Social Selling: how can you use social media to boost your business sales?

Relationships are the foundation of being human. When we are born, we develop relationships with our family almost immediately. When we go to school, we relate to those we trust and we easily trust those we identify with. Human beings are social beings who develop emotional relationships with everything: people, animals, things and even brands. But how can someone develop a relationship of trust with your brand without ever having bought it?!
We live in the digital age, and it is through this age that many relationships are developed. We have the ability to connect with our friends, family and even strangers. And it’s also on social networks that you can develop a relationship of trust with a potential consumer of your brand, who has never heard of it or bought anything from it. And this is what we call Social Selling.

What is Social Selling?
Social Selling is a digital marketing term created to describe how companies use social networks as a strategy to build relationships with their customers (or potential customers) and then generate sales.

To apply this strategy to your company, it’s not enough to post content on social media, it’s crucial that you develop a marketing strategy that generates engagement and sales. By applying this strategy correctly, you will develop trusting relationships with your potential customers, increase your company’s social credibility and, as a result, sell.
With all the developments in technology and digital, the way we sell or connect with our customers has also changed. Old sales techniques, such as telephone contact as the first interaction with your potential consumer, have now been replaced by social media.

The relationship with our potential customer begins on our social networks. They are our “store window”.
Social Selling is a non-aggressive sales technique, as it is based on developing a relationship with your potential customer before anything else.
That’s why it’s so important to develop a social media strategy tailored to your potential customer. Therefore, as you may already know from previous articles, the first step is to get to know your target audience and analyze where they are and what their preferences are when it comes to consuming content.

But what role does Social Selling play in business?

In all sales, there is always a relationship between someone who has a need and wants to solve it and a brand that has the ideal solution and wants to sell it. Social selling has been around for many years. What has changed now is the speed and efficiency with which these relationships are created through Social Selling. With the changes in the digital world, consumer relations have also changed. As we’ve already mentioned, we’re constantly bombarded with information, promotions and perfect solutions for our needs. That’s why, these days, we look for trusting relationships with brands before we even think about buying a product.
Social networks are the perfect place to develop these relationships of trust between brands and consumers, since they are already considered spaces for socializing and leisure. And who do we hang out with? Those we trust.

By now we believe you’re already a fan of this digital marketing strategy. However, for the more skeptical, here are a few more advantages you should consider about Social Selling:
Improves your brand’s relationship with the consumer

The first advantage of Social Selling could only be this. Through this strategy, you can improve your relationship with your customers and reduce the interaction between salespeople and them. With the arrival of social media, you can start to build a strong relationship with your customer without having to resort to calls or even emails. As time goes by, and your customers interact with your social media posts, the bonds become stronger.
New customers appear

With a Social Selling approach in your company, you have the opportunity to attract and win over customers who have never even heard of your brand. Whether it’s through active prospecting that reaches out to potential customers or passive prospecting that piques their interest, you can explore ways to bring both parties closer together.
Reduces the sales cycle

When your Social Media Manager creates a relationship with consumers on social networks, all the work of persuasion to prove the value of your company becomes shorter and less expensive, since through interaction with your networks you already make your product/brand seen as trustworthy. What’s more, your salespeople already know your customers better, which makes the whole process much simpler.

Reduces the cost of customer acquisition

By reducing the sales cycle, the cost of making a sale also decreases. The company no longer has to invest in numerous approaches and saves time that it can allocate to other tasks.
Increases customer retention

Customers who buy with confidence tend to be loyal to companies for longer. Once they have consciously chosen a particular company/brand, they understand the value of the product and/or service they have purchased and know that it will be useful to them in their daily lives. They therefore remain loyal for longer.

How can you adopt an effective Social Selling strategy for your brand?
As with all the marketing strategies we’ve presented so far, to adopt Social Selling for your brand, there are a few important steps you need to follow for this sales method to be effective:

– Define who your customer is: this is the most important stage in whatever strategy you define for your company. You can’t develop a relationship with your customer or sell your product without knowing who you’re doing it for;
– Study which networks they are on: this stage depends on your company’s strategy. Is it B2B (Business to Business) or B2C (Business to Consumer)? Only after answering this question will you be able to see whether you need to invest more in Linkedin (the social network most commonly used to create a B2B relationship) or Facebook/Instagram (the social network most commonly used for B2C);
– Pay attention to content: the last step will depend on the first two. You can only define what type of content to share once you know who your customer is and which social network you want to invest in. At this stage it’s crucial that you take a few points into consideration so that your content is effective:
– Images: try to share quality images. If social media is your company’s shop window, you can’t have dirty windows, right? So invest in quality photos and creative content;
– Hashtags: the use of hashtags allows your content to reach a greater number of people, and these should be adapted to the content you are publishing. You can have some hashtags that are transversal to all your publications, however, the hashtags must be adapted to what you are publishing, which means that they may change with each publication;
– Digital influencer: using a public figure that makes sense for your business will only increase the trust it conveys. So partner up with digital influencers who connect with your audience;
– Stories: these are an excellent way of creating a connection with your potential customers. For this reason, they must be able to capture attention and create engagement with your audience.

Relationships are the most valuable thing human beings have, so try to create good relationships with your potential consumers. If you need help, you can count on us.

Written by Inês Oliveira, digital marketer.