First step: Listen & identify
Your first step when it comes to social selling should be what’s known as social listening, because listening is the new selling. Instead of pushing advertising messages and trying to force people to be interested in your products, social selling requires you to listen actively to the needs and wants of your customers. In taking in and appreciating what they say, products or services can be targeted accordingly. Just listening isn’t good enough anymore either: you have to identify customers’ main concerns and act on this. Other marketing measures should follow this first step closely and be based on the findings you make.
Second step:Build a reputation
If you want to build a relationship with customers that’s based on trust and respect, then you have to establish yourself as a reputable brand or company. In order to build a reputation as an expert in your field, ensure that you offer consistently high-quality content that focuses on the needs and demands of the user as outlined in the social listening phase. Once you’ve created your own blog articles or guest posts, make sure you get it to the right people and in the right context, with introductory copywriting to explain why you’re posting it in the first place.
Third Step: Establish relationships
By this point, you’ve gained insight into who your target group is and what they’re after, and in the second step you’ve also offered them a reason to listen to what you have to say. Next comes the really decisive phase: it’s time to start building a strong relationship with individual customers. This requires more than ‘likes’, ‘shares’, and ‘comments’ – you need to appreciate proper interaction with your customers. If you offer useful, researched information, tell authentic stories, and generally discuss interesting topics, you’ll find it easier to open a relaxed and constructive dialog. Important: this phase is about talking directly to customers, one-to-one, not communicating at a group of customers in a one-to-many situation.