With the prevailing and ever-increasing flow of information in society, selling services or products is becoming a growing concern for sellers around the world. Unlike the pre-internet era, the present-day salesmen realise that they must be delicate and unobtrusive to succeed with the current, more informed prospects.
In the present context, instead of trying to sell a product right here and now, as salespeople have practised for many decades, companies are now forced to implant the idea into prospects’ minds by being omnipresent in the market.
Almost all Sri Lankan companies, large, medium, and small, have some kind of business profile on one or more social media platforms. However, the salient fact to consider is whether they are in control of such platforms.
If wrong strategies are used in social media activities, an organisation’s sales drive may suffer more harm than good. Also, as the competition is also trying to sell through social media, the companies must match their efforts to prevent competitors from grabbing their customers.
What is social selling? It is the process of connecting with prospects, developing a connection with them, and engaging with potential leads using social media networks. The strategy can assist organisations in effectively and successfully meeting their sales goals. Social selling is becoming increasingly important in modern markets because of the widespread use of social media platforms by consumers, as well as the rise of remote work and digital commerce.
Consider social marketing to be modern relationship-building. Regularly engaging with potential consumers on social media may help you become the first brand a prospect thinks of when they’re ready to buy. It may also replace antiquated relationship-building and sales approaches such as cold calling.
Nevertheless, social selling is certainly not about inundating prospects with constant social media messages that can annoy them. Social selling is more than just arbitrarily adding new connections to your contact list. It is all about making those conversations relevant and portraying your company as a problem-solver. If the organisation can act on these principles, it can effectively increase its chances of gaining the trust and loyalty of people, including prospects.
Key benefits
One of the key benefits of social selling is that it helps develop trust between businesses and its customers. Sales professionals may interact with their audience in a more authentic and personal manner by establishing a presence on popular social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. This strategy helps to develop the organisation’s credibility.
Social media also helps immensely to enhance the visibility of a company, as they are vast, have enormous reach, and provide businesses with broad audiences. By leveraging these platforms, sales professionals can create awareness about their company, brand, and products or services, making it easier for potential customers to find them.
Social selling allows sales professionals to personalise their approach. By collecting information about the interests and preferences of their potential customers from social media profiles, salesmen can tailor their messaging and approach to meet the unique needs of each customer. This personalisation can make the sales process more effective, efficient, and successful.
The social media engagement also provides salespeople with real-time feedback from their audiences. They offer valuable data about the reach and response of a company’s content. By analysing data, the sales team can gain insights into the preferences and interests of their audience, allowing them to optimise their approach to better resonate with potential customers.
Social selling is a relationship-driven approach that allows businesses to engage with their customers in a more personal and meaningful way. The approach can help build long-term relationships, leading to greater customer loyalty and repeat business. By providing value to their audience and engaging with them on social media, salespeople can create a sense of community and belonging around their organisations and brands, making it easier for customers to trust them.
Social selling can also foster collaboration between different teams within an organisation. By leveraging social media platforms, sales, marketing, and customer service teams can work together to create a cohesive customer experience. Social selling strategies can create an efficient and effective approach to a more effective customer experience.
Saving time and resources for an organisation is one of the biggest advantages of social selling. By leveraging social media platforms, sales professionals can reach a broader audience without the need for extremely costly marketing or advertising campaigns. Also, the comparatively expensive human resource involvement can be minimised by engaging in social selling.
Competitive advantage
This strategy provides businesses with a huge competitive advantage. As more businesses adopt this approach, those who fail to follow suit may be left behind. By increasing social media platforms to create a personalised and engaging customer experience, businesses can differentiate themselves from their competitors and stand out in the fiercely competitive marketplace.
Along with numerous benefits and advantages, social selling, like many other aspects of selling, has some potential negatives as well. The first among them is the overwhelming media presence in the market.
Businesses may be tempted to constantly post content and engage with potential customers, leading to overexposure and an overabundance of information that can lead to a loss of focus. This can be counterproductive and may ultimately turn off potential customers who feel exhausted by the excessive volume of content in their messages. Therefore, companies must carefully consider their visibility on social platforms.
Another possible downside of social selling is the risk of appearing insincere or inauthentic. If a business is solely focused on making sales and not on building relationships, potential customers may perceive it as forceful or opportunistic. This can lead to a loss of trust and credibility. Hence, the content of messages must be carefully organised, taking into consideration the behaviour of the targeted consumers.
Collecting personal information from social media profiles may raise concerns about data privacy and security. Usually, people dislike someone invading their privacy. Hence, salesmen must be careful to ensure that they are only collecting information that is relevant to the sales process and that they are following all relevant data privacy regulations.
Possible negative feedback that appears in a social media post can be immensely harmful for the company. Such messages can not only be harmful to an organisation, but they can also have long-term negative consequences. This is one of the biggest risks in social selling, where customers may react to an organisation with animosity even over a slight disagreement. Therefore, constant human monitoring is needed to respond positively to negative feedback.
Social selling is an effective approach and a powerful tool that provides numerous benefits for businesses. From building trust and enhancing visibility to fostering collaboration and providing a competitive advantage, social selling has become a critical component of modern marketing strategies.
As businesses continue to leverage social media platforms to engage with their audience, social selling will only become more important for organisational revenue. By addressing these risks and developing a strategic approach to social selling, businesses can minimise the downsides and maximise the benefits of this approach.