How Practical is Social media as a sales channel?
We have used Social media channels for nurturing B2B & B2C leads and improve 
conversions of sales effectively on most of our social media campaigns in 2011-2012. “Social selling” revolves around relationships,networking, establishing rapport, and leveraging existing relationships. We call it Social Proof that leads to Sales 2.0. 
Nothing has changed: till social media was born this was done via face-to-face business meetings, trade shows, industry conferences, business clubs, society gatherings, social clubs to name a few. Over the last 5 years, this has changed with the adoption of Web 2.0 and social media. People are still who they are; only the medium is different now.
Social selling in itself is a natural response to fundamental changes in customer behavior and their buying process. The new social customer expect you know about them, their business, and their needs before engaging on social platform. This is huge plus point when it comes to lead nurturing, especially in B2B sales.
Here are Top 5 social selling tips which worked for us in 2012
- Curate: Be the curator for relevant industry news, happenings and events. Tweet to prospects about news & events in their industry. Be a curator & they’ll stay engaged.
- Build confidence: Help your prospects through every step of their buying journey. Don’t bombard them with emails, rather educate and build confidence.
- Surround: Use multiple social channels for surrounding your prospects and make sure your message is heard.
- Add value: Offer helpful insights, relevant case studies and information for call to action.
- Brand recall: Optimise customer engagement, loyalty and engage during a “product recall” to keep brand perception positive.
Your target prospects, decision makers, buyers and customers are publicly providing information about themselves in real-time. CMOs and marketing managers like you have insights on their likings, influence roles, their preferences, buying habits, even what they’re reading. In 2013, it’s ever more important that you leverage social media channels to actively listen, engage, and add value to the customer conversation. Are you listening?
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