These days, all sales reps should be on social media. Social selling is a relatively new sales strategy that effectively works to generate leads, build trust, establish thought leadership, deepen connections, and increase sales.

However, many sales reps still aren’t using social selling, primarily because they don’t know how to do it. But social media matters in sales, and you should get on board.

So for those hesitant sales reps, here’s an easy guide to getting started with social media.

Optimize Your Profiles

Your social profiles might be primarily geared towards recruiters and potential employers right now. The first thing you need to do is optimize your profiles for the world of social selling. Your social profiles should be more than digital resumes. They should be intended for potential buyers.

Add a professional photo and include a positioning statement. Link to your company’s social media accounts. Use hashtags that your buyers will likely follow. Offer a tidbit of insight. Provide social proof and add a call to action to explain how buyers can reach out to you and why they should. If you can, get recommendations and quotes from customers. Join groups that your audiences are in. Focus on how you can improve customers’ businesses, not on how you can exceed quota.

Be Active

One of the biggest mistakes sales reps make with social media is using it inconsistently, or rarely. To be successful at social selling, you must make it a priority. And it doesn’t need to take a lot of time, either. Develop a routine to cut down on the time commitment. Every day, find 30 minutes to find content to share with your followers, check who’s viewed your profiles or started following you, and engage. Look at recent comments or posts and respond. Review your alerts, respond to messages, and create a few new conversations every day. That’s it. You don’t need to spend all day on different sites.

Be on the Right Platforms

It’s important to find out which platforms your buyers use before you go out and start interacting on every channel, however. You want to be on the right platforms in order to see the biggest impact for your efforts. If your buyers aren’t on Facebook, there’s no reason for you to spend valuable time posting on Facebook. If all your buyers use Twitter, then definitely take the time to engage on this site.

Be Human

When trying to act professional, you can seem like a robot. And no one wants to buy from a robot. A wonderful part of social selling is that it can help you build trust and establish relationships with leads, prospects, and customers. But for this to work, people need to see you as a real person. Being human is the best strategy you can use on social media.

Don’t just post glossy brochures about your company. Be real. Be honest. Be genuine. Let people see the real people who work at the company. Show behind the scenes photos. Post selfies. Find a way to get people to know the real you, not the business-suit you.

Don’t Sell

When it comes to social selling, the social is a whole lot more important that the selling. Many sales reps make the mistake of being aggressive and trying to sell on social media. They pester new connections. They don’t wait to build connections before trying to go for the close. And they ruin everything.

The key to social selling is to be social, not to sell. Simply by being friendly, engaging in conversation, and posting, commenting, and sharing, you will be able to increase your sales, because you’ll slowly build a reputation, create top-of-mind awareness, build credibility, gain trust, and create relationships. You don’t actually need to sell, nor should you.