Studies show that, year-on-year, when more businesses implement social selling and other social media activities the right way they understand its value better. Why? Well for a start they get to experience social capital and once that happens they then treat it as a business asset and see positive returns.
Although this is encouraging, there are still, however, many who are not achieving success with their social selling and social media activities and that's why I'm addressing it here. My aim is to help you get more leads and business by using social media as a sales and business development tool.
TIP 1: Publish industry news, blogs and information
My first social selling tip addresses ‘what to say’ on social media. This tends to be the biggest concern for those using social media to drive business. Often users feel overwhelmed when they run out of company news and achievements to broadcast. Typically they’ll spend time emailing colleagues for ideas or browse the Internet for inspiration, only to find that once they post or tweet, nobody replies. Some also fear saying the wrong thing or are concerned about finding relevant information to broadcast.
So my tip is to publish not just your own industry or topic related news, blogs and articles but OPC (other peoples content) too.
Why?
Publishing this type of content will help you overcome these barriers and help you find your voice. News is plentiful, it’s relevant and it inspires engagement. News is the most shared form of content on social media and, as it never runs out, you’ll always have something of value to say. By publishing your own content, you’ll become a content creator as opposed to a content curator, plus you’ll position yourself as an authority in your niche – the expert. Curation certainly has its place but my point is you need to do both!
Remember, news moves through networks at lightning speed and drives traffic to your website.
TIP 2: Say thank you
Always set aside time to say thank you to those who’ve retweeted, reposted (basically used) your content. They’ve taken time to read your content and have deemed it valuable enough to share with their own audience. That’s their way of saying “great piece, let me spread the word for you.” So treat it just as you would do if they’d have said that in person, and say thanks.
By saying thank you you’re also being given an ideal opportunity to start a conversation. e.g. “Thank you for the retweet, do you think this tactic will work?” or “Thanks very much for the RT, have you tried these tips out?” or “Thanks very much, which point made the most sense?” Or, let them know if you‘ve checked out their website “Thanks for the share, I really like your blog.”
Make your thank you stand out. Show that you’ve gone the extra mile especially if you’re looking to woo a client. The card illustration here by artist Gabriela Sulzman (http://gabrielaszulman.com/) provides me with a creative way that my audience appreciates.
Never take it for granted when people spread your content: they’ve effectively become ambassadors of your brand and this is something that should be valued. Add them to a private list of tweeters and take time out each day to look at the tweets in that list to see if there are conversations you could participate in, or if there are any you’d like to retweet. As long as the content adds value to your readers, it’s nice to be able to return the favour.
Take time to get to know those people who are sharing your content too. Reprogram your thinking to one where you think of them as part of your team. Try to form relationships with them too as you’d do with anyone else who was endorsing your brand.
TIP 3: Listen for conversations
Use tools such as HootSuite to watch for conversations featuring problems you can solve. For example, if you're a health coach you might look for conversations where people are asking about what to eat to give them more energy or to boost their immune systems. Providing you have some great content to give to them, it’s a fantastic way of adding value to potential customers and this one helpful action could lead to an on-going dialogue and even a sale further down the line.
Set up Google Alerts for the same reason and contribute to blog posts. Do a search on some of the social platforms, like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram. Just type in a search term and offer advice to help readers solve their problems. As well as writing a comment, it’s great to post links to your blog or other articles as this drives traffic to your website and is perfect for establishing your brand as an industry authority.
TIP 4: Engage your audience
Make sure you get it to them where they want it and when they want it though. You can have awesome content but it’s useless if it’s not getting to the people it will interest. Likewise, you can have all your social media platforms set up but unless you’re populating it with interesting and valuable content, people will simply browse over you in their social media feeds.
Make your content is easy to share with ‘tweet this’ and ‘share’ icons on your (or the organisation you work for) website. Also, ask for input and tell them what you want them to do. People are much more likely to engage with and share your content if you ask them to.
Treat social media like you would a normal networking event. Build the relationship. You wouldn’t just walk in to a networking event and start selling would you? You’d listen, find points of interest and offer advice to try and help, in the hope that you might be able to provide a solution later on. If you take this approach with social media, and as long as your content is worth sharing, you’ll enjoy much higher levels of engagement.
TIP 5: Share the workload (if you can)
In larger companies social media management tends to be the responsibility of the marketing department but if you don’t have one or they’re fully maxed out (a regular problem) there’s no reason why certain tasks can’t be allocated to other people in the business. You might consider to delegate these tasks:
- Someone who’s responsible for writing and publishing a blog each per week
- Someone who’s responsible for posting more ‘personal’ posts twice/ day
- Someone who’s responsible for seeking out valuable tweets to retweet, say 5/ day
- Someone who’s responsible for contributing to LinkedIn group forums (maybe one person per group if there are several you’d like to get involved with)
- Someone who can monitor Facebook comments
- Someone who can post on Instagram once/day
Try to think of social media as being the voice of the brand and if you’re just a team of one right now consider outsourcing it or taking on an intern to free up some of the workload. Prepare for this now, and document the process. Whatever you do, make sure that the person/people are trained. This means that they are up-to-speed with all that the brand stands for and understand your social media policy. They have an important job to do and as they're representing you it's vital they get this right.
TIP 6: Go where your market is
I always recommend to “fish where the fish are, and where they're hungry!” As a general rule, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube are better for B2B and Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest for B2C. That said, all of these platforms work if you operate them effectively as really it's P2P (people to people) now! If you’re not sure just ask your customers which ones they use. You can do this via a survey or via a quick poll on your website homepage.
TIP 7: Monitor your competition
As with all areas of sales and marketing, it’s important to keep an eye on what your competitors are doing. In the past, this was so much harder to do but thanks to social media you now have a wealth of insight at your fingertips. So, a good starting point is to carry out an audit of your main competition to find out how they’re going about their social media activities. For example:
- Which social media sites are they active on?
