Social media platforms have evolved from just being a place to connect with friends and family, to a place where brands can connect with potential customers and build relationships with them.
And in such a digital landscape, social selling is becoming increasingly important for businesses looking to employ effective digital marketing services. With more and more customers being available and active across social media channels, social selling needs to be an essential part of any effective and long-term digital marketing strategy.
In this extensive guide, we’ll explore what social selling means, how to create a successful social selling strategy to include as part of your digital marketing services (should you choose to outsource it), and the latest social media trends & terms to keep up with in 2023.
What is Social Selling?
Social selling essentially refers to using your social media handles to build impactful and long-lasting relationships with potential customers, raise impactful brand awareness, and eventually, generate profitable sales.
Unlike traditional sales techniques, social selling focuses more on building trust and credibility with customers by leveraging social media platforms to create a two-way dialogue with your customers, instead of simply pushing sales messages.
Perhaps the biggest benefit of it is that it allows businesses & brands to tap into the infinite power of user-generated content and customer feedback on social media.
By leveraging the data available, brands can tap into the opinions and experiences of existing customers to ultimately create more relevant and targeted content to share with potential customers.
The Social Selling Index:
The Social Selling Index (SSI) is a metric developed by LinkedIn that measures a user’s social selling effectiveness. It takes into consideration four key areas:
- establishing your professional brand
- finding the right people,
- engaging with insights, and
- building relationships.
Brands, across industries, can use this SSI metric to track their social selling efforts and effectively identify areas for improvement.
Creating the right Social Selling Strategy
To effectively build and execute a successful social selling strategy, brands need to focus on several key areas:
Social Media Platforms:
With over 3.6 billion people on social media worldwide, the importance of social media platforms continues to be on the rise when it comes to digital marketing. Any digital marketing agency worth their salt will focus on your social media platforms and their effective utilisation.
Your potential customers are already on social media, and it’s up to you to find them and connect with them. The key is to understand which social media platforms your customers are using and then create a strategy to reach them there.
Start by identifying the social media platforms where your target audience is most active, and apply an improved focus of your social selling efforts on those platforms.
- LinkedIn Profile:
If you’re targeting B2B customers, having a strong LinkedIn profile is essential. Make sure your profile is complete, up-to-date, and highlights your expertise and experience.
Relevant Content:
To succeed at it, brands need to create relevant and valuable content that resonates best with their target audience. This includes everything from blog posts and infographics to social media videos and podcasts.
Build Relationships:
Social selling is about effectively building relationships with potential customers. This translates into actively engaging with your target audience, responding to comments and questions, and providing helpful information.
Visual Content:
Visual content is increasingly important on social media, so brands need to ensure that they incorporate high-quality images, videos, and graphics into their social selling efforts.
Social media terms & trends to understand in 2023
As social media continues to evolve, there are several key terms & trends that businesses & every digital marketing agency should keep in mind when developing their social selling strategies:
Social Commerce:
With every passing day, social media platforms across the board are integrating e-commerce functionality, allowing brands to sell products directly through their social media handles. And this trend is expected to continue in 2023, social commerce continues to play an undeniable role in any impactful social selling strategy.
User-Generated Content:
User-generated content is one of the most powerful ways to build instant trust and credibility with potential customers. Hence, it is important to encourage your customers to share their experiences on social media, and then re-share their content with your audience.
By re-sharing & highlighting customer reviews, testimonials along with aesthetically pleasing photos, brands can create authentic & highly engaging content for their social media platforms.
Personalization:
Personalization needs to be an integral part of any effective digital marketing initiative, and social selling is no exception. By tailoring the social selling efforts to the individual needs and preferences of their target audience, brands can create more personalized and effective social selling strategies.
Video Content:
Video content has risen in popularity on social media in the recent past, with even major platform algorithms preferring video content over static creatives. And so, brands that are able to incorporate engaging video content into their social selling efforts would see higher engagement and even conversion rates.
Conclusion
In conclusion, SSI stands to be an indispensable part of any effective & profitable digital marketing strategy in 2023. And so, brands looking to leave a mark need to create relevant and valuable content, actively engage with potential customers across social media channels, and stay on top of the latest social media trends.
When done right, SSI can not only help businesses build sustainable relationships with their customers, but also help generate sales and ultimately, ace their digital marketing goals by leaving a mark in the digital marketplace. This can also help any digital marketing agency establish credibility amongst their clients and manifest results that help them surpass their goals over time.
And for those of you looking for the right digital marketing agency to take their social selling efforts to the next level, Wiredus can provide specialized social media marketing strategies and also offer customized digital marketing services that align best with your business objectives.