The Problem with Social Selling

The Problem with Social Selling

 

Sales professionals are now expected to use social media tools to find leads and convert clients, especially in B2B. The main problem with this, is many sales professionals aren't taught how social media works circa 2016. They don't realize they have to be active, communicate and be authentic on social media and not just use LinkedIn. A successful Twitter social selling technique, will always beat LinkedIn for the creation of partners, generation of sales, quality leads and making professional connections that matter. 

The reason for this is simple, Twitter is a micro channel that's more mobile, has a higher information density and is easier to target. Few Sales professionals know how to use twitter properly, compared with LinkedIn. Few sales professionals have a knack for using LinkedIn Pulse for inbound lead generation. They still believe in the old-model sales funnel, they trust it exists, and that cold calling 40-50 times a day, having to call back an average of 6 times, works. It doesn't. It's not a good ROI of their time. Its an old model of a sales process that is changing. Sales professionals have to change with the times. 

Show me a sales professional who is good at social selling, and I will show you one making $ with bonuses and in commission. The reality is also, Twitter has many hacking tools, that when used in conjunction, can boost a profile's lead generation and targeted followers for less $ than it would take for them to do it themselves, to a point. The modern social selling professional has to think like a hybrid marketer, even veer to the boundary of content marketing, to see what their audience really cares about. 

It's the job of a sales professional to convert leads, not necessarily to find them, but in a small company in B2B, sometimes it falls on your shoulders to do both. So in that case, check out twitter automation tools like Follow-Rocket. The Sales professional has to use "hacks", software, social dashboards as part of their social selling strategy, and not just rely on vanilla twitter and LinkedIn accounts that are not optimized, boosted and re-targeted. 

What I like about Follow-Rocket is they are a new service, this means they are hungry to get it right. 

FollowRocket, real followers, unreal results. 

Their Big-Bang package goes for 60 targeted tweets for about $300 per month. That's just 5$ a tweet, and while the value of a follower on Twitter is not perhaps as valuable as a LinkedIn contact in your industry, if you are selling a quality B2B product, the targeted tweets go a long way. If I'm a successful sales per, what's $300 a month split by as many sales people as our company has, for our company Twitter page? For a Small to medium sized business, let's say its split by 3, that's $100 for 1000 guaranteed followers, not a bad ratio at all for the potential cost to acquire a customer. 

Twitter automation tools in 2015 evolved to such a degree that B2B Making and Sales teams who are upgrading their techniques have to seriously consider testing them out and doing trials to boost their social selling in 2016. B2B lead generation requires social media, persuasive webinars, expert demos and quality leads themselves in 2016. This requires sales professionals getting more comfortable with SaaS services, mobile app tools and for once and for all, using LinkedIn and Twitter to their full potential. 

In the content marketing and attention economy, it's no longer consultancy who claim to be "digital experts" that are going to give you a high ROI, it's SaaS services and software tools that help you automate your job. Why spend $ on consultants who come with a big price tag, when you should be trying out tools to augment your social selling strategy and performance. Social media is just a tool, and for sales, you need tools for social media to get those conversions finally. What companies like FollowRocket offer is not just the tools, and results, but the analytics, the smart data that can help you optimize doing your job better. 

I'm impressed so far with what I've seen from FollowRocket, at the bottom of this page, are a bunch of case studies that might be worth taking a look at, because chances are, you aren't using Twitter aggressively & socially enough in your social selling strategy. 

 Follow Michael@ on Twitter 

____________________________________________________

Michael Spencer helps companies improve their content marketing, blogs, social media & video marketing initiatives. If you are a startup or smallbizz you may want to outsource some of your digital marketing needs. 

Follow my digital marketing tips on Instagram.

 Marketing & Advertising on Pulse. 

Social Media on Pulse. 

Nick Sutton

Managing Partner at WEPURPLE

9 年
回复
Mathieu Lapointe

?? Growth & Retention Marketing with Email for eCommerce Brands ??

9 年

I'd love to know if there has been a study conducted on the efficiency of sales channels that includes the newer ones such as social selling, adwords campaings, email, etc... PLEASE let me know!!

回复
Robert Meza

We help organizations design products, services, experiences, and communications that drive behavior change.

9 年

nice one Michael Spencer - The sales organization needs to change, but how hard do you think that will be?

要查看或添加评论,请登录

Michael Spencer的更多文章

  • The Fundamental Lie of OpenAI's Mission

    The Fundamental Lie of OpenAI's Mission

    Welcome Back, Everyone from OpenAI to DeepSeek claims they are an AGI startup, but the way these AI startups are…

    12 条评论
  • Vibe Coding: Revolution or Regression Students and Non-coders?

    Vibe Coding: Revolution or Regression Students and Non-coders?

    Good Morning, As the vibe coding interface takes shape, I’ve been checking out a new startup coming out of stealth this…

    8 条评论
  • The Truth about DeepSeek's Integration in China and WeChat Explained

    The Truth about DeepSeek's Integration in China and WeChat Explained

    DeepSeek's rapid integration in China is a bigger story that is being told. It's not just the China Cloud leaders…

    4 条评论
  • How AI Datacenters Work

    How AI Datacenters Work

    Good Morning, Get the full inside scoop on key AI topics for less than $2 a week with a premium subscription to my…

    5 条评论
  • How Nvidia is down 30% from its Highs

    How Nvidia is down 30% from its Highs

    If like me, you are wondering why Nvidia is down more than 20% this year even when the demand is still raging for AI…

    7 条评论
  • What DeepSeek Means for AI Innovation

    What DeepSeek Means for AI Innovation

    Welcome to another article by Artificial Intelligence Report. LinkedIn has started to "downgrade" my work.

    16 条评论
  • What is Vibe Coding?

    What is Vibe Coding?

    Good Morning, Get access to my best and complete work for less than $2 a week with premium access. I’m noticing two…

    23 条评论
  • TSMC "kisses the Ring" in Trump Chip Fab Announcement

    TSMC "kisses the Ring" in Trump Chip Fab Announcement

    Good Morning, To get the best of my content, for less than $2 a week become a premium subscriber. In the history of the…

    9 条评论
  • GPT-4.5 is Not a Frontier Model

    GPT-4.5 is Not a Frontier Model

    To get my best content for less than $2 a week, subscribe here. Guys, we have to talk! OpenAI in the big picture is a…

    15 条评论
  • On why LLMs cannot truly reason

    On why LLMs cannot truly reason

    ?? In partnership with HubSpot ?? HubSpot Integrate tools on HubSpot The HubSpot Developer Platform allows thousands of…

    3 条评论

社区洞察

其他会员也浏览了