Chances are you’ve already come across an article or blog post on social selling at some point in 2013. It’s creating a lot of buzz this year, with a message that can usually be summed up in one of two ways: 1) You should utilize social channels for lead prospecting, and 2) Leverage your personal connections on social networks for warm introductions.

Sounds easy, right? Maybe not. After a four-month social selling experiment, my team and I realized that achieving real results takes much more than just tapping your social networks and mass-blasting Linkedin contacts. After some collective trial and error, and weekly check-ins for ‘wins, learns, and changes,’ our team refined a few successful tactics for social selling. Over the next three blog posts I will break down how our team approached social selling, what worked for us, and the results of our efforts.  

The Experiment

It all began in May, when our VP of Sales and I went “all in” on social selling after drilling down into the lead sources for all 2013 deals. We found that only 20% of new business was generated from a cold call or cold email, while over 40% came from referrals from employees, customers, former employees, partners, or personal networks. During the same period, we found that our reps were spending 75% of their day cold calling and cold emailing. 

So we thought, what if 50% of that time was spent prospecting with social selling strategies? How much would pipeline increase?

As a team, we shifted our prospecting resources in an effort to “go social.” We dove in head first, trying to figure out how to best leverage our existing social networks to identify and nurture leads. After months of testing and collaboration we agreed on a few basic principles: 

Do a little research 

The biggest challenge initially was to get everybody out of their comfort zone, often we were asking people to reach out to contacts they haven’t spoken to in years, or ever. It was necessary to do a good deal of research on everyone we reached out to show we’re truly making an effort. Where did they go to school? What are their interests? Are there any overlapping points of commonality or contacts you can mention? Make your first interaction more impactful by showing that you put in the effort to craft an engaging, personalized message.

Follow and engage

Once you’ve made first contact, stay engaged by following them on appropriate social channels. Linkedin is the most obvious platform for this, but not the only one. A relatively new feature to Linkedin is the ability to endorse your contacts for specific areas of expertise. Linkedin will often provide recommendations for you to endorse—this is a good opportunity to engage by helping accredit their professional profile. 

Twitter is also a great way to interact with warmed leads. Consider building Twitter lists for various industries, verticals, or personas. After following them, add them to a corresponding list(s). They will receive a notification of this addition, making you seem social media savvy, and validating them as a thought leader. As always with Twitter, look to re-tweet anything relevant or interesting they may tweet. 

Google+ is growing in relevancy. Make sure your profile is filled out with enough information and you have a professional photo. Much like Twitter lists, create industry-specific Google+ ‘circles,’ adding your contacts to the corresponding circle. 

This goes without saying, but In both the research and engagement phases, your success will depend on the level of authenticity throughout the process. Act appropriately, treating prospects as people, not transactions.

Utilize social debt

The concept of “scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours,” is nothing new, however, identifying and leveraging the WIIFM (what’s in it for me) is essential nonetheless. For this, social sellers should look to build social debt—return the favor of a beneficial introduction with something the will benefit their area of business or professional development. Even if the contact you are approaching isn’t in Sales, there are still plenty of introductions or favors one of our reps could provide. Try to determine (or ask directly), ‘who is their dream client?’ There is a good chance that one of your employees knows someone who can help make this introduction. Other potential carrots can be free or discounted services. For example, at Bluewolf, if a contact is in the salesforce.com community, and their warm introduction leads to a closed deal, we often provide free Salesforce-related training of their choice. Establishing targeted and effective WIIFMs can help turn the interaction into a mutually beneficial relationship. 

Coming up next: traditional vs. nontraditional sources

In the next installment of this blog series, we will discuss our findings between old world and new-school sources, their nuances, and how to best leverage them. For more information on how you can implement a social selling strategy in your Sales organization, download the free guide The Changing Role of Sales.