I presented at the Social Day event in London two weeks ago about 10 things I have learned about Social Selling since I set off on my own journey 18 months ago. What was of interest to the audience was the perspective of a “different age demographic” and an individual who had extensive experience in B2B sales. As this group of Kenyan Elephants demonstrate, it is natural to be Social!
1. You have to be there
Blindingly obvious you would think, but not it seems to many looking at the neglected number of LinkedIn profiles and absence of posts I see. (We won’t even talk about Twitter, Instagram or even Facebook!). If you are not there, nobody knows you exist.
2. It’s natural to be Social
Homo Sapiens have embraced social gatherings since time immemorial. From gatherings in caves around camp fires, early iterations of parliament, to the proliferations of music festivals today.
We love to get together. Social Media gives us a frictionless and easy opportunity to connect with friends, things we are interested in such as photography or music, how we want and when we want. Its 247.
3. Activity can mean power
Witness the effect of voracious influencers and their effects on brands and consumers’ propensity to purchase. When Kylie Jenner declared the end of her love for snapchat, or more importantly, it’s revised interface, the market cap was reduced by an eye watering $1.3 Billion.
4. Social activity in larger Corporates tends to be siloed.
I have worked in larger organisations where each product line had its own Social Expert. Each posted their own content, the messages weren’t harmonised and a rather disjointed set of messages were shared with their followers.
Social Media activity should be at the core of everything you do. Common purpose, common messaging.
5. It is imperative you take responsibility for your content
I declined the offer to “hand over” my LinkedIn and Twitter accounts to “Social Media experts” in one large software organisation. I am sure their content was carefully crafted, but it didn’t represent me, my views and what I wanted to communicate to my followers. I found a lot of it bland and uninspiring to be frank.
Call me old fashioned, but I really only want to share content because I think its interesting and you might do so too. It’s fine to re-post and fine to repost corporate stuff, IF you think its interesting and you personalise it with an introductory comment.
6. Being active on Social Media is hard
On the one hand it’s simple. The tools you have are intuitive and I’m assuming you all have a smartphone. If so, you can be social in a nanosecond.
But, it’s relentless. Twitter has an insatiable appetite for content and even LinkedIn is not for the faint hearted.
7. Social Media is efficient
It might be hard and it isn’t easy, but my word is Social Media efficient. You can reach a targeted audience quickly and when it’s convenient for you.
Think of an organisation of just 30 employees. Imagine 50% of them “buy into” the drive for the business to be on social and post one blog each month. Each blog generates a further 5 tweets/likes/comments. That is 180 blogs per annum and 900 tweets/blogs/comments.
Think of it another way, that is the equivalent of 900 voicemails if you decided to disseminate your outbound activity using a different medium.
8. You are probably already using Social Media anyway
A recent piece of research by We Are Digital and Hootsuite indicated that 80% of internet users globally are on at least one Social Media platform or other. Many of us post a photograph, a visit to a sporting event, hotel, restaurant or bar to validate who we are. Imagine if you translated that in your business environment. Validated the organisation you work for in a personalised way increases the possibility of a prospect being interested in purchasing your product or service significantly.
9. You need a plan
As I indicated earlier, most corporate Social strategies have more in common with Brownian Motion than synchronised swimming. At the onset you need all of the functional stakeholders in a room to understand:
Goals/Objectives/Strategies/Actions. Equally you need to understand what the barriers to success are and how you mitigate them. In short, you need a plan.
10. There’s gold in them their posts!
There is nothing more dispiriting at the onset than to write the perfect post or blog, couple it with the perfect imagery and then sit back and watch 45 views, 1 like and no comments. Really, is that all you have for me?!!!However, once you get into the routine you get better at it and your endorsements increase inordinately. Providing you remain prolific, inbound opportunities will start to materialise.
Last week I posted about my new business venture. After 3,000 views (and counting) I am now starting to have conversations with organisations I could never have done so using technology from another century. In summary being “social” delivers tangible benefits whatever your organisation.
David Watts
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