If you’re selling in the digital age, then you’ve likely come across the term social selling. Sales professionals are increasingly turning towards social channels such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter to find high-value prospects, build reliable relationships, and eventually sell more. In fact, 90% of top salespeople include social selling as a part of their selling strategy.
What is social selling and why is it important?
Social selling is a sales strategy in which sales professionals focus on finding prospects who are more likely to buy and engaging such prospects by sharing relevant content. It’s an ongoing strategy that will help salespeople place themselves in their prospect’s radar.
Let’s take an example to understand how social selling works. Let’s say you run a travel agency. And you’re active on social channels, constantly sharing traveling best practices and tips, and answering related questions. This will help you establish yourself as a trusted source for travel recommendations. And when people want to plan their next trip, they are more likely to approach you than your competitor who has never added value to them before.
How to succeed with social selling on LinkedIn?
Personal branding is the core of social selling. And LinkedIn is by far the most powerful platform that allows sales professionals to align their strengths and credibility to their customers’ needs. And because 80% of B2B leads come from LinkedIn, it becomes even more important to have an effective LinkedIn social selling strategy. Use these tips to improve your social selling efforts:
- Know your SSI: LinkedIn Social Selling Index gives you a sense of how well you’re building your personal brand, connecting with the right people, engaging with insights, and building strong relationships with your prospects. You can use this information to understand whether you’re reaching out to the right people, sharing relevant information, and connecting with the decision-makers. And then you can focus on improving areas that need your attention. For instance, if you’re LinkedIn Social Selling Index indicates that you’re successfully establishing your personal brand but not connecting with decision-makers, then you can spend some extra time finding high-value connections.
- Keep your profile updated: This is basic. Your LinkedIn profile is the first place your prospect would visit to know more about you. So, have a complete profile. Write an eye-catching headline that shows your top skills and specialties. Add a strong summary that shows your unique value proposition.
- Post consistently: Consistency is the key to success on LinkedIn or any other social channel. This is because algorithms favor accounts that post regularly. You can choose the frequency and time based on what works best for you. But, it’s important to have a posting schedule and stick to it. The more regular you are, the better exposure your posts get.
- Comment on relevant posts: This is the easiest and quickest way to get your prospect’s attention. When you leave a thoughtful comment on an engaging post, people are likely to react to your comment and even visit your profile. Also, because your comment is shown to people outside of your network, there is a good chance of being found by your potential customers.
- Scan “People Also Viewed” section: When you visit a profile on LinkedIn, you will be shown a list of profiles that viewers of your profile have also looked at. So, if you’re on your prospect’s profile then you can leverage the “People Also Viewed” section to quickly find people who work in the same company, or similar industry, or hold a similar job position, or work in the same geographical area. Use this information to identify decision-makers and new sales opportunities.
- Reach out: A study notes that 65% of people wouldn’t find it inappropriate when a salesperson who has a common connection sent them a message. So, don’t hesitate to reach out to people to check if they need your help. Write a friendly inquiry message that is not salesy.
- Bring leads directly into CRM: When you’re social prospecting, you need to make sure that you bring the leads into your CRM and add them to your sales pipeline for further nurturing. Vtiger Enrich lets you do this in a few clicks. When you visit a prospect’s profile, Vtiger Enrich will automatically retrieve the prospect’s name, email ID, job title, description, profile URL and more from LinkedIn and save the information in the CRM. This way your social prospect will never fall through the cracks.
Fact check: According to LinkedIn, SSI leaders generate 45% more opportunities per quarter and are 51% more likely to exceed their quota.
Use these tips to leverage LinkedIn to attract and engage prospects, and crush your sales targets.
