Social selling is a new tactic that’s taking the digital sales and marketing world by storm. Before you add this tool to your marketing repertoire, let’s debunk the major myths around social selling.
Myth 1: It’s Just Social Media Marketing Rebranded
Many people make the mistake of believing that social selling is just a buzzword for social media marketing, but this is not true at all.
The two do share some similarities: Both leverage social media to brand you as an expert and lead prospects to sales in a much more organic way than traditional marketing methods.
But, while social media marketing casts your net wide and broadcasts your message, social selling is based on one-on-one conversations you hold with your prospects.
Through these conversations, you listen, learn about their problems, and offer help. You build a relationship where they will come to you when they need your products or services.
Myth 2: Social Selling is Extremely Hard Work
While it sounds like a great deal of work holding one-on-one conversations with prospects, it’s much easier than you think. Much of the process can be automated or made easier using software tools.
Tools can help you locate prospects, find conversations to join, build your personal brand, and manage your social selling schedule. There are also ways they can help with creating content and finding good content to share.
Tools are also essential for monitoring your progress. You’ll need to choose a few metrics to track in order to see whether you’re reaching your goal.
Myth 3: Content is Key
Content is an important element of your social selling strategy, but it shouldn’t be the main focal point. The content you share with your audience is meant to inform and, even more importantly, engage them. It needs to be relevant and valuable, but that’s not the main point.
Since the goal is to engage people in conversation, the nature of the content is different. It’s aimed at asking questions, soliciting opinions, and inviting your audience to discuss a subject of interest to them. Content is used to facilitate one-on-one discussions.
Myth 4: You Must Be a Social Media Expert
You don’t need to be an expert at social media to use it for social selling.
What drives success in social selling is the strength of your personal brand, your understanding of your prospects’ needs, and your willingness to provide the value they’re looking for.
You’ll use social media platforms for researching your audience and gaining opportunities to talk to them. Once you have the basics of social media down, the rest is just interacting with people through the platform.
Myth 5: You Can Start Without a Plan
Does it sound like social selling is something you’re ready to tackle? While you should start leveraging this opportunity as soon as possible, you shouldn’t do it without a solid plan and clearly defined goals. This bit of planning will go a long way later in ensuring your success.
Want to learn more? Check out my new course – There’s Money in Social Media. It teaches you how to set up your social selling so you can achieve your goals.
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