If you’ve been on Twitter for a while, you’ll likely have heard of ‘social selling.’ It’s a new kind of selling that defies all the traditional sales practices of attacking your prospects with a cold pitch. But what exactly is social selling and how can you incorporate it into your everyday social media practices? We invited Hootsuite’s social engagement specialist, Nick Martin, to help us better understand social selling strategies. Here’s a summary of our chat.
Guest: Nick Martin
Topic: Social selling tactics for marketers
Format: Eight questions directed at the guest. Everyone’s welcome to share.
In its basic sense, social selling is about building and maintaining relationships with people you meet online. This mostly refers to prospects, existing customers, partners, and other vendors you work with.
A1. This is an important question to start with because so many people misunderstand social selling. Social selling is all about relationship building through social media. Specifically with sales prospects and customers. That's it. #TwitterSmarter pic.twitter.com/ZrcZR5Yq1n
— Nick ?? (@AtNickMartin) April 15, 2021
Alyx added that to develop those relationships, you have to engage with your audience regularly. When you do that, they’ll automatically recognize you, become familiar with you and what you offer, which then leads to building trust and gaining their friendship.
A1 Social selling is using social media to find, nurture, and sell products/services to prospects
Generally entails building a strong and active relationship with an audience by utilizing a know/like/trust method
-Alyx #TwitterSmarter https://t.co/VobYeQ1srJ— Charlie & Alyx – Charlie Appel Agency (@ColfaxInsurance) April 15, 2021
Social marketing is about engaging with your broad audience on social media and helping them move along the buying journey. Social selling, however, goes a step further—you don’t just help out a customer on Twitter, but you actively maintain a personal relationship with them.
Have you ever had a customer or partner contact your support/sales team and ask for a specific representative? That’s the personal relationship that comes from social selling. As our guest explained, you develop these deep relationships with a select set of people like your suppliers, strategic partners, top customers, and highly valuable prospects.
A2b. Social selling is more focussed on building and maintaining relationships with:
– Buyers, wholesalers, suppliers
– Strategic partners
– High value prospects
– Your top customers #TwitterSmarter pic.twitter.com/TIk4Fwz7Fr— Nick ?? (@AtNickMartin) April 15, 2021
Nick even did a cool sketch to illustrate how social sellers are an intersection of salespeople and marketers.
A2c. To put it another way. Social selling takes the best of social marketing and the best of sales to form a super human business-doer ? ? #TwitterSmarter pic.twitter.com/vKfYgI0jLi
— Nick ?? (@AtNickMartin) April 15, 2021
Marianne also gave us a good example of how social marketing is different from social selling. While the former is a way to execute your social media strategy, the latter is focused on selling and communicating the value of your sale. Take a moment and think about all the different salespeople you’ve dealt with—you likely forged a relationship with a majority of them before you made a purchase. That’s social selling.
A2: Social selling is building relationships with an end goal to sell your product or device, social marketing is how you execute your social media strategy (of which sales might be a part). #TwitterSmarter
— ? Marianne Avery | Social Media Manager (@sociallymaz) April 15, 2021
Twitter and LinkedIn have always been the top choices for networking and getting to know people. While LinkedIn is more professional, Twitter is ideal for learning new things, identifying people with similar interests, and meeting people from everyday walks of life.
A3. I've always said that the two networks for social selling are LinkedIn and Twitter.
LinkedIn is the network for business professionals.
Twitter is the best for actually getting to know someone. #TwitterSmarter pic.twitter.com/TtAgqO6GCn— Nick ?? (@AtNickMartin) April 15, 2021
Carla also told us about how video marketing is giving her a lot of good results nowadays—especially across all three platforms, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube.
A3: For me right now, #LinkedIn #Twitter and #YouTube. #Videomarketing is truly helping me on all three of these social media channels. #TwitterSmarter https://t.co/lw70waB917
— Carlarjenkins (@carlarjenkins) April 15, 2021
All that said, though, as Justin reminded us, don’t spread yourself too thin. Go where your audience is and where you know you can make the most impact.
A3: Wherever you wish to go that you feel you can make an impact without overwhelming yourself into trying to find where your customers are or aren't #twittersmarter
— Justin Bienvenue #ModernDayPoe (@JustinBienvenue) April 15, 2021
If done right, social selling will give you a large group of loyal customers who’ll choose to do business with you over and over again. When you have a solid relationship with them, they won’t even consider your competition.
A4b. How can you start building stronger relationships with your peeps? Connect with prospects on LinkedIn after a sales call. That's step one! #TwitterSmarter pic.twitter.com/Q1JIobXVqX
— Nick ?? (@AtNickMartin) April 15, 2021
Nick also shared a good social selling tactic: As soon as you finish a sales call or have a conversation with someone you met at an event, connect with them on LinkedIn right away. That way, you can keep the conversation going, even if you move from one platform to another.
Smita also shared a couple of other great points. People you’ve connected with through social selling will also endorse you openly, bringing in more leads and business for you. What’s more, when something doesn’t work as expected, they’ll tell you right away. Prompt and constructive feedback is invaluable, and when you act on such feedback, you show that you’re capable of growing.
1. Helps you connect with wider audience
2. Builds a network of larger community
3. Can convert to web visiors who can then end up buying
4. Endrose your products
5. You can get instant feedback pic.twitter.com/qDGsZvRvNx— Smita Poojary ? (@Smita_DigiMarke) April 15, 2021
The first step is to optimize your social media profiles so that your audience knows who you are, what you offer, and where to find you. Make sure you have a clear call to action that leads them to your sales page and/or your LinkedIn profile.
