WHAT IS B2B SOCIAL SELLING?

B2B social selling is the process where salespeople use social media to connect with
prospects. You can use social networks like LinkedIn, Twitter, and even Instagram to find
your best prospects, form relationships with them, and build trust. After all, people buy
from people they like and trust, and you can either do this with a month of lunch meetings
and phone calls, or you can do it a few minutes at a time with social media.

The most effective way to use B2B social selling is to create thought leading content like
blog articles (like this one), videos, and podcasts, and then share them to your social
networks. This will establish you as an industry expert and tell your prospects that you’re
the one who likely has the solution to their problems.

(Note: We don’t necessarily recommend using Facebook for a B2B social selling tool.
Chances are your employer and your prospects’ employers frown upon using Facebook
during work hours. Additionally, your prospects no doubt use Facebook for personal
enjoyment; they don’t want you infringing on their personal time. And if you happen to
have opposing political and social viewpoints, you could kill the relationship. Hey, people
have killed friendships over this, so don’t think your business relationship will be the one
that survives it.)

WHAT B2B SOCIAL SELLING IS NOT

It is not advertising. It’s not blasting people with your special offers and links to your
website. It’s not you following hundreds of thousands of people in the hopes that
someone will see your message and call you.

Look, nobody likes advertising, and people look for ways to avoid it. That means
bombarding people with commercial message after commercial message is annoying,
and people will ignore and even block you. So don’t treat this like an advertising channel.
Have conversations, share important information, and treat people like actual people, not
sales targets.

HOW CAN YOU USE B2B SOCIAL SELLING?

If you’re already well-versed in social media, chatting with friends, sharing photos, posting
status updates, and so on, then you know how to do social selling. You just may not know
it yet. So here are a couple tips to help you boost your social selling game and start
reaching prospects.
Set up a listening post. Since people love using #hashtags in their social updates, you
can “listen” for those. For example, set up a column on Twitter’s Tweetdeck application.
Create columns for terms related to your specific industry — ours would be
#marketingautomation and #socialselling, for example. Whenever someone posts
something that you could help with, whether it’s a question or an article they wrote, help
them out. Answer their questions and share their articles with your own networks. This
creates a relationship with that person and you become a trusted resource.

You can also follow hashtags on Instagram, as well as search for hashtags on LinkedIn.
Pay attention to those as well, and have the same kinds of conversations with people.

Create your own content. You presumably have some knowledge and expertise about
your industry, so share it! Don’t just wait for selling opportunities. Write blog articles that
help people solve a particular problem. Post photos of your solution in action. Hold
webinars that teach people about a particular issue. If you have a podcast, bring potential
customers on as guests and ask them to share their own expertise. If you create enough
content, you’ll eventually establish your credibility and build up your reputation, which can
help you on your sales calls.
B2B social selling helps you establish your expertise so you don’t need to demonstrate it
whenever you meet new prospects. If they called you because of your social content, then
the proof portion of the sales process is done. They know what you can do, and they have
self-qualified to enter your sales funnel.

Social selling is an easy way for marketers and salespeople to reach a targeted audience
more effectively and for a lower price than any advertising you can do. You can measure
your results and continue to create great content that people will want to hear about. The
more you do, the better your results.

And if you don’t believe it can work, well, you’re reading this article, aren’t you?

To learn more about expanding your social networks and reaching the right people at the
right time, schedule some time to talk with one of our team members to learn more about
how our FIRE methodology can help you find and connect with buyers who are looking
for your product or service right now.