Assuming your best prospects are typical humans, they visit an average of 6.7 different social platforms each month. What’s more, they spend an average of 2 hours 24 minutes per day using social media! You must prioritize social selling since your customer is spending 15% of their waking hours with this dynamic medium.

Specifically, we find 75% of B2B buyers use social media to make buying decisions. And 60% of American B2B marketers named social media as their top revenue-​driving channel in 2023. Facts like these make it imperative that social selling strategies rise to the top of your ‘to do’ list.

Social Selling is More Relevant Than Ever

Interestingly, salespeople who use social media close 40–50% more new business than those who don’t, according to salesforlife​.com. If you primarily rely on email and phone for business calls, you’re doing it wrong. For example, SalesforLife says 78% of sales professionals using social media perform better than their peers.

Accordingly, “social media selling is the process of developing, nurturing, and leveraging relationships online to sell products or services.” Whereas social media marketing casts a wide net to communicate a brand, social selling is targeted to bring in revenue. Systemize these practices to build your online social presence – or lose out to more proactive competitors.

The Fish are Biting. Do You Have a Strong Line in the Water?

Infocleanse​.com offers a wealth of statistics on B2B social media usage. They look at the impact of LinkedIn, Instagram, X, YouTube, Facebook and more. Nevertheless, LinkedIn excels with 277% more impactful leads than the others.

Of course, it’s exhausting to be everywhere all the time. So, your winning strategy should begin with the basics of examining your online profile. If you Google yourself, what do you find?

Keep Your Social Channels Authentic and Helpful

According to SalesFuel’s Voice of the Buyer survey, 53% of B2B buyers will check out your profile before the first meeting. Therefore, you might shift your profile’s focus from resume to resource. Play to your strengths, share your genius, bare your insights, and make them curious to know more.

In SalesFuel’s Manage Smarter podcast, Brynne Tillman, the ‘LinkedIn Whisperer’, reviews ways to master social selling. Discussions range from an enlightened mindset shift to warnings to keep your social channels authentic. Notably, there are tips for using AI to generate content all the while retaining your own voice.

Stacey McLachlan and Christina Newberry co-​author an article for Hootsuite urging you to jealously guard your social media accounts. Focus on building trust, creating connections, and providing value as you curate your online self. It takes discipline and patience but manage this space to build a strong personal brand rather than pitching a product.

Imagine Social Selling as an In-​Person Networking Event

SalesFuel’s Kathy Crosett suggests you “Connect with people you think can benefit from getting to know you and your business. Hold conversations with them that can capture their interest. From there, you can begin to sell them after building those relationships and community.”

Sproutsocial says: “Social networks are one of the main places where information is exchanged. It’s one of the preferred places for potential customers to discuss their concerns and needs.” The takeaway: Practice social listening to leverage these online comments just as you would in a person-​to-​person exchange.

Are You Really That Comfortable in Your Comfort Zone?

73% of B2B marketers are using videos to increase traffic on social media. Similarly, 56% of marketers chose to use YouTube for the success of their campaigns. 67% of TikTokers say the platform inspired them to buy products even when they weren’t planning to.

If you’re not moving ahead, you’re falling behind. There are many ways to approach social selling. All of them require a solid foundation of authenticity, trust, and credibility.

Photo by Photo by Alexander Shatov on Unsplash.