A5b. Next, when you have a customer call (or a call with someone you want a long-term business relationship with) connect with them on Linkedin.
Afterwards? Be friendly. Engage on their posts. Check in with them via DM. This is all part of social selling! #TwitterSmarter pic.twitter.com/6yzSeTtAEM
— Nick ?? (@AtNickMartin) April 15, 2021
Once you’ve amped up your profile, focus on connecting with your prospects and audience on LinkedIn. As we mentioned earlier, being connected on LinkedIn is a great way to establish longer-term conversations.
The success of your social selling activities depends a lot on how you personally interact with your audience. For example, as our guest mentioned, be nice and engage with their content. Check-in regularly to see how they’re going with your product/service and how you can help. These seemingly small gestures can become the reason they choose to stay with your business.
A5c. And remember, social selling is just a part of the overall sales process. Let it inform your offline activities too.
Saw a client shared about their new puppy online? Send them a dog toy. They'll remember that when their contract is up for renewal. #TwitterSmarter pic.twitter.com/su9KFt4hE1
— Nick ?? (@AtNickMartin) April 15, 2021
One thing people often tend to forget about social selling is that relationships are two-way. As Rachel from Express Writers reminded us, while it’s important that you get to know your audience and their lives, it’s equally important to let them know you and your personal life. Don’t be afraid to show your real side.
A5: Spend time connecting with people. Get to know them and their needs. Allow them to get to know the real you. Having that relationship goes a long way. #TwitterSmarter
— Express Writers | Your Content Writing Partner (@ExpWriters) April 15, 2021
One of the biggest and mistakes of social selling is thinking that you have to make a hard, cold sale. You don’t. Relationship building online is as casual as talking to someone at the bus stop—keep it casual and you might become friends for life.
A6b. Take the time to get to know someone first (and them you). Relationship building on social media is the same as in person. If I ran up to you in the street and said "Hi, buy my product!" You'd probably run the other way. It's simply not how business is done. #TwitterSmarter pic.twitter.com/hC3cur7zPC
— Nick ?? (@AtNickMartin) April 15, 2021
So instead of pushing the sale or the deal on someone you barely know, take the time to understand who they are and what’s happening in their life. You might be selling 5-star rated hair straighteners, but that person you randomly messaged may be going through chemotherapy. That’s why social selling is crucial—it adds context to conversations.
Christine shared an interesting version of the hard sell we often fail to recognize. Ever seen people you only just met on social media inviting you to join their elite groups or invite-only events? It’s nice that they want you there, but it’s not too nice that they’re only trying to collect you—in many cases, these invitations are lead generation exercises where an audience shares their email addresses and sales messages pour into their emails. Don’t be that salesperson.
A6.
Pushing selling all the time.
Forcing people into “groups” and “parties.”
Focusing on conversions over relationships.#TwitterSmarter— ?Christine Gritmon #ChatAboutBrand (@cgritmon) April 15, 2021
Nick had one simple piece of advice: be human. Nothing’s more important than showing compassion and empathy towards your audience. Sure, you want to sell to them and earn money. But none of that matters if people don’t like you and resonate with you.
A7. Be human. This is something that's said a lot in marketing too, but it's true. The goal is for you to build a relationship that will make their decision of choosing between you and your competition an easy one.
Stay top of mind, be kind, and provide value. #TwitterSmarter pic.twitter.com/DRw4dkjGn2
— Nick ?? (@AtNickMartin) April 15, 2021
Masooma shared another good piece of advice: don’t expect too much. Even though, as a salesperson, you have certain goals and targets, set them aside when you talk to someone. Look at them as an individual and treat them as a being with a real life. When you don’t walk into a discussion expecting a million-dollar sale, you might enjoy the nature of the conversation and even make a friend. That’s what we want as a social seller.
A7. Go in without the sales mindset. Have zero expectations from the prospect + focus on genuinely building your relationships with them (and enjoy the process while you’re at it). #TwitterSmarter
— Masooma | Content Writer (@inkandcopy) April 15, 2021
Periodic check-ins are a major part of a social seller’s life. With the pandemic and the resulting lockdowns encouraging remote working, Nick told us video check-ins are probably the next big thing. A lot of social sellers are already doing video calls to follow up with customers, conduct demos and presentations, and host after-work parties.
A8. Video check-ins!
Obviously since *everything around us* has happened, things like client dinners and in-person meetings have dropped off. Sales folks are taking advantage of video tools to keep in touch, share demos, and host happy hours. It's great! #TwitterSmarter https://t.co/l8LGlPLDq0
— Nick ?? (@AtNickMartin) April 15, 2021
Similarly, thanks to the rise of audio platforms like Twitter Spaces and Clubhouse, live audio is also becoming a big trend in social selling. So many people build longer-lasting relationships through these channels. As Jennifer pointed out, aside from audio, short-form videos like Reels and TikTok are also rapidly gaining popularity—mainly because they require less commitment and effort than full-blown video production.
Well folks, that’s all from me this week. Thank you for reading through, and for more insights from our chat with Nick, have a look at this Twitter Moment our chat member Joana put together. If you have some time to spare next Thursday, we’d love for you to join us on #TwitterSmarter at 1pm ET. Hope to see you then!
About me, Narmadhaa:
I write all the things—technical and marketing copy to fill the pocket; haiku and short stories to fill the soul. A social media enthusiast, I’m a member of the #TwitterSmarter chat crew, and always happy to take on writing gigs.
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