The Science of Social Selling, Part II

3 Reasons Why You Should Prioritize Social Selling

While your kids binge on Netflix, your channel customers should be binging on your content. After all, 41% of B2B buyers consume three to five pieces of content online before they engage with a salesperson. So, it's important to reach them where they are. Below are three reasons why adding social selling to your daily to-do list will "print money" while you sleep, figuratively speaking of course!

Reason #1: Social apps are open for business 24/7.

So, first things first. Let's make sure you've got the social selling basics wrapped up, so you can turn any device into a lead generation machine.

Your platform awaits. Here are your top three B2B social media options:

LinkedIn #1 B2B social marketing channel with almost 600 million users, three million of whom share content every week. In fact, 91% of executive list LinkedIn as the top place to find quality content, 57% of which is accessed by phone.
Twitter Twitter — 330 million active users and a very good place for content marketing. The short format ensures quick reads and conversions; 80% access it via phone.
YouTube Second largest search engine (following Google), and over a billion hours of video shown a day. An excellent website to see what your competitors are saying to their customers; 70% access it by phone.

Reason #2: Great selling and channel content creates great sales leads.

While your social apps are set up to become your lead machine, it's important to become a content master. In essence, content is the fuel for social selling.

Many sales people are reluctant to publish on social platforms, often because they don't believe they're good writers. But, you don't have to be! Simply find an article you think is important, copy the link, and insert the story. It's called "content curation" — you share posts other authors created. As a matter of fact, it's considered a compliment to the original social authors when you share their work.

In an excellent article, Todd Clarke of Hootsuite outlines six key benefits of curating content:

  • Be recognized as an expert. Be deliberate about what you want your fans and followers to think about your brand.

  • It's easier than creating your own. Share something excellent already created for you.

  • Show you're in the game. Also, it gets old when companies post only their own stuff.

  • Grow your network. When helping others, others help you.

  • Grow your business. If you've got something worth saying, created or curated, you've got people's attention.

  • Stay informed. Curating and sharing content keeps you on your business-toes.

Reason #3: Social selling is as easy as looking at your phone.

You already know your customers are accessing their social apps primarily from their phones. You want your content to reach your customers every time they reach for their phones. As they connect to your content, you're connecting to them and building a prospect list: day or night, anywhere in the world, holidays included. All great social selling journeys start with your first post.

Check out the conversations and additional content to learn more about social selling:

Theresa Caragol

CEO AchieveUnite

Theresa Caragol is Founder and CEO of Achieve Unite. She has more than 24 years experience in building and managing multi-million-dollar indirect channel teams and strategic alliance business and programs from idea to revenue acceleration, and building companies and channel teams from the ground up. She also holds a number of industry advisory board roles, and has co-founded numerous industry think tanks and industry leadership forums. Theresa is on CompTIA's (Global IT Association)'s faculty and is passionately focused on assisting young people to accelerate their success in the industry. She also started ACE, a leadership by influence program, that rapidly builds women's leadership skills in the channel. Theresa has 2 elementary school boys, lives near Washington DC and is on a mission to visit 15 DC museums with her boys in 2019.