Last month we went over how social selling can help your business. As a quick recap, Social Media Today defines social selling as “the process of leveraging social media to do lead generation, build meaningful relationships, and eventually, close sales.” Social selling can and should become an integral part of your sales process. But how exactly do you get started? This month, we’re breaking down how to create a social selling plan.

First, start by creating processes to guide your sales team in their social selling endeavors with the following steps:

1. Create a strategy…and stick to it! One of the easiest ways you can start your process is simply by putting it down in writing. Take the sales initiatives you’re pushing and rework them to fit your brand on social media. Don’t copy and paste, but engineer your current sales plan to fit the social sphere. Create a calendar for the year and break down what you want to focus on each month for social selling.
2. Create an accountability plan. Only 8% of those surveyed by Sales for Life stated that they have a long-term social selling program in place. Establishing an accountability plan will give your team goals to work towards.
3. Create a review process and analyze your results. Practice makes perfect! Create a plan to review the data from your initial social selling strategy to see what changes you can make to grow your social selling plan even further!

Using these tips will help you lay the groundwork for a successful social selling plan in 2019. But once you complete these tasks, how do you actually engage in social selling? Some of the easiest ways are things you are more than likely already doing on social media!

Facebook

Specifically for Facebook, creating a separate business page gives you credibility to begin to interact with current and potential customers. Since Facebook is a very personal platform, creating this distinction will give you a professional social presence. Check out a couple of the strategies Hootsuite defines for social selling on Facebook:

1. Engage with other businesses. Engaging with other businesses builds your rapport among followers and broadens your current network.
2. Engage with followers. Engaging with your followers is one of the easiest ways to get the conversation going. Asking a question opens the door to see what your customers need and how you can help fulfill those needs.

Twitter

Next, let’s check out Hootsuite’s tips for social selling on Twitter. Twitter creates new opportunities with Twitter Lists. Through these lists, you can monitor conversations pertaining to your industry from existing customers, prospects, and even your competitors. With the use of Twitter Lists, you can oversee customer’s needs and reach out to help in addition to taking some tips from the competition.

Using these points will help take your business to profitable social selling. Let us know how you implement a social selling strategy!

If you need assistance with your social strategy, our social media management service is here to help! Feel free to reach out with any questions to marketing@commercialwebservices.com.