Emerging Trends in Social Selling

The Evolving Nature of Sales

Remember the day when sales was about cold calls and hard, personal selling? All of that is coming to an end, or so it seems. No one really enjoys getting a cold call and few really care to be pushed into a sale either, especially people in younger generations.

Nowadays what's more common is social selling, or the use of social media to generate interest in your company and sale your goods and services.

Social Selling Will be a New Norm

The vast majority of people don't respond to cold calls anymore and many people want nothing to do with interacting with a sales professional in person, they're just seen as being too pushy.

Instead, the majority of people and businesses will turn to social media, in one way or another, to make their buying decision. This could mean asking people on social media for advice or interacting with companies on social media to get a read on what kind of company they are or what product(s) they offer.

Social media simply allows for a more comfortable experience for B2B (business to business) and B2C (business to client) sales processes. As a result, there's every reason to believe social selling will become the new norm.

Social Imprint

One important trend in social selling is the emphasis on social imprint. This refers to the mark, effect, clout, and following an individual has on social networks. As you can imagine, a sales professional with a small social imprint may not be seen as equally marketable or hirable to a company as one with an extended network of loyal followers tuning into their every word.

Marketing & Sales

Social selling has also continued to blur the line between marketing and sales. Marketing, the branch that tells people what to want, and sales, the branch that tells them why they want it, are both part and parcel of social selling in many ways.

Ultimately, sales professionals must tailor their social content, outreach, and networking strategies in a way that simultaneously tells the prospective client the what and the why in a fluid fashion.

Micromarketing

Another emerging social selling trend is micromarketing, a marketing strategy focused on highly targeted groups of individuals where even one - to - one messaging and custom - tailored marketing becomes possible. This is another case where marketing and sales gets blurred in social selling.