Here is a very simple definition of social media selling which will help your thinking on the subject: Social media selling is selling on social media! It’s not magical. It’s not the automated machine learning algorithm. Examine your method of selling. You probably begin by collecting data and finding people to whom you can sell – qualified prospects. How would you begin selling on social media? Surprisingly, you begin by finding qualified prospects.
LinkedIn is a great social media platform to do prospecting. Use the advanced people search. Look for people in your geographic area who have titles such as “owner” or “founder.” Rather than normal prospecting in the field or buying a list, you are simply finding people and gathering information on social media. Social media prospecting is very beneficial in that you can get more data. Once you find prospects, look them up on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube to see if there is more information available.
After finding qualified prospects, your next step in selling is to introduce yourself. So, guess what you do next in social media selling? Here are three ways to introduce yourself on social media:
After introducing yourself, the next step in sales is to collect information from prospects. In my opinion, traditional sales techniques are much more effective than social media at this point of the sales process. Once you’ve closed a deal, you can again revert to social media to get referrals and stay up-to-date with customers.
One of my own favorite social media selling tactics is on LinkedIn. I can set up a search which will provide a weekly email showing any new people on my network who are first or second degree connections and who have the word “owner” or “founder” in their profile. This supplies many leads every week who are referrals on whom I can follow up. However, collecting information and closing the deal still needs personal interaction. Doing that over the internet is very difficult.
Social media selling is quite simple. It is hard work just like any other kind of selling. It requires skill just like any other kind of selling. It requires action from you just like any other kind of selling. So, please don’t get hung up with social media selling like it is something from outer space. It’s selling on social media!
I hope this helps you today.
My name is James Shepherd. Thanks for reading.
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