Regardless of the medium, selling is about building rapport. In a digital-first world, social selling has become one of the most fruitful ways for sales organizations to connect and build relationships with both prospects and customers. According to LinkedIn, 78% of social sellers outsell their peers who don’t use social media. The sooner sales organizations embrace social selling, the sooner they’ll realize that folding this tactic into their sales process is an effective way to build a pipeline, meet quotas, and increase profitability.

Build your personal brand

Done right, social selling can transform a sales representative into a trusted thought leader and industry expert. Your sales team can quickly begin to build their social footprint by simply offering relevant content on their personal social media handles. By doing so, sellers can position themselves as thought leaders by:

Posting about industry and market trends
Providing useful data points and insights
Addressing common customer challenges
Joining and commenting in relevant groups

Building a personal brand may sound daunting, but your sales team doesn’t necessarily need to create each post from scratch (although they could, if desired). Sales teams can generate more output by using a unified customer experience management (Unified-CXM) platform, which provides pre-approved content created for them by your central team. Whether they create their own content, leverage pre-approved content, or a mix of both, it’s recommended that they adhere to a regular publishing and engagement cadence so that your seller is always top-of-mind for your prospects.

Make the right connections on the right channels

Don’t assume your prospects are on all the same social media channels that you are. Take a buyer-centric approach and leverage insights generated from your social selling tool that can inform you where and when your prospects are most engaged.

Key stat: 39% of B2B professionals said social selling reduced the amount of time they had to spend researching potential leads (eMarketer)

Social selling isn’t just about generating more leads, it’s about generating the right leads. Fortunately, social media platforms contain an abundance of information about each user. Sellers can connect with prospects by searching based on company, job function, seniority level, and other relevant criteria.

Another way to prospect for and qualify leads is through data generated from the content that sales representatives post on their social media handles. Insights on engagement and sentiment will help you and your sales teams understand who’s interested in the topics that the seller is talking about, and therefore more likely to be interested in a solution that solves their challenges.

Build relationships with prospects

The first interaction with any prospect is critical. Social selling shouldn’t be used as another way for salespeople to spam prospects. Rather, it should be used to strategically engage the digitally active buyer so that a sales conversation can initiate. Instead of starting with a sales pitch, sellers should take the time to learn about each customer and, as previously mentioned, position themselves as subject matter experts.

Key stat: 83% of customers want their experience to be personalized (Accenture)

Leveraging an AI-powered social listening tool can help paint a picture of prospects even before an initial interaction. When an initial interaction takes place, it can also empower sales reps to personalize communications. Personalizing an interaction creates a more meaningful conversation and a way to build relationships more effectively. Once trust has been established, the buyer is more likely to be open to a call or meeting where a sales conversation is initiated.

Social selling can be overwhelming without the right technology partner. Sprinklr is here to help.