Did you know that 90% of top sales professionals use social selling tools to drive sales and increase profits?
The power of social selling should not be underestimated. Social media helps build relationships, generate leads, and keep your audience up to date on any relevant business news like new service launches.
In this ‘What You Need To Know’ guide, we’ll give you a run-through of the following:
Social selling is using social media channels to help build meaningful relationships with your target audience that, over time, transform into quality leads.
With the help of social selling, not only are you able to add new contacts to your network, but you’re also able to nurture existing relationships and build on them.
As the typical B2B buying journey can range from 6 to 12 months, social selling helps speed up that process by showing potential prospects that you are a thought leader within your industry.
Social selling is part of the ‘awareness’ stage of the sales funnel. Why? Because posting on social media helps you shine a light on your brand and shows your target audience who you are and what you do — therefore, creating brand awareness.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, most B2B brands neglected social selling and opted for in-person marketing efforts. This worked well at a time when in-person interactions were the preferred form of communication.
However, as the pandemic hit, 52% of in-person interactions were instantly dropped by B2B brands as they were forced to communicate digitally.
This was a brilliant transition as 70-80% of B2B buyers prefer digital communications instead of in person.
B2B marketers report that 80% of their social media leads stem from LinkedIn.
In fact, if you’re looking to boost organic traffic to your website and educate your target audience on your offerings, LinkedIn has the power to drive more traffic to your blogs and website than Facebook and Twitter combined.
Coming second to LinkedIn is Twitter. An estimated 82% of B2B brands use Twitter to distribute content and nurture leads.
Twitter is a quick way to spread information such as new offerings and events or share an insight into the company’s culture. As you’re limited to 280 characters, Twitter is perfect for short bursts of information that create quick engagement or navigate your audience.
Facebook is also a popular social media platform for B2B marketers. In fact, Facebook stated that business decision-makers spend on average 74% more time on Facebook than any other person.
YouTube comes 4th with 62% of B2B marketers utilising the video-streaming platform.
YouTube is a great platform to educate your audience and develop brand awareness. Whether you’re uploading a virtual event or explaining a complex issue, using video and audio can help you reach a wider audience and give your brand more personality by showing the humans behind it.
When building your B2B social media marketing strategy, you must incorporate a variety of content — from showcasing your services to sharing your company values.
At CopyHouse, our marketing team operates on an 80/20 split. Meaning that 80% of the content we publish via social media is about thought leadership, events, awards, company culture, etc.
The other 20% is the hard-sell content. Hard-sell content can include a campaign advertising the launch of a new service or an ad to book a consultation and interact with our team.
By having this approach, B2B customers can familiarise themselves with our brand before deciding whether they should acquire any services.
“Having this constant flow of content keeps our potential customers educated on who our brand is and what we do.
So, let's just say in four months, or in eight months time, they’re ready to purchase, they’ll think, “oh yeah, I know CopyHouse, I know that they produce thought-provoking content for technology and FinTech brands and I’m a technology or FinTech brand that needs content”.”
- Kinga Kusak, Marketing Manager at CopyHouse.
So, the information you share can consist of a wide variety of content. We recommend an 80/20 split because B2B marketing should be approached with a ‘to serve, not sell’ mentality.
However, before you start building content, you must understand your customers. You must know what’s keeping them up at night and how you can help resolve their issues. Knowing and understanding your customers will help you create content that builds strong relationships and pushes lead generation.
Did you know that 82% of people are more likely to trust a company when its senior executives are active on social media, and 77% are more likely to buy from such a company?
Why? Because people respond to people.
If you can make your personal branding work in harmony with your company branding, you will naturally see a higher interest in your offerings. When your audience engages with your personal content, they’ll also engage with your brand’s content and think of your business when they’re ready to buy.
Personal branding does not need to be complicated. You can start by simply discussing your journey, ups and downs, or even sharing newsworthy information. The key to personal branding is to share your passion and be consistent with your posts.
When building your personal brand, you do not necessarily need to share hard-sell content. Your audience will appreciate and interact with genuine and authentic posts.
Social selling connects you with your audience, helps you start conversations, and helps you generate strong leads. It also allows you to stand out from the crowd.
The technology marketing sector is very competitive, and with the rapid advancements in technology, it will continue that way for years to come.
So, you must get ahead of your competitors and show your audience why your brand is unique and what you have to offer in an authentic way that connects with your audience.
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