Since its inception and growth, social media has become a popular tool for businesses to spread information about their company and offerings. However, social media isn’t just for information sharing these days because it can also be used for social selling.
For those unfamiliar with the term, social selling enables companies to use various social media platforms to get and develop leads for potential clients and partners. While it is similar to social media marketing, social selling enables companies to engage with prospects and build their credibility. In turn, this will get customers to purchase what you have to offer and support your brand.
If you wish to get started with social selling, here are 10 tactics you should apply:
Optimise your Social Profile
In social media, first impressions can make or break your image. Your social media profile acts like a resume, which will sell your brand to potential clients and partners. You must do your best to optimize it to get the desired results, or else people will look elsewhere.
You can optimize your social profile by using hi-res photos for your posts, completing your profile, adding links to your social media and keeping your posts up-to-date.
Build Brand Credibility
You must show your potential customers and followers why you are the brand they should work with. You can prove this to your audience by showing testimonials or reviews from your previous customers, or you can ask for endorsements from your followers or partners, which you can display in your profile.
Engage with Your Followers
No matter how many followers you have on your social media profile, it is best to interact with them so they know that you are listening to their comments and genuine in reaching out to them. Responding to comments, starting a discussion and responding to criticisms and complaints are just some of the ways you can engage with your followers.
Get Real Reviews
When customers try out your services, ask them for their review because this will help you build trust and sway others into trying it out for themselves. When others see these reviews, they will be able to relate and see that your brand is trustworthy.
If you can’t get reviews from customers yet, why not ask a known product reviewer and get them to review it on their website?
Make Interesting Content
Your profile shouldn’t just be comprehensive for customers to see you are trustworthy. You also have to show that you know what your industry is, what your products and services are like, and what audience you are targeting.
The best way to do this is by creating exciting content related to your brand, offerings and industry. They must be eye-catching and helpful so your customers or followers can share them with others. You must also include relevant hashtags in these posts to add more exposure to your post. If you see content from other experts that you want to share, don’t hesitate to share it.
Social Listening
The art of social listening involves monitoring conversations, retweets, mentions and issues related to your business and finding ways to engage or resolve them. You can do this efficiently using tools like Social Pilot, Google Alerts and even Hootsuite. They have features that will allow you to see what is being discussed about your company, competition and the industry itself.
By checking what is being discussed about you and your competition, you are getting insight into what can still be done to improve your current strategy and deliver the experience your customers want. It will also help you identify which areas to explore further to get new customers and get ahead of your competition.
Use Groups
Social media sites nowadays have a group feature where users can reach out to their customers and partners in a more private setting. Out of all the social media sites that have this feature, it is recommended that you try out LinkedIn Groups, especially for social selling. The site can help you reach out to other B2B content marketers who can help promote your brand to a much wider audience.
Analyse Social Media Metrics
Check the social media metrics to know if your social selling is doing well. By checking the data, you will know which tactics are doing well for your strategy and find the right solutions to make it more efficient.
Always Be Consistent
Like other marketing strategies, social selling must be consistent with creating credibility. Results will not be immediate, but if you continue to follow your content schedule, interact with your customers and reach out to potential partners, people will notice and respond.
Use other social media channels
Finally, it would be best to give your potential clients and partners other ways to reach out to you because they may have different platform preferences. If you managed to reach out to them on LinkedIn, give them the links to your other social media accounts.
If your business wants to achieve its sales goals and garner active impressions, you must maximise all the avenues to help you. With social selling, you can build a strong following for your brand and make them regular clients.
Want your business to sustain? Then check out these tips to help you out: 3 Tips For Warming Up Old Business Leads Why Your Business Should Care About Instagram Likes 5 Key Questions to Ask Yourself When You’re Struggling to Grow Your Business
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