: By Ololade Oloniyo

Social selling is the art of using social media channels to engage, connect, and interact with prospects. Most companies now request that their salespeople use social media tools to connect with prospects, provide consistent value and answer top-related questions that their solutions can solve. The reason for this is because over 50% of B2B buyers are now active on social media and most clients use social media to support purchase decisions.

Business owners and salespeople who implement a structured social selling strategy will win over half of their potential clients through the internet without having to force their way into people or spend large sums to reach clients.

Social selling is really about building solid relationships and trust with the use of social media channels. It doesn’t happen overnight, but with consistent effort and a value-driven approach, you can grow your customer data list. Social selling allows your ideal client to have a personal touch with your product, the benefits it offers and shortens the sales cycle.

Usually, a typical sales cycle is a series of events that occurs before a prospect finally makes a purchase. It begins with identifying potential customers, connecting, making sales presentations, handling objections, closing the sale and follow-up. All of these steps usually require lots of preparation, it’s time-consuming and not cost-effective. Most of the time, social selling allows you to build consistent trust with potential clients without thinking of handling objections and selling to every executive in the room with cold calls.

Here is a list of 5 major social selling concepts your business can imbibe:

Content creation: Learn how to create compelling contents that solve the genuine problems and issues that your clients struggle with. After identifying and connecting with prospects online, showcase knowledge and expertise by putting out quality content. Lastly, engage prospective clients with a clear engagement strategy.

Collaboration: Collaboration is a vital business skill for every entrepreneur. It’s about pooling the expertise of different organizations to innovate and boost sales in existing or new markets. A great collaborative program encourages problem-solving, development of new products and it’s a great opportunity to learn from other thriving businesses.

Connections: Connecting with industry leaders, high performers and social media influencers are critical for the growth of your business. Influencer marketing expands your reach and positioning in the market. The stories influencers say about you contribute a whole lot to brand growth and awareness.

Create a social selling approach based on the important elements buyers need to be aware of about your product and integrate compensation or rewards systems for effective social sale groups.

Audit and control: use tools to track, monitor, engage, manage, and audit all your social selling efforts. There are lots of social media toolkits that can help you control online reputation, improve social media performance, and create stunning reports in seconds. Find the one that bests suits your needs and get started.

The impact of social selling is so powerful in this digital age, and cannot be overemphasized. But here is the catch, don’t just start and quit because you did not see returns after some months, the key is to remain consistent by providing your audience with engaging and compelling content.