5 Insights On Social Selling From Our Last #WeRSMChat

On Sunday, we welcomed our very own Simona – aka “your supplier of epic Friday goodness” – to talk about “social selling”. Since she’s one of the speakers for our upcoming Beat The Buzz Nights event (few tickets left, so grab one fast!), our tweetchat was solid practice before the big day.

Simona was excited, I was excited, and so was Willie. Look at his blossoming face:

Your reaction when #WeRSMChat is about to start… pic.twitter.com/XOegLA2Dnn

— We are Social Media (@WeRSM) August 21, 2016

Okay, enough with the fluff. Social selling is serious business, and is already thought to be one of the very few marketing techniques that will determine whether companies thrive, stay afloat, or even die out in a not-too-distant future. As always, you guys came up with some brilliant answers. These are summarised below. Off we go!

Social selling contributes to building competitive advantage.

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1. Social Selling Is A Long-Term Commitment

Marketers are often pressured to show immediate ROI, but social selling can also be referred to as the process of building meaningful relationships with stakeholders. There’s no shortcut. It takes time.

a1) don't ever forget it's a long game. Be open & on hand to help the customer lifecycle. Not just direct to sale #WeRSMChat

— Mark Davies (@MrMarkDavies) August 21, 2016

long strategy with mini tactical executions throughout 👌🏻 better than forever 'jumping' on things #WeRSMChat

— POLLYANNA WARD (@Pollage) August 21, 2016

2. It’s All About Knowing Your Audience

Everything starts with the people marketers are trying to talk to (not at). Inform your social selling strategy with data, but don’t forget that at the end of the day, it’s all about that (cheese alert!) human-to-human relationship.

A2) listen to the audience, plug into insights + data to see what they want + always stay native to the platform. #WeRSMChat

— Zoë (@ZoboWilliams) August 21, 2016

https://twitter.com/TimElliottUK/status/767439328301768704

realising you are trespassing into people's social lives – needs a different tone approach to traditional marketing media

— Jodie Soulsby (@soulsberg) August 21, 2016

3. Keep Expectations Low In The Short-Term – Prove The ROI Over Time

If social selling was utterly straightforward, we wouldn’t even talk about it. As a long-term marketing technique, short-term results can be disheartening.

A3) Managing expectations is one, you're not going to send a couple of Tweets and then close a deal by lunch #WerSMchat

— Andy Okay in Spanish (@AndyVale) August 21, 2016

A3) it's not about closing that deal, it's about how you interact. I think a lot of sales/comms ppl expect quick wins #WeRSMChat

— Simona Pop (@Sim_Pop) August 21, 2016

4. All Social Networks Can Be Put To Good Use For Social Selling

As long as content is relevant to the audience, every venue is a good one for social selling.

A4) totally depends on purpose / product! FB 4almost all, insta 4graphics / look related Twitter for more intellectual maybe? 😜 #WeRSMChat

— Aviral Sanghera (@aviralsan) August 21, 2016

https://twitter.com/eksays/status/767445106207125505

5. Social Selling Techniques Will Need To Be Adapted To Upcoming Technologies

Like VR for example. There’s no real and widespread application for it just yet, but theres on doubt it will be one technology not to overlook for marketers.

VR experience across platforms imo. No idea how that's possible but it is 2016 ;) #WeRSMChat

— Shae Leigh (@ShaeLeighCT) August 21, 2016

But all you really need to know, is this:

my final thoughts are: be yourself (cheese but true), listen, stop rushing and remember you're always speaking to ppl #h2h #wersmchat

— Simona Pop (@Sim_Pop) August 21, 2016

See what I did there? Good read, right?! Some (read ‘one of us’) even left in tears: