Does Social Media generate Social Selling?

 It is important to understand what Social Media generates and what it can contribute to Social Selling. Social Media in itself does not generate Social Selling and is not supposed to do so. As mentioned in a previous blog (The shifting power from enterprise to consumer) Social Media is supposed to create an advanced dialog between the costumer and the company. As been discussed before, Social Media is a dialog between “Many-to-Many” and NOT a “One-to-Many” speech. The influence of the buying process has changed as the dialog and conversation has change from the company to the costumer. The Costumer is in “control-Costumer empowerment” and it has an effect on the buying and selling process. If you want to participate in the conversation and want to have influence on the costumer network and influence the opinion of the costumer, you need to be able to deliver a valuable content and place it in the context, which will give sense to the costumer. Social selling is based on this new reality – you cannot fool the costumer and don’t even try. Start to recognize that your costumers is more knowledgeable  and even better informed that you used to think – the costumers is connected in social networks where they discuss everything- and this could be your advantage if you deliver the content which will give the costumer and advantage. The expectation from the new Social costumer is that;

• There is a demand of relevance from you as a seller – content in the right context in an honest and open way.
• There is a demand to the seller that you know about your costumer, their companies and their needs before engaging with them in any sales.

Sales are not able to come with a standard “elevator pitch” where the common problems, is addressed.

Using the social media for sales, demand that you actively listen, and engage and add value to the costumer conversation – content in the right context. What costumer wants is a strong collaboration where they get the feeling that they are being, taken seriously and maybe even taken into the development of new products. Your costumers expect you to know as much about them as they know about you. The company need to have its sales intelligence in place to be able to catch the knowledge, which is, presented in both traditional data and from Social media from their costumers.

As a company you need to be aware of that the Social Costumer would only use your marketing material for a second opinion, and instead turn to their peer network or to people they know to evaluate the vendors product or service and even diagnose their news collected before taking a buying decision. The new reality is that costumers will formulate their opinion without the company and sales persons influence if they cannot deliver a valuable content to the costumer. A growing number of business in especially the B2B segment, is started and closed without any face-to-face meeting as costumers are collaborating online with the company they are buying from. This demands openness and flexibility from the companies, which is difficult as you are, exposed to your competitors looking into your business, as that is a demand from costumers.