- What offers are they broadcasting and promoting?
- What are they saying in their blogs?
- What type of content are they publishing?
- Which content sparks engagement from their readers?
- What’s their customer service like?
- Go through their fans and followers to identify any you could follow and engage with
- Set up Google alerts or Twitter searches for the names of your competitors
- Follow your competitors on social media
Once you’ve captured this information and have identified what works and what doesn’t, you can use it to make decisions about your own social media activities.
TIP 8: Balance your voice
When it comes to your social media content, try to maintain a good balance between informative and personal posts. It’s great to publish lots of valuable information to your readers such as industry‐related news but it’s also important to let the personality and culture of your company shine through, otherwise it gets boring. Social media is a “social” platform, so remember to entertain your audience as well as to engage them.
People always buy people, so therefore think hard about using logos on your social media platforms as oppose to a professional headshot. Using a headshot makes your audience feel they’re getting to know you a little. A few more personal posts each day can make all the difference to the perception of your business. Replying to tweets and posts and engaging in conversations is also an ideal way to give your social media a welcoming personality.
TIP 9: Stand out
Stand out from the crowd and be so darn good they can’t ignore you. This is especially true if your audience is following quite a few people. Their news feeds can become quite busy so it’s vital your posts and tweets stand out. One way to do this is by front loading your tweets with an announcement, e.g. if you’re tweeting about an article with some must-have tools, prefix it with “10 MUST-HAVE TOOLS” or if it’s your latest blog “LATEST BLOG.”
Use characters to get noticed: Characters show in Twitter so you can use them to add more visual weight to your tweets e.g. ***Please Comment***
Use statistics in your posts and tweets as people are always drawn to hard numbers. Use visuals too. Often people forget they can post images on Twitter. Use this facility.
Post at times when your readers are most active on line and use links in your posts and tweets to entice your audience to find out more about you on your website Lead them back to the source!
Finally my biggest tip is to make sure that your content abides by the 3 E rule: entertain, empower and educate.
TIP 10: Make use of technology
As you’re aware, social media is a time consuming activity so make your life a little easier by using technology to automatically post your news and blogs to your social media platforms. It’s very easy to set this up. You can use sites like Hootsuite (www.hootsuite.com) or Buffer (www.buffer.com). Both these sites enable you to schedule the day and time that you want to release your tweet, post etc., which means that you’re now not overwhelming and irritating your followers.
By using these services you now have more time to manually interact with your audience.
TIP 11: Measure ROI
This is quite a large topic so I'm only going to address the main points. As with everything you do, it’s important to consider the objective right from the start. Time is your most valuable asset so assess each platform's relevance, before starting. For example, some brands use some of the social media platforms purely for SEO. They’re not looking for anything else other than optimization.
Use social media as a tool and as a channel, just like you would have done with the phone. Few would ever have dared to ask about the relevance of using the phone to generate leads! So with social media, instead of asking ‘what is the ROI of social media’, consider the bigger picture and its relevance in the campaign or objective you’re fulfilling.
So, first identify what you actually want to achieve through your social media activities. Maybe you want to increase leads, brand awareness, reader engagement or traffic to your website? Whatever it is choose relevant and realistic metrics by which to measure them.
For example, if you want to increase brand reach, you might measure the number of retweets or shares. Or if you want to increase reader engagement, you could measure the number of comments you receive. Or if you’re interested in lead generation, how many opt-ins you get, or ‘message me’ or appointment bookings.
What’s important is that you choose metrics that measure activity as opposed to, say, the number of followers you have. Unless you’re looking to establish yourself as a credible source for marketing or business development that is! Longer term, you’re naturally going to want to put a monetary value on your social media efforts and this is where Google Analytics and or an effective CRM comes into play. On Google Analytics you can easily set up goals (such as download conversions) that can be linked to traffic sources. You can then track any that convert into sales further down the line.
TIP 12: Review your content
My final tip is to carry out a full review of your content:
- List each type of content you produce ie. blogs, whitepapers, press releases, videos, newsletters etc.
- Map your content against your prospects’ buying cycle.
- Identify areas in the buying cycle where you’re lacking content.
- Assess the messages in your content: the first 75% of the buying cycle should provide commercially-neutral solutions to your prospects’ problems whereas the last 25% should be self-promotional as you’ve established yourself as a trusted source.
- Assess the quality of your content and make sure it’s well written, informative and interesting. As yourself, would you share it?
So to wrap this up…
Whilst there are challenges to overcome when using social media, make no mistake; there are more advantages available. And, whether you chose to get involved or not, one thing is certain – your clients, prospects and competitors will be. You can treat it as an asset now; integrate it into your company by training the teams and see the returns unfold, or get left behind. It really is that simple.
I encourage you, as always to up your game and to seek out better ways to sell and market your business. Thank you, as always for reading. If you found this useful, tell your “friends” and get them to sign up to receive my information.
Now I want to hear from you…
Tell me in the comments below or in a private email:
- How are you dealing with social media when it comes to sales?
- What aspect of social media or social selling (if you're doing it) do you find the most challenging?
Please share your stories and experience here, and if you've got a question, just pop it down here.
Thanks for being a sport and participating!
P.S.
Finally, if you know someone who'd LOVE the insight from this 12 social selling expert tips post, please send them a link. You’ll find solo entrepreneurs, consultants and yes, even sales and marketing managers who manage people who'll be interested to hear about this.
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Great article Jane! It’s a shame people forget that social needs tying into the overall marketing strategy…
So much time can be wasted sending your fans and followers to ther people’s websites, hence why my view is create as much content as possible…the challenge is many business people find it hard to create content…
Kind Regards
Nat
@natschooler on Twitter