According to McKinsey and Company, there are around 1.5 billion active social media users worldwide. Those that employ social selling as part of their online sales strategy may raise brand recognition among prospective customers even before they reach the online sales funnel. Social selling is a new spin on the age-old sales process, which works by introducing businesses to qualified leads and equipping them with helpful materials to build credibility and trust.
It’s time for digital sellers and marketers to enhance their social media game and improve their online sales skills to take advantage of the booming e-commerce industry.
How does social selling function, and what is it?
To strengthen ties with prospective clients, businesses might employ social selling strategies that make use of various social media platforms and networks. The goal of social selling is to increase product recognition among a specified demographic by keeping tabs on their online activities, learning about their specific wants and requirements, and connecting with them in virtual spaces.
When social selling is executed properly, your brand will be top-of-mind for your target audience. As long as it’s part of a larger social media strategy, social selling may streamline the buyer’s journey through your online store and help you close more transactions.
You may elevate your digital selling and marketing skills via the use of appropriate social selling tools and methods to interact with your intended audience. In this article, you’ll learn the most effective strategies that seasoned digital sellers and marketers are deploying to boost sales through social media.
Establish rapport with potential customers
If you want to succeed at social selling, you need to put in the time and effort to build genuine connections with leads and prospects before they enter your digital sales funnel. Your social media material should be useful, informative, and easily implemented by your intended audience.
You may build trust with your ideal customer by providing them with valuable material, such as emails, webinars, infographics, and “how to” blog pieces. It’s important to build rapport with potential customers before they reach your sales funnel so that they’ll think of you first when they have a need for your goods or services.
Get credibility as a leading figure in your field
If a writer claims to know how to start a retail business but has no internet presence, it’s unlikely that anybody would read what they have to say. Establishing credibility as a knowledgeable authority requires connecting with your audience on a personal level.
As part of social selling, you’ll want to highlight your expertise and experience as a company insider. Give them something they can use, and make sure it’s useful. Showcase all there is to know about the many sides of your industry by sharing articles from your blog as well as other sources.
Explain what happened
The internet world allows companies to communicate their narrative in a meaningful way, for both the company and its potential customers, thanks to the availability of different social media platforms and professional site design templates. Superior social selling requires arousing the interest of your followers, since emotions are a potent instrument for online vendors and marketers.
Creating a compelling narrative of your brand’s path is an important part of social selling. This might take the form of a series of Instagram posts showing photographs of your brand’s humble beginnings or a Facebook live video in which you share your story with an audience of prospects.
Identify the best social media platforms to reach your target market
In all likelihood, the people who make up your intended audience have a particular social media platform where they conduct the vast bulk of their online social activity. In other words, if you’re trying to use social selling to promote your line of eco-friendly apparel on LinkedIn, you probably won’t have much success.
Facebook’s massive user base makes it an essential platform for any business looking to build a social marketing strategy. As an added bonus, each Facebook post may be easily shared on other social networking sites like Instagram, further expanding its reach.
Brand recognition may be increased, and more potential customers can enter your optimised online sales funnel, if you spend time posting on social media platforms frequented by your target demographic. As a first step, online merchants may keep their audiences engaged and interested by posting regularly on two or three social media sites.
Swap things up to keep things interesting
No matter how helpful or pertinent the material you provide is, if you only post it once every few days, it won’t garner much momentum in your social media feeds. In order to maximise the effectiveness of your social media marketing, it is recommended that you share a wide variety of material in your feeds. Popular forms of material shared on social media that are known to increase user interaction include:
- Podcasts
- Infographics
- Webinars
- Videos
- Client testimonials
- Ebooks
- Guides
- Photos
- Videos
- User-generated content
Be consistent with your brand’s professionalism across all platforms
Maintaining a polished online persona is essential for successful social selling. To do this, you must pay close attention to the calibre of your material, the consistency with which you brand your various social media sites, and the manner in which you interact with your audience (who, keep in mind, are potential prospects).
To maintain a consistent and professional persona throughout all of your social media channels, schedule time every day to read comments from followers, interact with your audience, and respond to any questions or feedback (good or negative) that is posted. You should have no hiccups or outdated details on the parts of your profiles where you describe your brand and how to get in touch with you. If a potential customer wants to contact you but gets the erroneous number, they will likely go elsewhere for a solution to their problem.