At a time when social media has infiltrated seemingly all aspects of life, it’s only natural that the platforms have offered a new tactic in the sales world for lead generation.
Social selling has taken over the sales world. While cold calling and email pitches are still common outreach methods, many salespeople are using platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, TikTok, and others to find new prospects, make genuine connections, and develop a network of contacts—often leading to higher conversions and sales.
“Social selling is like the modern sales approach,” Melissa Glick, founder of consulting and coaching firm Peak CEO, said. “It kind of is a rebrand of traditional sales. It’s really about building relationships and connecting with potential clients through the use of social media. Instead of using traditional sales methods like making 100 cold calls a day, sending direct mail, or sending cold emails to people, what you’re doing is you’re trying to nurture people, nurture relationships, develop relationships, and engage with people in a more authentic way. It’s a little bit more of a longer process, but it’s based on really adding value to people, providing something to people before you even think about making a sale.”
Data shows that social selling is making an impact. According to LinkedIn research, 78% of social sellers are outselling their peers who don’t use social media. Among leaders, 51% are more likely to reach their sales quotas.
The success of social selling is rooted in authenticity, according to Glick and other experts like Helena Klaus, founder of sales training company Sales in Dach, who advise sellers to focus more on building relationships than actual selling.
“You can't approach social selling like, ‘I’ve got a product or I’ve got a service that I’m trying to make money on,’” Glick said. “You have to approach it by offering something—by building trust, and going into it thinking, ‘I’m looking to build relationships with people,’ because social selling isn’t transactional; it’s relational.”
According to Klaus, authenticity comes from understanding what you’re selling and who you want to target.
“First of all, understand what it is that you want to talk about that you can be authentic about,” she said. “Also with that, you have to understand, what do you want to do? Do you want to educate? Do you want to entertain? Do you want to share knowledge? Then from there, you can break it down into ownership and consistency.”
Understanding where your key targets are is another crucial step of social selling. Given its professional nature, LinkedIn is a preferred platform for social selling. The digital rolodex company even has its own “Social Selling Index score,” which shows sellers how effective they are on social networks.
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Glick and Klaus have also seen social selling on Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram when those platforms are more relevant to the seller and what they are offering.
For Megan Duong, founder and CEO of social listening platform Plot, social selling proved to be the best tactic for lead generation. Duong, whose background is in social media marketing, has consistently posted updates and insights on LinkedIn about Plot over the last year. She said the posts have brought in such a high level of inbound clients, like beauty brand Essie and candy company SmartSweets, that Plot doesn’t currently do any outbound outreach.
“In the world of where we’re targeting, which is enterprise, people are actually creating stricter spam filters because of phishing,” she said. “So, what else are you going to do to get the person's attention? There’s only three options: There’s outbound, there’s spending more money on paid ads, which is obviously very costly for a startup, or you create good content that actually attracts your audience.”
Social selling offers a more modern and personable sales tactic in an increasingly innovative field. At a time when AI is taking over many day-to-day functions and interactions, social selling offers a more human-to-human experience.
“There’s this stigma around sales that it’s aggressive, that it's pushy,” Glick said. “People feel like it gives them the ‘ick’ and social selling is more focused on the relationship, so you get to know your audience. You’re seen as the trusted advisor. I’m super passionate about it because it’s more human. It focuses on being authentic and it focuses on the connection, which is the core of my approach to business.”
Social selling also benefits the sellers. Klaus emphasized how the individual seller is mostly in control of their own social media platforms and is able to take them and the network they’ve built from job to job.
Ultimately, experts see social selling as the future of sales, stressing that companies and sellers who haven’t jumped on the bandwagon need to do so in order to succeed.
“Any business that’s not on social media is going to be completely left in the dust by their competition because this is what people are doing,” Glick said. “If you’re not on board with learning social selling, with using that to change how you approach driving revenue in your company, I think you’re missing the boat.”