Social selling relies on inbound marketing and content marketing to communicate, and connect with customers and prospects without selling. What social selling strategy to be effective?

Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing is a strategy that consists of:

• Attract Internet users with a website optimized for content and SEO.
• Turn visitors into prospects with free content to download.
• Convert leads to customers with a marketing automation strategy.
• Retain customers to become ambassadors of the brand.

Companies that have adopted inbound marketing generate 54% more leads than traditional methods.

Content Marketing

Content marketing is the heart of inbound marketing.

Its goal is to create and distribute free, qualitative, creative and relevant content intended for its targets in order to touch it, engage it in a relationship and turn it into a prospect and then customers.

Quality content is content that does not speak for itself. To impact your audience, your content must solve a problem, hence the importance of knowing your targets better to meet them.

And to know your targets, you will use the technique of buyers personas: it is about creating the typical profiles of your ideal customers centered on their needs, their challenges, their brakes, and their motivations. In a process of social selling, the profiles of your buyers’ personas will allow designing a content strategy that will be attractive and shared on social networks to connect with your targets.

Which formats for your editorial strategy?

• The blog article
• Images and photos
• Videos
• Computer graphics
• The case study
• The white paper
• The webinar

The video will be the preferred format because it is content consumed by Internet users, and it allows to interact with prospects in a simple and powerful.

Which Social Networks To choose In Social Selling?

75% of Internet users are present on social networks. The choice to deploy a social selling strategy will depend on the sector of activity and the uses of the targets.

Each social network has its uses, and we do not communicate in the same way on Facebook and LinkedIn for example. It will be a question of adapting the contents, and the tone according to the targets.

The goal is to share engaging content and generate interactions to engage targets and conversation. You have to be social on social networks and have a relevant presence.

LinkedIn

It is the reference professional network, and the most suitable for social selling in BtoB and generates leads through targeting features for digital prospecting.

Twitter

BtoB or BtoC is the social network of the snapshot. It is adapted to social selling especially on niche communities, or influencers and opinion leaders. Prospects are responsive on Twitter. You have to be very active on Twitter because there are so many tweets, and you have to stand out to be visible.

Facebook

It is the most widely used social network in the world, and prospects are necessarily there. Nevertheless, it is a network especially adapted to a BtoC target. To practice social selling on Facebook, you will need to contact a different professional profile than a personal profile.

The communication on Facebook works well with publications on the employer brand of the company to make you want to join. It is not easy to develop a community in BtoB or with small business targets.

The visibility of company pages becoming increasingly weak on Facebook, it is necessary to communicate via a private Facebook group with content adapted to the expectations of the audience.

How To Be A Perfect Social Seller On Social Networks

Well used social networks are strong levers to engage prospects with a tailored and personalized speech.

Social selling is above all a position of expertise and credibility to establish relationships of trust with prospects. We do not sell on social networks, we socialize! The philosophy of social selling: “Stop selling, start by helping”.

A mere presence on social networks will be insufficient to have an impact on sales. It’s actions and interactions that will turn engagement into sales.

The perfect social seller knows how to “listen to customers” on social networks to meet their expectations. He is alert on the needs to show his expertise, and get in touch with them more easily.

Being a perfect social seller

• To learn about the particularities of social networks

Social networks do not all have the same uses and the same codes. Understanding their operation is essential.

• Be active to be visible and capture prospects

Build your personal brand and put your profile forward by multiplying content publishing and sharing. You have to show yourself on social networks to make yourself visible. It’s a way to work on personal branding and to heal your e-reputation.

• Engage with prospects

1. The first step is to know the prospects before they become customers.
2. Start by following the target leads on social networks.
3. Identify their interests as well as the people with whom they engage.
4. Like or comment on their contents.

The second step will be to approach them with a speech adapted to their stage of maturity of purchase and to convert them into a buyer.

Put In Place An Effective Social Selling Strategy

Before you start social selling, think about your strategy:

• What are your goals?
• Who are your buyers’ personas?
• What are their expectations, their needs?
• What content to produce with which format?
• Which are the social networks adapted to your strategy?
• What messages to send to your prospects?
• What indicators to follow to measure your actions?

Defining all these elements will allow you to have a clear and precise way to reach your goals with social selling.