Social Selling The Inbound Way: Why You Should Start Now
In today’s highly-connected world, potential buyers turn to social networks like Twitter and LinkedIn to guide their buying decisions.
This makes inbound social selling an increasingly popular sales approach. It’s one approach that requires proactive engagement with your potential customers through content and building relationships.
It may sound intimidating, but the payoff can be huge.
By understanding the ins and outs of social selling in the inbound way, you’ll be able to reach buyers and build your pipeline more effectively.
This blog will outline what social selling the inbound way is, its benefits and steps to start using this approach within your sales process.
What Does Social Selling Mean?
Social selling is a modern approach to finding prospects, building meaningful relationships and uncovering potential sales opportunities through social media platforms like Twitter and LinkedIn.
According to LinkedIn, there are over 875 million members in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide. This creates many opportunities for sales teams to find their target audience.
Social selling is about making those crucial connections with potential customers and keeping them in the loop!
Through meaningful relationships, you can help get more leads and accelerate deals to grow your sales. It’s a social way of connecting with prospects while building a strong network that will benefit sellers and buyers.
What Is Social Selling the Inbound Way?
Acquiring customers has a whole new meaning with inbound.
This sales and marketing approach is about creating meaningful connections to tap into potential leads, and satisfying customer needs while closing deals.
Initially coined by HubSpot, inbound involves creating relevant and engaging content such as eBooks, webinars and blogs and using channels such as social media campaigns, targeted advertising, and SEO to attract the right audiences.
It’s the opposite of outbound. Instead of reaching out and engaging with prospects, you attract them to come to you through thought leadership and experience.
Social selling and inbound have a lot of overlapping strategies; salespeople that understand how to use social connections for their advantage benefit significantly. Instead of having to reach out, customers come right towards them, which results in greater interest generated with these contacts.
By utilizing social selling in an inbound style, you can drive more leads, close more sales, and build long-term customer relationships.
This approach is much more engaging and receptive to buyers than cold calling. Buyers prefer to engage with subject matter experts on their own time. Especially since cold calling can be disruptive.
Additionally, social selling in the inbound way can help warm calling so buyers are more likely to respond positively.
The Benefits of Social Selling the Inbound Way
Social selling the inbound way is an invaluable tool for any business looking to generate leads and close more sales.
Selling Selling Statistics
Here are several social selling statistics which demonstrate how effective is it for salespeople.
- 80% of skilled social sellers outperform their competitors who don’t engage in social selling
- Businesses prioritizing social selling are 51% more likely to reach their sales quota.
- Sales professionals with a strong social selling index on LinkedIn have 45% more sales opportunities than those who don’t.
- One in three B2B salespeople say social selling has increased the number of leads they work with.
- Audiences exposed to brand messages on LinkedIn are 6x more likely to convert.
Here are a handful of the major benefits businesses can enjoy by leveraging inbound social selling:
1. Increase Brand Awareness
Inbound social selling allows salespeople to get their message out to potential customers who are already interested in their products or services.
By sharing content, salespeople can build their professional brand. This positively impacts the company’s brand perception also.
A salesperson’s social presence can reach an audience that may not have been accessible through traditional sales methods.
2. Identify Prospects Quickly
LinkedIn offers the largest professional network in the world.
With social media, salespeople can quickly identify prospects and build relationships with the right people. Instead of having to find the right contacts and doing cold outreach.
Traditionally, you’d have to get a cold calling list or a database. Both are still essential sales prospecting tools.
But LinkedIn provides search capabilities that allow you to filter your search and focus on your ideal customer profile.
3. Create a Professional Presence
Salespeople can create a professional presence by sharing content relevant to their industry and engaging in social media conversations.
This will draw potential buyers in because it helps portray your subject matter expertise.
When buyers are ready to evaluate solutions like what you offer, your name is already top of mind.
4. Establish Trust
Establishing trust is essential when it comes to closing a sale.
When done correctly, using social networks to reach prospective buyers early can help build this trust much faster than traditional tactics would allow.
Salespeople can demonstrate their expertise while building relationships over time by providing helpful information rather than just pushing products.
5. Improve Customer Insights
By utilizing inbound strategies, businesses can gain insight into customer preferences and behaviors, which will help them target future campaigns more effectively.
Social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter give salespeople real-time feedback on customer insights.
This valuable data allows companies to create tailored experiences that deliver accurate customer results.
6. Strengthen Relationships
Social selling the inbound way helps build relationships with prospects and existing customers.
It creates lasting loyalty between your brand and its audience.
Salespeople can use this approach to create meaningful customer experiences that keep them top of mind—increasing revenue while maintaining a solid connection with the customer base over time.
7. Engage Executives and Decision Makers
Inbound social selling is a great way to engage with executives and key stakeholders.
75% of B2B buyers use social media to make buying decisions, according to research from LinkedIn.
