How NOT to Use Social Media

Social media isn’t new. What is new, however, is how high performing sales people are using social media to engage potential or existing customers. Shut out from “traditional” sales engagement techniques, our best reps are turning to social media to get their foot in the door.

Now there is a growing body of literature about how sales can and should be using social media to interact with customers. Unfortunately, there is a big difference between how we’re seeing the best sales reps use social media, and what we typically read in these articles.

In no particular order, here are the top three ways we see high performers using Social Media that differs from common practice.

1. Social Selling is NOT active listening– Some say that using social media enables a sales person or account manager to be able to tap into the network of their customers. While this is certainly important, this is actually where high performers start, not end, their use of social media.

High performers want to be a proactive part of a customer’s social network – not selling through social media, but rather engaging with customers, sharing ideas and insights.

This is kind of like going to a cocktail party, where high performers want to be that person who people want to lean in and hear stories from (rather sitting passively like a fly on the wall listening to other people’s conversations). See how Eloqua positions reps as key industry influencers.

2. Do NOT leave it to your account managers and sales reps to develop content to share – This is a biggie. We see best practitioners providing their sales force with the messages and other content to share already baked and ready to be pasted into an individual rep’s social media stream(s). To engage customers, we need to provide them through our reps the insights they need and value, rather than just more information (that they’re trying to screen out anyways).

Because of this, leading practitioners view Social Selling not only as an individual responsibility, but also an organizational one. See how IBM arms reps with social “soundbites”.

3. Do NOT leave it to your account managers and sales reps to develop their social network – This one is more subtle, but just as important. Hypothetically, you might be developing the best insights in the world, but if your sales force isn’t connected to the right people or groups, then it’s like the proverbial tree that fell in the middle of the forest. Will anyone hear your message? Doubtful.

So here again we see best practitioners proactively developing lists of individuals and groups for their individual sales people to connect with. These include key influencers at the account or in the territory, thought leaders, and other contacts who can hold sway.

Social selling is an emerging tool, and because it’s new there is a lot of experimentation going on. The guidelines above provide a guide into how leading companies are leveraging this to enable their sales people to use to influence customers.

SEC Members, review the key findings from the full study and listen to the event replay on how to gain credibility and influence in B2B social media networks.