Social Selling: Selling through social media, a high-potential strategy for brands

If there's one digital marketing strategy with significant ROI potential today, it's social selling. Relatively recent, this approach—which involves using social networks (particularly professional ones) to sell a product or service B2B—is indeed emerging as an increasingly mature business practice. It's a very interesting avenue for brands to explore in order to diversify their sales channels. Opportunities that we at So Bang help them seize.

Social Selling: Key figures to remember in France in 2020

37.4% of B2B decision-makers have already purchased a product or service after discovering content on social media. Furthermore, in two out of three cases, the person had no prior contact with the company before seeing this content. This is according to the results of the latest Social Selling barometer, published last July (3rd edition). Among the other key figures from this study, 61% of B2B decision-makers who have made a purchase following a post shared on social media were influenced by an article. Finally, 70% of B2B managers believe that interactions on social media are less sales-oriented and more focused on exchange (compared to 78% in 2018).

As all these indicators show, social selling is now displaying tangible signs of maturity. Therefore, it's no surprise to see more and more brands taking an interest in it. Like influencermarketing, social media content is appealing because of the power it wields over its audience, and therefore, in particular, B2B decision-makers. And while it's difficult to pinpoint the impact of social media on their purchasing decisions based on the type of company they belong to, it's clear that content quality is a key concern. For example, according to a national study conducted by the UserLab of the Intuiti agency, only 40% of B2B decision-makers say they appreciate the posts found on their social media feed (a figure that has stagnated for three years). This should give all brands ideas for offering increasingly attractive and relevant content on social media. 

But what exactly is Social Selling?

Social selling is a strategy that involves using social networks (especially professional ones like LinkedIn or Twitter) to acquire new prospects and customers, build trust with them, listen to their needs, and support them throughout the entire sales process. For a company, beyond the sales it can generate or the leads it can acquire, the goal is also to build a strong brand image with its target audience.  

But what types of content do decision-makers prefer when making a purchase? According to Myriam Nessali, Director of the Innovation Lab at La Poste Solutions Business, for whom the Social Selling barometer was conducted, the trend is toward a mix of media. “Two years ago, decision-makers were very regular consumers of articles and white papers,” she explains on the CB News. “The situation has changed: today, they are occasional consumers… of all types of media. Videos, podcasts, white papers, articles… they switch from one to another. It is therefore important to try to be present on these different platforms to reach your target audience.” 

The Social Selling agency, a business accelerator through social networks

Now that you understand the objectives and challenges of social selling, the crucial question remains: how to sell effectively on social media? For companies truly committed to this inbound marketing strategy, the best way to succeed is to work with a social selling agency.

At So Bang, for example, we support brands by helping them produce content on topics that interest their target audience in an intelligent way (i.e., not overly commercial). Since customer journeys vary from one social network to another, we also help brands build content strategies tailored to each channel. We deploy this expertise through multidisciplinary and complementary creative teams (copywriters, community managers, influencers, videographers, photographers, etc.).  

Enter the era of Social Selling

Today, too many brands continue to use social media as mere billboards. Others stubbornly persist in prospecting through numerous email campaigns that land directly in users' spam folders and contribute to damaging their company's image. Outdated, expensive, and ineffective, these techniques have no place in the digital marketing landscape of 2020. 

At the heart of the game, social media represents a fantastic entry point for all advertisers, provided they are used with the right expertise. For example, by practicing social selling. And it works! As we've seen, today, more than a third of decision-makers make a purchase after reading content found on social media. 

Our social media agency, So Bang, can help you turn your initial success into a reality, just like more and more companies are doing today. And by choosing social selling, you won't regret your investment. As LinkedIn points out in an eBook available for download on its Sales Solutions platform, “the most successful social selling practitioners generate 45% more opportunities and are 51% more likely to achieve their sales goals.”

Interested in social selling services? Contact So Bang !