Executives often have unique needs that require tailored solutions. Through inbound social selling, salespeople can reach, connect and engage them.
By connecting with decision-makers, salespeople can start conversations at the right level, which helps accelerate and close deals.
8. Reach Buyers Earlier in Their Buying Journey
Social selling can be a powerful way for salespeople looking to impact the buying process much earlier.
34% of customers want to be contacted via social media sites, according to 2022 data from LinkedIn.
By leveraging various platforms, including LinkedIn and Twitter, salespeople can engage with potential buyers from the beginning of their buying journey.
Engaging in conversation or sharing content can influence buying decisions before potential customers even begin the evaluation.
How Does Inbound Social Selling Work?
Building a social selling approach the inbound way means leveraging content and relationships to engage with potential buyers.
By focusing on providing value and creating meaningful conversations, salespeople can create a powerful social media presence that will help attract potential customers and move them toward purchase decisions faster.
Here are four critical steps to start social selling the inbound way.
1. Setting up a solid social media presence
Setting up a solid social media presence is the first step for salespeople looking to make an impact with social selling.
Your LinkedIn profile is a reflection of your professional brand.
Crafting a buyer-centric profile, it’s a signal that you can help potential buyers. A great social profile should answer how you help your buyers, demonstrate your experience and expertise and show that you’re trustworthy.
For example, include a value proposition of how you help buyers instead of your job title as your headline. Or, instead of listing out your accomplishments in your experience, write out how you’ve helped customers.
2. Building relationships and connecting with prospects
Building relationships and connecting with prospects on LinkedIn is key for salespeople looking to create a lasting presence.
You can provide a good first impression by connecting with potential customers through personalized messages. But don’t just jump right into a sales pitch when a prospect accepts your connection request.
Instead, it would help if you continuously delivered value, engaging in conversations before recommending a conversation.
For example, participating in group conversations or commenting on industry content will show potential buyers that you are an expert in your field and have the knowledge to help them meet their goals.
Additionally, sending personalized introduction messages with relevant links, articles or resources will demonstrate your commitment to helping them find solutions.
3. Sharing engaging and educational content
Sharing engaging and educational content on LinkedIn for social selling is a great way for salespeople to demonstrate their expertise and gain the trust of potential customers.
Posting relevant articles, videos, images, and infographics helps increase brand awareness. But it will also create an opportunity to start conversations with buyers and showcase your industry knowledge.
For example, sharing a hands-on case study or publishing a Q&A video series will allow salespeople to show buyers how they can help meet their needs. By doing this regularly, you’ll be able to build relationships with prospects that can eventually lead to more sales.
4. Engaging in conversation
Engaging in conversations on LinkedIn for social selling is essential for salespeople looking to build trust and relationships with potential buyers.
It’s social media, after all. So, it’s important to start conversations with prospects.
By actively participating in discussions, answering questions, and responding to comments, you can show buyers that you are knowledgeable on the subject matter and that you care about their needs.
For example, joining a relevant group conversation or commenting with your perspective on something your prospect posted. By regularly engaging in these conversations, salespeople can establish themselves as thought leaders and keep you top of mind.
5. Adding social selling into a sales cadence
Adding social touchpoints into your sales cadence is a great way to make social selling a habit.
Sellers identified social networking sites as one of their top 3 preferred outreach methods, according to LinkedIn’s 2022 State of Sales Report.
A sales cadence will help you organize your sales activities across a specific length of step. It’s a great way to ensure every prospect gets touched and sees your message.
For example, adding a LinkedIn connection request as a touchpoint in a sales cadence can help warm up your cold calls and emails afterward. Or adding a touchpoint to remind yourself to comment or visit your prospect’s profile can build awareness.
What are examples of social selling?
Here are some examples of how salespeople can use social selling to their advantage:
- Commenting and engaging: Engaging in meaningful discussions on social platforms can help build relationships with prospects, show that you understand their needs, and demonstrate how you can help them succeed.
- Creating educational content: Providing helpful information such as case studies, informative blog posts, or Q&A videos will give customers a better sense of your expertise and build trust with prospects.
- Personalizing outreach: Personalizing outreach messages through channels such as LinkedIn makes buyers feel seen and appreciated while also unobtrusively introducing them to your services.
- Listening and responding: Monitoring what’s being said about your brand on social media helps you understand customer sentiment and quickly respond to inquiries or negative comments.
- Sharing stories: Using social media platforms to share customer success stories is an effective way of demonstrating how your products/services have made an impact on customers’ lives.
By implementing these strategies on various social networks, salespeople have a higher chance of finding success in their outreach efforts.
Final thoughts – social selling the inbound way
Social selling is an incredibly powerful tool for salespeople to reach out to potential customers and build relationships.
It allows salespeople to be more creative with their outreach, personalize messages, leverage influencers, and provide helpful content.
By taking advantage of these strategies, salespeople can increase their likelihood of success in the digital space.
