Social Selling for B2B is key to meet and engage new prospects – as physical meetings remain far apart and more and more buyers move online. Here are 4 tips that can help you boost your social selling:
1. Polish your profile
Whether you’re using LinkedIn or some other social platform for your social selling, you will interact with prospects and leads with your account and profile. Which makes it fairly important to give said profile some serious thought, and make sure it highlights your organization and is both relevant and nicely structured. Or, as a Business2Community article explained it:
“If someone clicks your profile, you want them to be able to find out what you do, how you add value, a link to your website and any contact information so they can easily get in touch.”
2. Share relevant posts – and add a little self promotion
By creating and sharing relevant posts and news, you can build trust and awareness for you and your business. This can also be a great way to find prospects to engage with, as you can strike up a conversation with those who are liking or commenting your posts. Just make sure that you keep the self-promoting to a good level – i.e. not too much, and not too little – in order to really build trust and awareness at the same time. Where a recent Forbes article noted that:
“While too much self-promotion can be off-putting, periodically letting people know what you do and who you can help can create relevant leads.” Which we think explains it rather well, as it’s super important not to be too pushy about your own agenda and product/service.
3. Become a thought leader
The same Forbes article also explained that if you “share your expertise on topics of business-related interest within your marketplace, prospects who need that information might find you before you find them…”. In other words, you can actively engage prospects who are acitvely engaging with your posts, but you may also get prospects to take the first step.
This can take some time, though, as you may really have to position yourself as an obvious thought leader before prospects come to you. Still, it’s a solid, long-term goal to have, and that you can definitely reach if you manage to share relevant insights over time.
4. Make the relationship a 2-way street
While it’s great to have prospects engaging with your content, it’s important to remember that a good relationship goes both ways. In other words, you may want to engage with your prospects’ content as well, in order to build a truly mutual, professional releationship that you can build on.
Here, the previously mentioned Business2Community article gives a pretty good tip, explaining that:
“When you connect with prospects, stay in touch with them over time and engage in their content. Not every single post, but enough so they recognize you.” I.e. don’t overdo it, but keep in touch and show that you’re acknowledging and appreciating the things they share.
Social selling can be key for B2B sales professionals. Especially in this day and time, when B2B is going more digital by the minute and customers are spending more and more time online. Meaning that social selling can be a legit part of your new, digital sales strategy, and can complement other digital initiatives such as the use of a digital salesroom or other sales enablement tools that aim at meeting the customer where they are.
Are you looking for more tips on how to grow and close sales in a digital and remote world? Check out our Remote Sales Hub or contact us for a demo and talk to one of our Remote-Sales Experts.
