Skeptics have been known to argue against the effectiveness of social media for selling, with some going as far as calling all social signals vanity metrics. Research, however, has shown otherwise. In almost every way, the statistics show that the salesperson who has mastered social selling is always going to outperform the salesperson who doesn?t use social media.
According to a study by Social Centered Selling, 72.6 percent of salespeople who use social media as a core part of their sales process outperform those who don?t use social media. Salespeople who use social media are also 23 percent more likely to exceed their sales quotas by more than 10 percent. This makes sense considering the fact that 74 percent of buyers consult social media before making a purchase decision. The major challenge among business-to-business brands, then, isn?t to be on social media?more than 90 percent of brands already are–but to turn their social media presence into sales engines. With almost 1.7 billion Facebook users and billions more on other social media platforms, there?s ample audience to tap into. How do you get them to buy, though" Here are some tips:
Control the narrative outside of your channels
Many B2B marketers believe that every lead that reaches out is necessarily ready to hear from a sales rep. The truth is that B2B buyers complete 57 percent of the purchase decision before they are willing to talk to a salesperson. What?s more, 77 percent of buyers did not t...