How to create a strong beginner social selling program

In today's dynamic B2B landscape, integrating social selling into your business strategy has become indispensable. This approach empowers companies to not only broaden their outreach but also bolster their sales figures. By effectively utilizing social media platforms, businesses can forge meaningful connections with potential clients, instill confidence, and ultimately secure more transactions.

Embarking on the path to social selling success may initially appear daunting, especially if your team is new to this concept. Rest assured, we understand your concerns. This article will guide you through initiating a potent social selling program tailored for B2B enterprises. Additionally, we'll share valuable insights on how to ensure its triumph. Let's dive in!

To-do's before you get your social selling program up and running.

In the pursuit of refining your business's social selling strategy, it's imperative to reflect on three pivotal questions:

Presence of Relevant Decision-Makers: Are the key decision-makers in your industry actively engaged on social media platforms?
Reach Potential on Social Media: What is the extent of your capacity to connect with and engage your target audience through social channels?
Competitive Analysis on LinkedIn: Have you assessed the strategies and activities of your competitors on LinkedIn?

A valuable tool to facilitate this evaluation is the LinkedIn Sales Navigator. This resource empowers you to analyze your target market and monitor competitors' actions comprehensively. If you need assistance, social selling experts like the ones from our sponsor, ReadyForSocial, are readily available. ReadyForSocial doesn't charge for this service since their team sees it as a part of their business development. If interested, you can expect a management-ready one-pager, including our "Social Selling Power Audit" and "Social Selling Heatmap."

Seven steps to your social selling program started.

Let's revisit our guide on initiating your inaugural social selling initiative. After you've addressed the three questions we discussed and have confidence in your chosen data, you can embark on the planning and integration phase, which comprises seven distinct steps.

Step 1: Define your objectives.

In social selling, setting clear objectives is paramount to achieving meaningful outcomes. Before establishing your goals, it's imperative to gain a comprehensive understanding of what you aim to accomplish. Reflecting on the following inquiries will provide you with a well-defined roadmap:

What are the overarching objectives for integrating your sales team into social media? Is it primarily for enhancing brand awareness, driving lead generation, or for a specific campaign?
Which Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) will be the yardstick for measuring progress? Additionally, how do you plan to track and assess these metrics effectively?
Who constitutes your target audience? It's crucial to identify the specific segment you are honing in on. Furthermore, who are the pivotal decision-makers and influencers within this demographic? This knowledge will be key in tailoring your approach for maximum impact.

Step 2: Define a pilot group.

The second step is to test your social selling efforts with a designated sales or business unit, known as a pilot group. This phased approach allows you to build a working program around this small team, collect data and feedback, and improve the program before continuing roll-out. Now, what does your ideal pilot group look like? Here are a few things to keep in mind:

Coherence is key: Drawing from our experience, forming a pilot group that exhibits cohesion is highly advisable. This could take the form of a sales team focused on a specific market, for example, the pharmaceutical sector in the UK.
Leadership support: The backing of the team's leadership is pivotal. Your leaders' active involvement can significantly enhance the success of your initiative. Their endorsement carries weight!
Voluntary participation: Opt-in, don't impose. Instead of a simple ask, consider organizing an informative session for the entire team. Clearly articulate what social selling entails and the level of commitment expected. It's imperative that the pilot group diligently monitors and reports the success of their new endeavors, particularly leads generated via platforms like LinkedIn. Tangible results, ideally accompanied by brief case studies, hold immense sway for broader adoption.
Diverse composition: While sales members are integral, don't limit your pilot group exclusively to them. Inviting colleagues from product, technology, project management, or marketing departments can be highly beneficial. Their specialized knowledge, unburdened by a 'sales' label, can help them authentically build an audience around their expertise.
Social media savvy participants: It's prudent to select individuals genuinely interested in social media, ideally bolstered by hands-on experience. Furthermore, a modest network size (beyond a mere couple of hundred contacts) provides a foundation to build upon.

Step 3: Define your content strategy.

We know we might sound like a broken record, but in the realm of social selling, the importance of content cannot be overstated. It serves as a cornerstone for social selling, enabling you to establish thought leadership and provide meaningful value to your network. But how exactly do you go about achieving this? The answer lies in content. Here are some key considerations:

Understanding your audience: To effectively engage your target audience, you must identify what content resonates with them. Delve into their preferences, interests, and the topics that capture their attention. Additionally, explore the various available content formats, from case studies and customer references to white papers, interviews, and concise one-pagers.
Leveraging existing resources: Take stock of the content assets already at your disposal within your organization. Determine what content can be created with reasonable effort to bolster your social selling efforts.
Crafting your message: How you convey your message and your tone of voice on social media matters significantly. Reflect on what messaging approach aligns best with your brand and resonates with your target audience.
Tapping into external content: Don't limit your content strategy to your own material. In fact, a mere 20% of your social media content should be your business's content. The remaining 80% should comprise third-party content. Keep an eye out for external sources that discuss topics of interest to your audience. This can include industry websites, blogs, and other reputable sources that both your sales team and target clients follow.

