Facebook, TikTok, Instagram and X. LinkedIn, Reddit, Pinterest, what’s next? In this digital age, social media is where people increasingly spend their time. All told, there are over 4.9 billion people using social media, and that number is expected to grow to 5.85 billion users by 2027. So it’s little wonder that organizations are increasingly turning to social media to generate sales.
And social selling has a proven track record of generating results. LinkedIn reports that 78% of social sellers are able to outsell those using only traditional methods, and that they’re 51% more likely to reach their quotas. And according to Sales for Life, businesses see 40% to 50% more new business and 80% to 90% better retention rates when using social selling than those that don’t.
But if your team is used to selling via traditional methods, it can be tricky to know where to start. In this article, we’ll lay the groundwork, offering tips to help you train and equip your team for social selling.
It’s easy to confuse social selling with social media marketing. Both practices involve businesses reaching out to customers on the same social media platforms. However, the methods used are entirely different.
Social media marketing involves broad brand promotion and audience engagement. It’s about overtly advertising your business and products or services to as many people as possible, and it usually involves both organic and paid strategies.
Social selling is a much more subtle tactic that’s all about relationship building. It usually takes an organic approach of establishing one’s presence, sharing valuable and relatable content, engaging with prospects’ content, and forming connections that lead to sales.
You don’t want sales reps taking a heavy-handed or marketing-like approach to social selling. They shouldn’t be spamming people on social media or sending out unsolicited messages.
Rather, they need to take their time, employing a methodical approach that focuses on building a trusted one-to-one relationship with a prospect. And only once that relationship is secure should they transition to making a sale.
There are many different social media platforms available to use for social selling, and you’ll need to decide which ones are worth pursuing. You don’t want to spread your team too thin by maintaining a presence on platforms that won’t yield a return, but you also don’t want to miss out on opportunities that could exist.
Start by asking a few key questions:
From there, consider the specifics of each platform as they relate to your industry, business, and customer base. To get you started, let’s take a brief overview of five of the most popular platforms and how businesses use them for social selling. (But don’t limit yourself to these example platforms if you identify better opportunities elsewhere.)
LinkedIn is one of the most popular platforms to use for social selling, especially in a B2B context. Their advanced features like Sales Navigator and the Social Selling Index (SSI) make it an especially powerful tool for identifying and connecting with customers. They boast over a billion members across over 200 countries.
Facebook is another powerful tool for social selling. Their Facebook Shops and business pages with advanced analytics enable a seamless transition from making a connection to securing a sale. They have over 2.9 billion monthly active users, making them the most-used social media platform. Facebook’s demographics skew older than some platforms, with 57.2% of users aged 35 and older.
Instagram is owned by Facebook and shares many of the same features for businesses. Facebook and Instagram accounts are linked, which can help create a seamless cross-platform experience. The key difference with instagram is the visual format, which attracts a younger audience, with 62.3% of users between the ages of 18 and 34. Instagram has 2 billion monthly active users.
X (formerly known as Twitter) has had its share of controversy since ownership changed hands, with its worldwide user base falling from 368.4 million in 2022 to 335.7 million in 2024. Nonetheless, those remaining users still present a viable opportunity for many businesses, so it isn’t worth writing X off entirely. Users on X are also younger, with 70.8% of them between the ages of 18 and 34.
TikTok is a bit of a wildcard at the moment, as pending legislation threatens to ban the platform in the United States. But for now at least, it remains a strong avenue for reaching younger customers, with 102.3 million users (projected to grow to 121.1 million by 2027), 68.3% of which are between the ages of 18 and 34. They provide a suite of social-commerce tools that enabled over 3.8 billion dollars in consumer spending in 2023. However, the video-based format may require more effort and will be more applicable for some businesses than others.
Most of your reps will probably already have their own social media accounts for personal use, but the ways one uses a personal account won’t always align with the way they should use a selling account.
The first decision to make is whether they should create totally separate accounts or use their personal account in a professional manner. The former option will often be the safer one; however, it depends on the nature of their existing accounts and should be decided on a case-by-case basis.
If they’ve been using their personal accounts in a purely casual manner, and especially if they delve into controversial subject matter (politics, religion, etc.), then you will certainly want them to create new separate accounts. However, some of your reps will have already been using their social media accounts for professional development. They may have already established a strong presence with a loyal following, and it would be to your (and their) advantage to make use of that.
Whether they use their existing accounts or create new ones, you’ll need to set up clear guidelines for how they present themselves and what they can post. They may not be using officially branded company accounts, but they nonetheless represent your business and need to comport themselves in a way that aligns with your brand and values.
An account used for social selling should still be personal and engaging, but it also needs to maintain a level of professionalism. The specifics of where they should fall on that spectrum are up to you, as every organization has their own tone and feel you’ll want them to replicate. But it’s important for you to communicate any principles you expect your reps to follow.
You should also develop a content library filled with approved content for sales reps to take, personalize, and share with their networks. This gives them a useful starting point, while helping to ensure that the content they share aligns with your organization’s messaging and goals.
The best way to master sales skills is with practice, and social selling is no exception. You can set up role-playing exercises that mimic the process of developing a connection with a lead, reaching out, and ultimately bringing them to a sale.
While reps absolutely can (and should) practice in this manner with their sales coach and other sales reps, the text-based nature of social selling makes it particularly well suited for supplemental role-playing exercises with AI.
There are many whole platforms devoted to AI role playing for sales (which we discuss further in our free ebook, Ai For Sales Teams), but ChatGPT works well for this too. Just prompt it with the nature of your business and the social platform you’re selling on, and ask it to role play as a prospect.
Social selling is a broad discipline requiring a lot of nuance depending on the specifics of your industry, business, and social platforms. We’ve laid the groundwork in this article for you to get started on social selling with your team, but for further study and more advanced tactics, we’d recommend the following resources:
Social selling is one of the top trends you should be paying attention to right now, which we highlighted in our free ebook, Sales Leadership Trends 2024: Navigate the New Normal. But it stands among several other key developments.
The sales landscape has gone through dramatic changes over the past few years, from remote selling to the rise of generative AI and much more. Things are finally beginning to settle into a new normal, but it’s vital for sales leaders to understand how today’s sales environment will be different than before.
We identified five key trends that are defining 2024’s new normal—along with ways to handle them. To read about them all, download our free ebook.
And to learn what Performio can do for your organization, request a demo today.