In January of 2013, Facebook released a new, sophisticated search feature called Graph Search. The tool allows users to input specified queries (“music my friends like,” for example, or “restaurants people at my company have eaten at”) that makes it easier to dig through the mass amount of information stored within your social network. Graph Search takes advantage of a principle that is increasingly apparent through social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn: we tend to trust family, friends, and close acquaintances the most when seeking out a wide range of recommendations.

This observation is nothing new, as humans have always looked to each other to adapt, progress, and make informed decisions. But how might this refined search tool relate to the sales world, particularly within the realm of B2B sales? That’s where the concept of social selling comes into play. As Mike Prowak touched on in Part 1 of this series, “Social Selling: How to Get Started,” social selling is a technique that capitalizes on buyers’ use of social media to educate themselves on the best products on the market. Unlimited access to information helps customers diagnose problems, identify solutions, and make buying decisions without ever speaking to a sales representative.

Rather than relying solely on inefficient cold calls, with social selling, sales can leverage established relationships to connect with prospective clients and decision-makers on a much more scalable basis.

I know from experience that social selling is effective. As my colleague previously stated, “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.”

The question then became: How do we combine social selling techniques (non-traditional selling methods) with traditional tactics (cold calls, emails, etc.) to create a strategy that would make our reps more effective. Here are a few insights from Bluewolf’s experiment in social selling, and how you can get a headstart on making your personal network work for you:

• Learn to read the social signs
  
  Your prospects are already on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and the rest. Take advantage of their posts to those sites by noting trends, common complaints, and possible solutions. What kind of issues do they talk about? How can your company service these needs? Don’t expect to close deals in the social media universe (nobody likes to be inundated with nosy product placements on their Facebook newsfeed), but use your personal network to anticipate and preempt your clients’ problems. It’s all about knowing more about your prospects in order to stand out when it’s finally time for that face-to-face consultation.

  • Key Learn: we used salesforce.com and Eloqua community sites to track customer pain points. This allowed for highly personalized emails to prospects where we could highlight Bluewolf’s past successes in particular areas, and provided warm topic-based introductory discussions.

• Keep an open scope
  
  While it’s ultimately essential to be in contact with decision-makers, it’s equally important to remember that employees from all levels of the organization can influence the C-suite. The concept of “social debt”—i.e., providing aid or recommendations to current clients and members of your personal network in exchange for their business referrals—can have considerable results. Have a great customer who is likely to refer you into a prospect? Sweeten the deal by offering to connect them with their “dream client” or some other sort of proposal from which they can benefit. Have a new employee that might provide a bridge to a new prospect? Recognize their warm introduction by thanking them on Chatter and increase their visibility in your organization.

  • Key Learn: Our team had the most success with LinkedIn’s “How You’re Connected” functionality. This gave us great insight into what current clients and new/existing Bluewolf employees were connected to potential prospects. Doing this small amount of research is well worth it when the reward is a warm introduction and a potential opportunity.

• Drop the distinction between social selling and “real” sales
  
  The ability to proactively listen, relate, influence, and engage with your customers is crucial for building relationships, not just closing one-off deals. Profitable Sales teams are using the power of social media to differentiate the customer experience and stay one step ahead of their competitors. Despite the changing business landscape, the need and relevance of social selling is here to stay - we will soon reach a point where “Sales” and social selling are one in the same. So integrate social selling into your daily sales strategy now and move beyond simply having an online presence. Start engaging and adding value to your networks. After all: Putting out thoughtful, insightful, and purposeful content will elevate your social media presence above the noise.

  • Key Learn: Cut back on cold calling metrics to encourage your team to get out of their comfort zone. Instead of hitting a number of cold calls per day, have reps respond to a blog post or tweet by one of their prospects. This interaction will add a level of relevance to the conversation the next time they reach out.

Thoughts on our social selling experiment? Feel free to share your experiences, questions, and concerns in the comments in the section below. Stay tuned for the third and final installment of the social selling series coming soon.

Download the guide “The Changing Role of Sales” for a closer look at how to leverage your social channels to drive sales.