Social Selling is the new trendy buzz word. Everyone wants to do it. Tons of people are doing it badly. Yes, I’m talking about the people that add you to groups without your permission only to post a ton of content about their amazing eyelashes or toothpaste. And yes, I’m talking about the people that add you as a friend only to have their very first message be a generic sales pitch. And yes, I’m talking about the over promoters who post so much about their business that you just unfriend or hide them.
But, I digress, this post isn’t about social selling etiquette. It’s about what platform you should use for your social selling.
What are the best platforms for social selling? Well that’s a bit of a trick question. The best platform is wherever your ideal clients are. But the real key is knowing what is working for social selling right now within each platform
LinkedIn: LinkedIn is one of my favorite platforms for social selling because of Sales Navigator. You can research your ideal client and come up with a leads list based on qualifiers.
Do’s:
- Create short personable reach outs
- Create valuable content via articles, videos and posts so people can research your expertise
- Get recommendations so the people you reach out to can see that you are legit
- Have an irresistible offer that adds value to your contacts
Don’ts:
- Send messages asking people to set up a call to see if you have any synergy. It screams waste of time.
- Send really long messages with all the details of everything you do
- Tell people what a bad job they are doing and then try to sell them your services. (Yep, I’ve legitimately had those types of reach outs on LinkedIn.)
Instagram: Instagram is one of the best platforms for quickly increasing your visibility to new profiles. Without any training, but just increasing your frequency of posting, you’ll see an increase in visibility, profile views and clicks to your website.
Do’s:
- Post 3-6 times per day
- Create a consistent visual experience for your followers
- Use #hashtags to get new viewers to your profile
- Use Linktree so that you can have a link to a freemium, your website, and a youtube channel if you want to promote more than one thing in profile.
Don’ts:
- Create boring content
- Use automation to comment “nice profile” on other people’s content
- Use the subscribe unsubscribe method to get followers. IG’s algorithms don’t like it anymore according to my sources.
Facebook: I’ll be honest, Facebook isn’t what it used to be. And if you’re looking for free visibility and connection for your business, Facebook isn’t your best bet. But it’s still got great add potential.
Do’s:
- Use groups to build community. Groups are still performing well. Just make sure people asked and/or consented to be added to them.
- Use Facebook Ads. They have a pretty sophisticated platform to help you connect with your ideal client.
Don’ts:
- Expect to post great content on your business page and get any sort of traction on it.
- Use events for anything other than birthday parties. I’ve tested this recently and it’s still not working well for business.
- Create groups just to sell your products. The groups that are working are very community and value based.
- Only play on Facebook. The growth is happening on other platforms right now. So even if you love FB, branch out and start building elsewhere.
YouTube: YouTube is a powerhouse because of the strength of the search engine. But it’s also the most demanding in terms of production.
Do’s:
- Build Funnels so that you are taking your YouTube subscribers out of watching and into taking action with your products or services
- Be consistent in your posting
- Research all videos for keyword research before filming them
- Take YouTube for Bosses by Sunny Lenarduzzi (trust me on this one! Take the course) before you really put time and energy into launching your channel.
Don’ts
- Create a YouTube Channel without a monetization strategy that goes beyond getting paid by YouTube for the Ads. It’s going to take a lot of time to start seeing that money rolling in.
- Post about too broad of topics in your videos.
Social Selling isn’t a whole lot different than selling has ever been. It’s about bringing great value, creating connections, and building trust. The main difference with social selling is that you can now reach MILLIONS of people without every changing out of your yoga pants. It’s fantastic! If you business needs some help with sales skills or sales systems, make sure you check out my Coaching on Demand Program for quality training on a budget any business can afford.
My final tip is, don’t try to win in every platform. Choose one or two and focus. It takes a lot of focus to win in any of these platforms!