If you run a quick Google search for the phrase “Social Selling,” you’ll get nearly 500 million search results. Overwhelming, I know.
Sure, it’s safe to say that “Social Selling” is a new buzzword. However, many will argue that it’s more than that. Many will argue that Social Selling is not only a new buzzword, but a new phenomenon, and the new direction that Sales is inevitably headed in, given the pervasiveness of social media in our lives.
But before you get so overwhelmed that you delete your Twitter and LinkedIn, take a hammer to your computer, and make a pilgrimage to live somewhere deep in the woods, just take a couple minutes to read through some of these blogs—they’ll clear everything up for you, and put your mind at ease.
We’ve curated a collection of blog articles from industry leaders that answer the common question, “What is Social Selling?” Read what the experts have to say about what social selling is, isn’t, and how it’s enabling Sales and Marketing to work together to achieve predictable growth.
What Social Selling Is
This first blog from HubSpot, “The Sales Professional’s Go-To Guide to Social Selling,” is fully detailed, and covers just about everything from defining Social Selling to optimizing social media accounts for Social Selling. If you’re looking for a good place to start your learning process, I’d recommend starting here—especially if you’re feeling even the slightest bit overwhelmed.
Another good place to start is Salesforce.com’s “The Mini-Guide to Social Selling”. Though this blog tends to focus quite a bit on Salesforce’s own products and services, their examples offer an effective illustration of some of the key techniques and benefits of Social Selling.
What Social Selling Isn’t
After reading through one or both of those blogs, you may still be confused or unsure what Social Selling is, despite their best efforts.
If you are, here’s another post from HubSpot: “What Social Selling Isn’t.” In this blog, you’ll find 15 different misconceptions about Social Selling, and a clarification about each one.
For another perspective, check out “Are You Social Selling or Just Being Salesy on Social Media?” This blog is from InsideSales and really hits the nail on the head in differentiating between Social Selling and making sales pitches on social media. As you’ll learn, they’re totally different.
An Interview with an Expert
But don’t just take my word for it. Here’s an interview from InsightSquared with Jill Rowley: The Queen of Social Selling. Reading through this will give you a lot of insight from someone on the front lines and a number of important, impactful takeaways, such as: “If you’re going to take old school strategies and tactics and apply them to new school social selling channels, you suck!”
How Marketing Can Help
If you think about it, Social Selling can be another avenue to introduce Smarketing into your company. Your Marketing team is likely already all over social media, and more than likely has some tips and tricks they can teach your Sales team.
In this blog from InsightSquared, “How Marketing Can Help with Social Selling,” you’ll find a couple ways Marketing can do just that. However, this particular blog is a little limited in scope. There are a number of other ways that Marketing can help aside from those included here. The key takeaway, though, is that Social Selling is another way for Sales and Marketing to work together to achieve a common goal of enabling predictable growth.
Learn more about how Sales and Marketing use Smarketing to create predictable growth, download the eBook below.
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