On Friday, July 1st, a breakfast co-organized by Incenteev and Innov’Com took place, with the theme “Social Selling: How Social Networks Are Revolutionizing B2B Sales and Marketing?”.
Four experts shared their secrets with us. Here is a summary of the presentations.
Social Selling and Social Media: The Tools of the 21st Century
This morning began with a presentation by Marc Fanelli-Isla, founder of My Social Branding. Marc explained that 10 realities affect sales on social networks. Here they are.
1) The True Definition of Digital Marketing
Today, consumers spend 15 to 20% of their time on the internet, and the rest on social networks. There is a real need to equip oneself with human resources capable of managing these social networks and maintaining customer relationships.
2) The Reign of Horizontal Communication
Consumers have taken power. Today, we are no longer in a broadcast media era but in the age of interactive media. Consumers no longer hesitate to voice their opinions and make themselves heard.
3) Newsletter = Spam
There is a real decrease in newsletter subscriptions. For consumers, newsletters are considered spam. It’s important to highlight social networks, but not just with a timid “follow us”.
Social networks are the new newsletters. You should prominently display them on your sites, for example, with banners.
4) An Endless Race
It’s better to publish less but publish your own content rather than reposting many articles like everyone else. You need to know how to differentiate yourself.
5) The Law of the Social Algorithm
All networks have an algorithm based on 3 factors:
- Time decay: meaning the time of post publication
- Affinity: meaning affinity; social networks record all your visits. They will highlight content from the most visited accounts. Therefore, it’s important that your social networks register visits. Publish content in a way that creates regular appointments for your followers, such as “Tuesday’s Infographic”.
- Weight: meaning the engagement of internet users on your posts: likes, shares.
You should know that even by following the algorithm to the letter, you will only reach 20% of your fans.
6) Without Social Ads, I Don’t Exist
It has become essential to allocate budget to boost your posts. If you don’t, your posts won’t exist, and neither will you.
7) Stand Out
It can be very interesting for you to position yourself on a social network where you are not expected. Be inventive and creative to stand out.
8) The Power of B2C Levers
Draw inspiration from what is done in B2C and transpose it to B2B to differentiate yourself. You might be very surprised by the results.
9) Social Media Is My Company Magazine
Your social networks are your media, just like a magazine, television, or radio. Editorialise your content, set regular appointments, just like mainstream media.
10) I Tell a Story and Create Emotion
Corporate communication is dead. What internet users want today is to be told stories and to experience emotions.
How to Change Your Salespeople’s Behavior and Motivate Them to Use Social Selling to Grow Their Business?
This morning continued with a presentation by Simon Vandendriessche, General Manager and Co-founder of Incenteev, the sales team motivation platform. He began his presentation by stating a figure: 79%. According to Salesforce.com, 79% of salespeople who use social media as a sales tool perform better than those who don’t.
“So what are you waiting for to get yours started?” he asked the audience. He then shared 10 tips for an effective Social Selling strategy.
1) Engage Top Management
If you want your salespeople to adopt social selling, it’s important that top management does too and leads by example.
2) Define Your Objectives
Consider the company’s strategic objective and which one will be pursued through a social selling approach. Then focus on it to concentrate your salespeople’s efforts.
3) Communicate the Value
It is necessary to clearly communicate the value of the approach. For example, explain to your salespeople that social selling will become a tool that will help them more easily achieve their sales targets.
4) Optimize Profiles
On social networks, your profile is your first showcase. Put a good photo, write a description, include contact information, and your professional experience.
In short, showcase yourself.
5) Grow Your Network
Dare to send connection requests; you’ll be surprised by the acceptance rate. Additionally, increasing your contacts allows you to expand your personal network, reach more people, and boost your visibility.
6) Engage with Quality Content
Find interesting content for your network and post it. This allows you to showcase your expertise to your contacts and keep yourself top of mind.