Once you've gathered all this valuable information, it's time to compile it into a comprehensive 'content strategy.' This strategy should align seamlessly with your sales team's objectives. If you need a template to kickstart your content strategy, we're happy to share ours – a tried–and–tested framework with no strings attached.

Step 4: Define your KPIs.

Embracing KPIs is paramount in evaluating the progress and triumphs of a business or organization in its pursuit of goals. The definition of KPIs plays a pivotal role in the performance management process as it establishes clear expectations and benchmarks for success. While KPIs may vary across industries, organizations, or departments, they must consistently align with the overarching strategy and be communicated effectively to all stakeholders. Here are some insightful considerations:

Assessing 'social sellers' activity level: Pilot participants must remain actively engaged. A reliable gauge of this is to scrutinize the activity level of your social sellers. Are they consistently sharing content? Are they expanding their professional networks?
Engagement with shared content: Evaluate the extent of engagement garnered by the content they disseminate. This involves gauging the responsiveness of their audience through likes, comments, and messages in response to direct outreach.
Web traffic and landing page activity: Ascertain whether there is a noticeable increase in traffic to your website or specific landing pages attributable to the content shared by your social sellers.
Lead generation and business closure: Determining the direct impact of social selling on lead generation and business acquisition is a nuanced endeavor. In B2B settings, lead generation and business development encompass various channels, including email campaigns, phone outreach, (virtual) events, meetings, and social media. Tracking the lead source or attribution of social selling within your CRM tool can shed light on its specific contribution. Alternatively, consider surveying your social sellers to glean insights.

Effective communication of these KPIs to your social sellers is crucial, accompanied by establishing realistic expectations regarding outcomes. It is worth noting that witnessing substantial results, particularly in solid leads, may take 6 to 9 months. This timeline is typical and integral to nurturing your personal brand, expanding networks, cultivating relationships, and asserting thought leadership.

Step 5: Choose the tools you need wisely.

We prefer to keep things simple. There are many social media, social selling, content aggregation, and distribution tools, some of which are great!

However, you can start your social selling program with basic (free) LinkedIn accounts of your social sellers. One thing that you do need is a way of getting content to your social sellers, though. You cannot expect them to find that on their own. If you want to wait to invest in a tool, you could put together a simple email newsletter, put the content on a shared drive or co-working tool like Asana or Trello, or make it available via a specific intranet group.

Whichever way you prefer, choose something easy and efficient for your sales team. You can always upgrade your toolkit once you see what your team needs.

Step 6: Train and support your team.

Start your social selling pilot with a group training for the social sellers. Teach them the principles of social selling and the basics of personal branding, social networking and engagement, and sharing content. In addition, you should invite more people than your pilot group so others in your organization can benefit from your insight and help your sales team drive engagement on social media.

Maintaining a consistent rhythm of touchpoints and ongoing training sessions is paramount throughout the pilot period. Social selling isn't a one-off event but a nuanced change management process. Expect queries, motivational needs, knowledge sharing, feedback, and the quest for deeper insights to emerge. Thus, it's crucial to designate a capable individual within your marketing team to provide steady guidance to your pilot group during the initial months.

While engaging external experts is an option, consider the merits of a local resource, given the contextual nuances of your geographic region. If, within your organization, you have a colleague well-versed in social media and social selling who can allocate dedicated time to this initiative, self-sufficiency becomes an enticing possibility. In this journey towards enhanced social selling, choose the best approach with your resources and objectives.

Step 7: Measure, improve, close, roll out.

After learning everything above, you now have the tools to implement your social selling program. Throughout the pilot phase, it is advisable to conduct regular assessments (preferably weekly for a broad overview and monthly for a more detailed analysis). After your first month, present and communicate preliminary results to your social sellers and ask for feedback. From there, use that feedback to make necessary improvements.

Keep your management informed of all the progress and results you see. When your pilot program ends, create a management report and share it with other business units that might be interested. This way, you can find additional units in the organization interested in your program.

Set your social sellers up for success!

Are you excited to start your beginner social selling program and set your social sellers and business up for success? It's up to you now!

Let us know on LinkedIn if this step-by-step guide was helpful or if you need additional help to succeed in social selling.

Photos by Murray Campbell, Igor Sporynin, Goeran Meyer, and armina arhm on Unsplash