Social Selling Questions Answered Using #TwitterChats

Twitter chats are communities within the social media world where users can interact, engage, and even learn.  Some of our favorite Twitter chats include #TwitterSmarter, #ContentChat, and #OrcaChat. For the month of July, our team has been focusing on the concept of social selling. So we thought let's use these chat formats to share more insight about social selling. 

What are the primary benefits of using Twitter for building a brand community? (#ContentChat)

Our Take

Using social media has many benefits; there are pros and cons to each platform. Twitter is like a "Swiss army knife" in that it offers a myriad of benefits. Branding is just one of the many benefits.  You can engage with your target audience in a non-interruptive fashion. Posting engaging tweets, fun videos, or even a trending gif/meme can humanize your brand.

Let's flip the branding around in the context of social selling.  We are not necessarily focusing on posts that benefit our brand, but focused on listening to how our target audience is posting.  The will share what they value; things like their pain, needs and interests.  Twitter provides a rich opportunity to acquire this insight through simple monitoring functions.  Leveraging this insight enables us to post the "value" that our audience is specifically seeking.  This is the magnet that attracts them to us and leads to relationships.  Relationships lead to trust and whom do we do business with?  Those we trust!

List 3 ways that someone can get started with social selling? (#SocialROI)

Our Take

In layman's terms, social selling is connecting with potential and current consumers through social media platforms. (There are so many different levels in social selling, we could write a whole book on it.) If you want to get started with social selling, here are our 3 tips.

1. Optimize your social media platforms
   • A key starting point  for social selling begins with optimizing your profile. Be sure to include links back to your website, relevant images, and engaging tweets. In the coming weeks, we're going to be teaching your the best tips and tactics for optimal social media platforms. 
2. Listen to your audience
   • Your audience has a pain, need, or interest in your niche; listen to what they're saying. Let's say you have an car dealership and your audience is seeking content on different models of a car. What should you do? Write highly informative blog posts and provide social posts with this insight. Maybe they want to know what kind of tires perform the best. Create an infographic of the different types! The options are limitless.  Listent to your audience and deliver the "value" they are seeking.
     
3. Engage with your audience
   • Hope is not a business strategy!  Simply posting and praying is not going to work.  Engagem with your audience.  Engage with them on what they value.  What is more beneficial; 100 social followers who are fully engaged or 100,000 social followers with no clue who you are? Clearly, the engaged users are more valuable. Find ways to poractively engage and interact with your audience.  It will pay dividends.

What’s your strategy to reach potential clients on social? (#OrcaChat)

Our Take

Engage, engage, engage! As we mentioned before, we could write a whole book on this. The best way to reach potential clients on social media is by building relationships with lead to trust. Just think about it, who do we ultimately purchase from? Those who we trust, and the best way to build trust is through quality engagement.

How can you establish your reputation on social? (#OrcaChat)

Our Take

Everyone knows the importance of a positive reputation. The best way to keep this up is by actively posting on all your channels, actively listen on social media (quickly address any negative comments/issues), and you guessed the last one, engage with your audience!

When do you decide is the right time to start advertising your services on social? (#OrcaChat)

Our Take

The key is to establish yourself as a value provider first.  Feed the insight that the audience is seeking.  As you begin to build out that relationship, you can start to "sprinkle" in things about you and your business.

Why is social a good tool to find clients with? (#OrcaChat)

Our Take

Social media is extremely powerful; everyone is on it. From young teenagers to CEO's running multi-billion dollar businesses, social has transformed the world we're living in. From our experiences, even the tiny niche's have an audience that can be found on social media. It might take time, but having a well developed strategy can help any business find your prospects (and future clients) across social networks.

How is social listening different from social selling? (#BizapaloozaChat)

Social selling = take the social listening info (monitoring/listening) --> you want to connect with your target audience's interest, and convert it to actionable 

Our Take

Social listening is one of the first steps on social selling. You have to understand what the consumer wants before you can address their pain, need, or interest. For an example, after you connect with your target audience, listen to what they like/enjoy seeing. Then share that value they are seeking, which should lead them down your marketing funnel and your future opportunities to sell.

What is the best way to measure the ROI from social selling? (#SocialROI)

Our Take

Agree with the points above.  Set up your initial objective and measure against it.  It is a subtle (and not always simple) starting point.  One that most take for granted, but ultimately provides the measurements you need to determine social selling success.

For more reading on how you can make an impact with your online marketing, check out the links below: 

• Content is King: 101 Tips To Leverage For Your Next Campaign
• Pros & Cons of the 8 Most Popular Social Media Networks
• The Twitter Page Template That Helped Me Gain 17k Followers
• The 8 Step Influencer Marketing Strategy To Help You Get To The Top