How Social Media Listening Boosts Social Selling

A CEO of a mid-size advertising company received a call from one of her vendors while working in office. When the vendor started pitching his new offer, the CEO said she wanted to hear more but was busy at the time. The vendor kept pushing even though the CEO said she needed to talk later. After she finally got rid of him, she asked on Twitter: “How do you deal with pushy sales reps, my sales rep from company A is driving me crazy.”

A salesman for the vendor’s competition noticed the tweet and promptly called the CEO to request a meeting. That true story, relayed by Mark Fidelman, CEO for digital marketing agency Fanatics Media, demonstrates the growing success of social media to identify prospects, engage with them online, and make sales.

Social selling entails monitoring social media platforms and blog comments, identifying specific requests or needs of a potential customer, and engaging the customer appropriately.

The Numbers on Social Selling

Consider these statistics compiled by HubSpot.

Buyers who engage on social media have budgets that are 84% than those who don’t.

63% of sales professionals say social selling has become important for closing new deals.

Buyers are already more than half way through the purchase process before sales professionals speak to them. Almost three-quarters of B2B buyers conduct more than half their research online before completing a purchase.

Social salespeople achieve a 66% greater quota attainment than those using traditional prospecting techniques.

A Top Social Salesman

Jack Kosakowski from Act-On has used social selling to become a top sales rep at his company. “Social selling to me is pretty simple. It’s sales and marketing leveraging social data and infusing it into the sales process from online conversation to offline revenue,” Kosakowski told Forbes.

That data enables companies to build a better customer buyer journey and improve the byer experience. “If you can nail the buyer experience you will create more conversations, opportunities, and most importantly more revenue,” Kosakowski says.

“Social selling allows you to connect with the buyer and earn the right to their time and business.  It’s time to quit begging and start earning our buyers time and business,” writes Forbes contributor Jim Keenan, CEO of A Sales Guy Inc.

Tips for Social Selling Success

Experts recommend following these tips for successful social selling:

Monitor social media: Use a social media listening tool that can monitor multiple keywords across multiple social media platforms and integrate reports into one intuitive, customizable dashboard. Be sure your listening service monitors a broad range of social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube for mentions of your product category and competitors. Also monitor blogs. Focus your efforts on the social platforms where your potential customers participate most frequently. Some media monitoring services, such as CyberAlert, customize reports to each client’s specific social media monitoring and measurement needs.

Participate helpfully on social media: Actively participate on social media by providing educational (non-promotional) information that adds value for your customers and makes them better-informed decision-makers in your product category. That can be as simple as using Twitter or other social media channels to provide links to helpful articles. In social media, offering solutions in which you don’t try to sell anything often produces the greatest positive impact. Inform and engage online; sell offline.

Commit yourself. Prioritize your time on social channels. Dedicate a block of time every day. Consistency is key for long-term success.

Analyze your activities to find inefficiencies. If you spend two hours cold calling that aren’t entirely productive, replace some of that time with social.

Be authentic yet professional. “If my grandma wouldn’t approve, I won’t say it,” Kosakowski says.

Minimize promotional posts. Occasional promotions are OK, but spamming self-serving messages too often alienates customers. All messages should have a benefit for the customer. Discounts work, but lose impact when used too frequently.  Customers prefer personalized messages and content that helps them or highlights their achievements.

Align social media activities with your sales and marketing funnels. B2B organizations that tightly align social media activities with marketing and sales achieved 24% faster revenue growth and 27% faster profit growth over a three year period, according to SiriusDecisions.

Bottom Line: Cold calling and emailing are inefficient, practically obsolete sales tactics. Today, social salespeople garner much better success by listening to comments on social media, engaging customers and offering valuable content and solutions.