Let’s Stop Calling It Social Selling

5 minute read

Social Connections.

How many of your employees are already on social?

Over the past few years, Sales and Marketing teams have been inundated with the importance of “Social Selling”.

Pick your favorite source and you will find all of the data behind why you should be leveraging social media to sell (Forrester, LinkedIn, etc.).  

But recently, those of us in the field have started to see a backlash to this concept. Social Selling is just a fad, this is just a buzz word, no one has time for this fluff…

 

Social selling isn’t going anywhere

The problem is that the practice of social selling is not going to go anywhere. There are over 2.3 billion social media users globally and that number is expected to continue increasing.

It is becoming more and more evident that those who do not add this to their current selling skill set will fall too far behind to catch up.

With Millennials becoming more of the decision makers than any other generation, you either need to adjust or find a new job.

What the naysayers don’t realize is that social selling does not mean directly selling your products on Twitter or LinkedIn.

While there are industries that can do that, most will not see success with that strategy. Social selling means building digital relationships and being visible in your ecosystem so that when someone is ready to make a decision you will be top of mind.

Think of it like a networking event, the payoffs are in the connections you make and that takes time to develop.

You meet someone and exchange business cards (connect on LinkedIn), share a few emails to stay in touch (comments on LinkedIn posts and Tweets), invite them to lunch to remind them of why you are connected (Send a direct InMail with an interesting article), and answer questions when they call you looking for advice on a decision (via email).

“Social Selling” is just a new way of building and maintaining relationships, and the best part is you can do it anytime from anywhere.

 

What does it mean to build digital relationships and be visible?

Listening, being engaged, and being helpful. It’s that simple. The most important thing you can do for social selling is to be helpful and connect on a personal level.

Comment on your connections’ posts with thoughtful insight that shows you read their article. Send them comics that are related to a conversation you had.

Reach out to them when you see there is news about their company and see how that impacts them.

Be the friend you would like to have and you will see the benefits, both personally and professionally.

When you pair this “relationship building” with your own frequent posting about your company and industry, you will stay top of mind.

This will help you become the trusted source they are looking for when starting their purchasing process. Or perhaps they need advice on what companies to review, you will be the source they know is an expert in that field.

Invest your time in this modern day communication and you will start seeing modern day returns.

Remember, you aren’t expected to close deals on social media or even schedule meetings. You are only expected to form relationships and keep them. Let the other skills in your selling toolbox do the rest of the work.

 

Any other name but “Social Selling”

So, perhaps using the term “social selling” isn’t the right word.

It makes the assumption that you are selling on social media when in reality, you are just being a decent human being.

Whether you want to call it Social Helping, Digital Relationship Building, Influencing, or any other mouthful… just do it.

 

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