7) Use the Spirit of Competition
To get your salespeople to play along and increase their LinkedIn contacts, organize a challenge. With a mobile application like Incenteev, you’ll be able to do it very quickly and simply. A fun way to boost your company’s visibility by leveraging the competitive spirit that exists in each of your salespeople.
8) Share Successes and Best Practices
Analyze your salespeople’s social selling results, and ask the top performers to share tips with their colleagues.
9) Integrate with CRM
Connect your CRM to your social networks. LinkedIn Sales Navigator allows you to do this for LinkedIn. This way, you can directly integrate the contact details of all your LinkedIn connections into your CRM, making your salespeople more effective in their prospecting.
10) Measure ROI
As with any action, it’s important to measure the ROI of your Social Selling activities. Analyze the outcomes and draw lessons from them.
With a mobile platform for sales team engagement and motivation like Incenteev, it’s very easy to measure the results of your actions.
How Has Social Selling Changed the Daily Life of Salespeople?
The third presentation of the morning was given by Evelyne Platnic-Cohen, Founder of Booster Academy. Evelyne began her talk with a short video on what not to do in prospecting.
She then shared a figure with us: 97% of cold calls are now ineffective.
Did you know that:
- 54% of salespeople report closing a deal thanks to social networks.
- Over 70% of B2B buyers involve social media in their decision-making process
- 87% of customers have a positive image of salespeople introduced to them within their network
- Salespeople most active on social networks have 45% more business opportunities than those not connected
- Salespeople who exceed their targets share 23% more content per month on social networks
Evelyne then explained the “Weak Ties Theory” to us.
According to Mark Granovetter, there are three types of ties:
- Strong ties: friends, family
- Weak ties: distant acquaintances with whom you have few interactions
- Non-existent ties
In business, we tend to neglect weak ties, thinking that strong ties are easier to access. However, these weak ties yield more than strong ties.
It has been scientifically proven that we are all connected to each other with, at most, six degrees of separation. New studies even speak of 4.74 degrees of separation.
So, yes, you should use social selling to boost your business. But be careful, you shouldn’t use it just any way.
Here are the pitfalls to avoid.
- Flooding everyone with an uninterrupted stream
- Using too many social networks
- Thinking that a few clicks are enough to succeed
- Forgetting the importance of physical relationships
- Pushing the offer as soon as contact is made
Social Leads? Social Selling? What are the differences?
The morning concluded with a presentation by Hervé Gonay, CEO of Get+. He began by stating that on social networks, you need to be interesting before being interested.
It is very important to produce your own content, but also to curate by selecting articles that interest your target audience.
A second important point is the need for convergence between Marketing and Sales to form “SMarketing.” SMarketing revolves around three key areas.
Social Selling:
According to Forrester Research, the United States will see a loss of one million salespeople by 2020. This study shows that complex sales will be the sector with the most salespeople compared to others. Social selling is becoming more widespread in this segment, while marketing is strengthening in other segments.
Account Based Scoring:
The sales department needs a “social selling” budget to acquire prospecting tools. However, these budgets are held by marketing, hence the need for alignment. Marketing commits to providing leads with significant interest in your product/service, thanks to account-based scoring solutions. The salesperson, in turn, commits to processing these leads and taking them to the point of appointment setting.
Data – Content – Process – Collaborative:
Salespeople want information on lead behavior, access to rich content quickly, and the sharing of event highlights to generate interest at the right time. They also expect training and simple tools from marketing.
As you can see, social networks can truly boost your business and increase your company’s visibility. You just need to follow certain rules and clearly explain their benefits to your salespeople.
Other articles that might interest you:
- Sales Tools: A Selection of Must-Haves to Boost Your Sales
- Sales Motivation: Key Points to Motivate and Engage Your Sales Teams
- Sales Performance: 3 Surprising Statistics to Motivate Your Teams
- Sales Challenge: 4 Tips to Effectively Achieve Your Goals
- Digital Transformation: Why and How to Leverage Digital to Boost Your Sales and Marketing Prospecting
- Team Management: Claude Onesta’s Lessons