There is no doubt the genial world has changed the sales industry. Social media is one of the most effective sales tools to evolve in recent years. It has made people, companies, and information more accessible than ever. While in the past you may have spent significant time looking for information about a particular prospect or hours playing phone tag, today you can simply look them up on social media, connect, and send them a message.
A strong social game has always been a key success factor in sales. Almost everyone is on social media, and it has made networking and building relationships that much more accessible.
“There is perhaps no more powerful sales tool on the internet than social media. When properly used by businesses and brands, sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest can become effective and profitable sales tools,” says Drew Hendricks on inc.com
Visibility is important. With so much competition, using social media is a great way to create visibility for your brand, products, and services. Brand awareness is important to establish trust and to build connections with prospects, customers, and business partners.
Building a large social network gives you access to people at all times. Regardless if you are using Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram or Facebook, having a significant base of followers allows you to establish a connection and relationship with potential customers. You can use this follower base to qualify leads, create customer segments, and much more to help you during the sales process.
Sales are about much more than selling today. Sales professionals need to be information providers and consultants, too. Use social media to establish yourself as an industry expert. Share relevant information, blog posts, videos, and other content that your prospects would find useful. If you think a piece of content would be of value, share it on social media. Your prospects and customers will appreciate it. More importantly, they will continue to come to you for information, making more likely they will do business with you.
Once you’ve developed a large and devoted following, and have built credibility by being an industry expert, you can leverage this to drive traffic (prospects and customers) to specific sales landing pages. These pages will provide them with more information about how your products and services can help them and encourage them to engage in your sales process – sign up for a newsletter, contact a sales rep, or even make a purchase.
Learn more about how to effectively use social media as a sales tool and part of your sales strategy by reading these blog posts:
5 LinkedIn Hacks to Get You More Sales Leads
3 Ways Your Sales Team Can Use Content Marketing to Drive Up Sales
3 Ideas Salespeople Can Steal from Social Media
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Rhys is a tenacious, top performing Senior Sales Recruiter with 15+ years of focused experience in the Digital Media, Mobile, Software, Technology and B2B verticals. He has a successful track record of headhunting top performing sales candidates for some of the most exciting brands in North America. He is a Certified Recruitment Specialist (CRS) and has expert experience in prospecting new business, client retention/renewals and managing top performing sales and recruitment teams. Rhys enjoys spending quality time with his wife, son, and daughters, BBQing on a hot summer day and tropical vacations.