Can Salespeople Make More Money by Social Selling on Social Media?
The chance to earn money on social media is something more and more salespeople are adopting.
It’s great for those who want to combine social selling with their personal sales strategy. If you want to start social selling make sure you understand what it is, how it works, and how you can benefit.
Those who are already social selling or those who want to start must spend a good portion of time finding the appropriate leads on social platforms, making sure they are a bonafide lead, and then engaging with those prospective leads.
By and by social selling means connecting socially first and then selling your services and or products next.
Here are some simple ideas on how to connect socially and then sell to an audience and make some cash:
What Do You Want to Achieve by Social Selling?
Decide on the outcome you want the social connection to have initially and, then work backward. It could be in the form of a meeting, connecting only with certain executives in retail markets, and/or engaging a thought leader, etc. Finding your desired outcome will provide a starting point around building your personal social selling tactic.
Find Prospects
After coming to terms with what outcome you want, next move on to find the “person"— or the group of people you want to target. Begin by creating social media filters using keywords and phrases to see who is discussing the products or services you want to sell. Search for prospects who give negative feedback on competitors’ products or services, or a positive inquiry about yours. The overall objective is to attract as many prospects as possible.
Profile the Leads
After searching for the correct group, separate the qualified from the unqualified. Signing up for Twitter or creating a Facebook profile is just one piece of the overall social selling puzzle. The next thing to do is create an extended profile for each prospective lead, wherever possible. It’s easier to do this when and/if you learn about them as much as you can. Leads share all sorts of information on social platforms so be sure you take advantage of the info they are putting out there and then utilize your findings to target certain individuals and begin communications.
Explore the Target Audience
The hardest part of social selling for some salespeople is not having enough relevant information about their prospective leads. This is why a more targeted profile can help explore prospective clients' behaviors and patterns. For instance, see what the top topics are the prospects are interacting about, check out what hashtags are being used the most in the past month. These steps can help salespeople understand the segmentation and targeting, so when the call, tweet, text, or email comes across, you can begin a better conversation.
Keep a Running Tally of Targets
After finding and analyzing the target you hope to capture, you might want to know which prospects are the most relevant. The next step is scoring.
Just as with traditional drip email marketing systems, you can score your leads on demographic and behavioral attributes. The main difference is that, in this case, the attributes are based on information that is publicly available from social profiles and interactions, such as tweets and posts.
Make Engagement Count
Because social media channels are connected to actual people in the real world, the conversations should be meaningful and authentic. When connecting and communicating with thought leaders and others, keep in mind it’s all about forming and maintaining important relationships from start to finish,
Now ask yourself if social selling is something that could be in your future.
