5 Embarrassing Mistakes Your Salespeople Are Making with Social Selling

Maybe this seems like old news in 2017, but it bears stating and restating: Social media has completely reshaped the way we do business. Disruptive outbound marketing techniques, dreaded by customers and modern salespeople alike, have been replaced with the power of social selling. Your sales team now has a direct line to prospects and customers from all over the world—any time, anywhere. But with great power comes great responsibility.

Social selling is not foolproof. It can be perfected to an art form just like the selling techniques of yesteryears. However, a misunderstanding and underutilization of social selling tools and platforms can be detrimental to your business. Social selling requires your salespeople to be more skilled and aligned than ever before.

Consider this: It’s much easier to bounce back from misspeaking during a cold call. Now with the internet, an embarrassing social selling blunder can be archived for posterity and continue hurting you in the future. You need to fix the embarrassing mistakes your salespeople are making today. The future of your business might depend on it.

1. Not Posting Often Enough

Do you hear that? It’s the sound of crickets and your business slowly slipping into obscurity. Yes, it’s great that you went ahead and created a blog, Facebook page, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn page for your business. However, it can look unprofessional if you do not post consistently on these platforms. Sporadic engagement, a lack of valuable content, and a low number of followers looks amateurish.

Remedy the situation by implementing a publishing schedule. If you’re new to social selling, it’s understandable that you might have to walk before you run—but that’s no excuse for disengagement. Use social media scheduling platforms like TweetDeck to plan your posts in advance and slot them to go out at high-traffic times of the day, and create a blog strategy so that you’re not scrambling to produce content at the last minute.

2. An Unprofessional Profile

For social selling to be effective, you need to create a strong, professional brand. Your salespeople’s LinkedIn profiles are often at the heart of that brand. That’s why it’s so surprising (and painful) to see sales reps with blurry selfies or badly cropped photos taken at the bar as their LinkedIn profile pictures.

An inappropriate photo is only the beginning. Your salespeople’s LinkedIn profiles are like social selling resumes, so there’s absolutely no room for typos, abbreviations, internet slang, or bad grammar.

Get your reps to write their profiles with your buyer personas in mind. They should use the space they have to summarize their stories, highlight their professional accomplishments, and invite prospects to get in touch. Adding some flair and personality is encouraged—but this should be practised in moderation.

3. Too Pushy

Social selling is such an effective method because it caters to the new way customers buy. People no longer respond to interruptive sales tactics, nor do they want to be pressured or badgered. Customers are empowered, well-informed, and well-researched. They are mostly in control of the sales cycle now, not the other way around.

So salespeople who are coming off as too pushy, impatient, insincere, or too focused on closing will completely repel customers on social media channels. The beauty of social selling is that you can build meaningful relationships, add value to your customers’ lives, and establish trust and credibility. But if your reps only use social media platforms to sell, sell, sell—then they’re completely missing out on great opportunities.

Customers will smell the desperation a mile away.

4. Getting Uncomfortably Personal

As we mentioned before, injecting some personality and adding a personal touch is desirable when it comes to social selling. Your salespeople should come off as just that—people. However, boundaries are important and it’s crucial that your reps do not cross the line when it comes to getting too personal or familiar too quickly. Social selling should never feel creepy or emotionally taxing on prospects.

Ensure your reps use common sense and never lose sight of the fact that though social media blurs the lines between personal and professional, they’re still doing business. They shouldn’t make assumptions and they should try to steer clear from conversations about religion, sexual preference, politics, or family life.

In other words, it’s okay for your salespeople to mention they have kids, but they shouldn’t go overboard in detailing every private, intimidate parenting struggle they go through daily. They need to know when to hold back.

5. One Size Does Not Fit All

Though similarities exist, all individuals are different. The same can be said about social media platforms. Even sites that seem similar possess their own unique languages, audiences, and virtual communities that interact in specific ways. If your salespeople are targeting all social media channels in the same way, it’ll not only be ineffective—it might come across as spam.

As with all components of social selling, you need to go in with a plan and clearly established goals. Spend some time researching the sites that are most relevant to your buyer personas and develop a targeted strategy to reach those customers. Tailoring your messaging accordingly and creating individualized value will distinguish your salespeople from the rest.

Have any questions? Please share your questions, expertise, opinions, or tips in the comment section below!