Nowadays, if you want to reach out to your clients, you need to think social and aim for the long term.
Social Selling is the new buzzword – what’s behind all this?
It’s the successful combination between Social Media, content and the cultivation of relationships (Public Relations) on an online basis. Content is the secret weapon for an effective Social Selling strategy and you should use this option to communicate online with your potential clients.
Eminence, your digital marketing pioneer, has summarised for you the most important key elements for establishing a Social Selling Strategy that will thrive:
Establish your Buyer Persona / Customer Persona
Your Persona is the basis for all your marketing and sales activities. Before you start planning your Social Media Campaigns, you need to know for who you want to plan them. What are the challenges (customers pain points) your Persona faces on the Internet, where do they spend their time and what are their interests, etc.? Once you have answered these questions you can start drafting your content. Keep in mind – you are the problem solver of your Persona. Therefore, always ask yourself what are the challenges faced by your Persona and how you can help as a marketer.
Develop your Customer Journey
During the Customer Journey you need to classify your Persona in one of the three phases that they go through, before they buy the product. These phases are:
- Interest & Awareness: The customer is interested in a product or service
- Search: The customer is searching the product on the Internet
- Research: Once the product is found, the customer is doing online research about the quality of the respective product.
The content plays a very important role in the customer journey and should be provided at the appropriate time. With great content you can generate new leads, establish promising contacts and increase your ROI.
Choose your Social Media channels
Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter – which platforms are right for your business?
The Persona you have defined will help you identify the respective competitors and see what platforms they use and how successful their performance is.
Once you have chosen your Social Media channels, you need to set up a profile. Follow your corporate philosophy and your corporate design to create a value-based recognition.
Post frequency and timing
This point is based strongly by the Persona you have defined. When are they active and on which platforms? Is it in the morning, afternoon or evening? Try to answer these questions through in-depth research and build your Social Media Strategy on it.
Identify your Influencers
Influencers are indispensable in this day and age. They often have an enormous reach and a strong impact on their followers. The keyword is – Community Building, which means follow the influencers, as they are interesting for your target audience on Social Media. This will also increase your chances of your content getting shared.
Social Media Content Creation
Content is king in Social Media.
Therefore, it should strategically focus on the interests, needs and objectives of your Persona. Content also needs to be created along with the Customer Journey. Don’t forget to adapt the content to your various platforms as each network is different and has other specialities.
Social listening
Listening is the new selling. Instead of pressing ahead with brisk advertising messages, Social Selling is much more about active listening. Those who listen, gain valuable insights. The potential customers express their doubts, wishes and ideas on the Internet. You should listen carefully and analyse the needs and requests of your target audience in order to integrate them into your effective Social Media Strategy.
Dialogue
The dialogue is an important aspect of your Social Media performance. We recommend interacting on a regular basis with your prospects and clients, so they feel they are taken seriously. The more you win their confidence the more you can increase your e-reputation. Therefore, don’t forget – only a happy and faithful Community can guarantee you a successful business.
Analysis
Analysing is extremely important. Ultimately you want to constantly improve, and this is only possible if you identify your weak points. Listen carefully to the feedback of your Community and take into account their opinions. You can analyse your social network activities with different tools, such as, Kompyte, Swat.io or Quintly.
And last but not least – don’t be promotional
Think long-term – quick success is often only short-lived.
Social Selling is only successful if companies recognise, understand and react to the specific needs of their potential target audience.
Unlike Social Media Marketing, Social Selling is not about building up a fan community and supplying them on a regular basis with offers and marketing content. With Social Selling you ideally want to create a true relationship with your target audience, start a dialogue and enable communication at an eye level.
By acting in front of your client, not only as a contact person, but also as a trusted friend and consultant in a special field, both parties are able to benefit. The client can profit from high quality content and valuable information and the company in return gets important insights on the interests and needs of their respective target audience.
Eminence, your local digital partner, can help you to build up a strong and sustainable Social Selling Strategy which will set you apart from your competitors and at the same time increase your business.