In 2002, Reid Hoffman and a few colleagues from PayPal and SocialNet launched a networking site called LinkedIn. They understood something fundamental: people have extensive networks built on decades of trust, and trust is ultimately what drives buying decisions. What started with 6,000 users in the first month grew to 37,000 after six months. Today, LinkedIn sits at over 500 million members.
As individuals, we love feeling connected. We love sharing updates and information. From Facebook to Twitter to LinkedIn, social media has evolved from a personal playground into a must-have strategy for every organization, regardless of size. And for B2B companies, the stakes have never been higher.
What Is Social Selling?
Social selling is the new normal. In a nutshell, social selling is when a company and its people passively and, eventually, actively engage with their prospects through social media by providing useful insights and content that helps educate their ideal buyer, all while building trust and credibility subconsciously. In other words, social selling is about creating connection and building trust without necessarily having face-to-face contact.
B2B buyers trust their peers, industry journals, and forums far more than a telemarketer attempting to set a first appointment to discuss a product they didn't even know they needed. When buyers see a large social network engaging in a discussion around a topic that you and your team are part of, it not only engages them but also increases your visibility and credibility.
Eventually, the engagement builds to a point where your salespeople can begin to interact directly with interested parties. That interaction leads to a prospect entering the active stages of the buying journey. Social selling, when done properly and purposefully, can be one of the top driving factors in your sales performance.
The Buyer Journey
Consider the stages of the Buyer Journey:
No Need → Awareness → Research → Evaluation → Decision → Execution
Social selling is tremendously helpful in the first two stages. When a buyer doesn't know they have an issue but sees an article or post highlighting their challenge, it can trigger a question in their mind. Or, when a buyer knows they have an issue and is actively looking for content and information from trusted sources, a consistent social presence puts you in their consideration set before they ever pick up the phone.
If you and your company do a strong job of educating the market around the challenges you're capable of solving, you become a well-respected source of information for your buyers. That's the compounding advantage of social selling done right.
While this may all seem straightforward, most B2B sales companies are behind. They haven't committed yet, and they're losing ground to tech-forward competitors who are actively using social selling to build their reputation as a trusted resource.
The Barriers to Successful Social Selling
Understanding why most companies struggle with social selling is the first step to doing it better. Three barriers show up consistently.
Barrier 1: Not Enough Content
One of the critical components of being a social seller and thought leader is providing content. For many, this feels like a monumental task. Can I write enough? Do I have enough to say to drive real interest? A steady stream of content is critical to social media success — but the reality is, you don't have to create every piece from scratch.
Fresh content created by you or thought leaders within your organization is valuable, but curating content written by others can also have a powerful impact. The goal is to stay visible, relevant, and consistently associated with the problems your buyers care about.
Barrier 2: No Documented Strategy
A lack of preparation will doom any plan before it starts. Social selling has nuances that, on the surface, may not seem like major items. But taken together, they can significantly undermine the effectiveness of your effort. A documented strategy for adoption across your entire organization is critical.
To suddenly decide one day that your salespeople are going to stop cold-calling and concentrate on social selling might result in your termination rather than phenomenal revenue growth. You have to put in place executive sponsorship, training, organizational adoption, alignment of goals, and measurements of success. Mario Martinez, Jr., a recognized social selling leader, speaks to exactly this kind of intentional planning in his Social Selling Webinar — worth the time if you're building your strategy from scratch.
Barrier 3: Not Leveraging the Entire Organization
Organizational adoption is critical to the success of any social selling plan. Ideally, your entire company is aware of the goals and participates at some level. At a minimum, your sales and marketing organizations must be involved.
One of the primary sources of power in social selling is connection. If social selling is only adopted by a few people, the network of connections stays small. When the entire organization participates, the network becomes virtually unlimited. Your team might be trying to reach an executive buyer and discover that someone in your operations group is already connected to them. That kind of leverage can only be unlocked through strong organizational adoption.
Social selling is not a fad. It's here, and it's here to stay. It gives early-adopting B2B companies a significant competitive advantage.
If you're thinking about what social selling could look like for your sales team, start a conversation with Braintrust. We'll walk you through how trust-based selling principles translate directly to your social presence and pipeline.
