Glassdoor, Feefo, Google Reviews, and Facebook, consumers can interact with your brand like never before.
In effect, the hard work you put into ensuring you form lasting partnerships with your customers complements your chances further.
A sound approach to social sales can provide excellent reviews and a glowing digital profile.
Maintaining relationships
Post-sale, social selling allows you to keep in touch easily with your customers. This offers great opportunities for upselling and various other sales tactics.
If you’ve come across a customer eager in your business, it’s a golden opportunity to refer your services or products to active prospects.
Effective social selling
One of the reasons your sales team should prioritise social is because a lot of businesses simply aren’t using it correctly.
For genuine ROI, you can turn to sales enablement professionals for training across this new digital landscape.
But the reality is your customers are now joining your sales team on a real-time and ever active platform.
And those buyers are exposed to much more purchasing opportunities than they were a decade ago. As such, social selling can supply real-time information to make sales more expedient.
You just have to make sure you approach the process in the right way.
Tips for success
Finally, here are a few key points to remember to help your sales team grow.
There’s no guaranteed approach, of course, so you should consider tailoring the below points to meet your business’ needs. By matching up with your approach to business, you have the strongest chance of success.
- Establish a social media policy for your business. With this, your new starters can get up to speed faster with social selling demands.
- Look the part. Provide your staff with professional photoshoots for their various social profiles—it’s particularly useful for a platform like LinkedIn.
- Keep on upskilling. Social media changes rapidly, so make sure your team is well versed in all of the latest changes. Six monthly reviews are a good way to do this.
- And for good measure, provide a crash course in social media training during your induction. This can help your social selling plans moving as soon as possible.
