Sales Social Selling for Client Outreach (And How Automation Helps) Kalli Ringelberg Aug 4, 2022 7 mins read We have all become quite comfortable with using social media in the past few years, but that doesn’t make social selling a breeze. Social selling is a practice where you use a company’s social media channel (or your personal profile) to connect and engage with potential leads. It is often used to develop a relationship so that when your prospects are ready to make a purchase, they look to you first. To demonstrate a pitfall that many revenue-generating professionals fall into, we should discuss what social selling is NOT. It is important to understand that social selling is not spam. It is not used to bombard strangers with unsolicited direct messages or to send them links and information they’ve never asked for. It’s also important to not see social selling as simply adding new contacts to your list. You will need to approach these prospects with something of value—a solution to a problem—to build trust and, eventually, loyalty. Social selling works. Businesses that use social selling create 45% more sales opportunities than brands that don’t. And they are 51% more likely to reach their sales quotas. Ease into social selling A very effective way to do social selling successfully is to make sure you know exactly what your audience needs and then to quickly, and effectively, demonstrate value. Use social media posts and videos to show your understanding of what your ideal client needs and how you can help them. This is a non-invasive way to get a prospect familiar with what you offer. Here are some important steps to take to add value to your prospects: Identify what social media platforms your ideal client uses;Find your ideal client on that platform;Learn the correct format to deliver valuable and helpful information (ie graphics, ads, video, blogs, etc.);Reach out to them directly once they’ve engaged with your content. Right now, 78% of businesses that effectively use social selling outsell businesses that don’t use social media for sales opportunities. Amplify your reach with social media platforms like LinkedIn When in-person events and conferences were cancelled due to the pandemic, organizations needed to find creative solutions to connect with others. Social media isn’t new, but using it as a stepping stone to develop a relationship has been becoming more and more popular. For more traditional companies, attending events led to crucial networking and sales opportunities. Social media and digital approaches helped revenue-generating teams find their customers where they are. And since 97% of customers research products online and 47% of buyers view at least 3-5 pieces of content before contacting a sales representative, social selling makes a whole lot of sense. Social selling offers a more gentle approach rather than a hard sell. You can build relationships with your ideal client by understanding their social media behaviours. 89% of top-performing salespeople noted that social sites such as LinkedIn are important in closing deals, and 70% of sales professionals are active on LinkedIn for business purposes. Instagram and Facebook are moving up the ranks There are multiple automation tools that allow you to get ahead of your competition. You can use these tools to identify leads who are talking about your business, your competitors, your industry, and even your product or services. Even Instagram is getting a piece of the action. 200 million Instagram users visit a profile at least once a day and 81% are researching products and services on the platform. Whereas 18.3% of Facebook users made a purchase via Facebook in 2020. However, LinkedIn is still leading in terms of social selling. Sales representatives can connect with individuals on LinkedIn after an event, or from a list of leads gathered from your lead enrichment process. Check out how to get the most out of your lead enrichment process with our Wrkflow. Automated social selling gives you an extra leg up Social selling is a long game. It requires a lot of commitment and attention before it can really start to take off and return on your investment. There are many daily tasks that can easily be automated so you can kick off the strategy more effectively. Automated social selling is a staple of any serious selling strategy that you’re trying to incorporate or scale with. By arming yourself with automated steps in your social selling process, you’re putting yourself in a position to reach more desirable prospects, engage with them more effectively, and ultimately, make more sales. Once you have these steps running, they can help you to build up your relationship with your ideal customers, while you work on high-value tasks like creating new content and generating ideas to nurture your clients and build interest from new ones. We have Wrk Actions specially designed to jump-start your social selling strategies and create more opportunities. Wrk Actions to add to your social selling strategy Generate a personalized direct message on LinkedIn. This Wrk Action was developed to automate your outreach and communication with your prospects via LinkedIn. It is very popular amongst revenue-generating teams who use LinkedIn as a communication tool. This Wrk Action will generate a personalized message based on their recent LinkedIn activity and role updates. Send a direct message to a specific Instagram profile. Communicate without losing the personal touch. Reach out and send a direct message to a user without spamming them. Create a personalized text to send out to an individual or a business account on Instagram. This Wrk Action is designed to use common interests to connect with a user based on their preferences and what is shown on their profile. Send a reply on Twitter. This Wrk Action allows you or your team members to reply directly to specific tweets to have a point of connection before attempting to build a relationship. By using their own tweet to connect, you’re demonstrating a common point of interest to build on, rather than using a cold approach. Send a text in WhatsApp. More and more people have used WhatsApp Business to connect directly with their prospects and to close deals. This allows them time to respond on their own and from the comfort of their own space. Find your clients where they are with Wrk Actions that can improve your communication. Check out more of our Wrk Actions and connect them to an automated Wrkflow that works for your sales strategy! Share This Article Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email