Social Selling: The Ultimate Guide to Personal Branding
Social selling is the new way to sell. With a well-crafted personal brand and an effective social selling strategy, you can build relationships with customers and grow your business online. In this guide, we'll show you how to create a great profile, identify opportunities for engagement and get started on the right foot.
Creating a great personal brand is good for your sales.
It’s a fact: buyers judge you before they even meet you.
This is where your personal brand comes in. It’s the first thing that potential buyers will see when researching what you can do for them and is an important component of the sales process. Personal branding is about showcasing your expertise, demonstrating personality, showing off your knowledge and helping people understand why they should work with you or buy from you instead of someone else.
Define Yourself
Your personal brand is the sum of your actions and decisions, both online and off. It's what people think when they hear your name. For example, if you're an entrepreneur who has built successful businesses from the ground up and has sold them for millions of dollars, people will associate this with the "brand" of "entrepreneur." If you happen to be known for having a huge personality or being very outgoing at parties—or even just dressing well—people would probably call these qualities part of your personal brand as well.
What does that mean for you? It means that before anything else can happen in terms of connecting with other people through social media or any other digital channel, someone has to know who you are (and what kind of person they'll be connecting with) first! So let's start by defining yourself as a thought leader in whatever field excites you most:
Write articles on topics related to your niche or industry—but don't just write about them; make sure they're good reads too! In fact, try writing articles so well written that they get republished on other sites (this is always an excellent way to build credibility). And always include links back to either yourself or another site where people can learn more about why it's important not just what
Know your Audience
You can’t expect to go out and sell something to people who don’t want what you have. The more you know about your audience, the more likely it is that people will be interested in buying from you.
So how do you learn enough about your audience so that they will buy from you?
The first step is to know what they like. What are their preferences? What are their interests? Do they like to read or watch videos? Are they more visual learners or auditory learners? Knowing these things will help determine how best to communicate with them as well as where and when to focus efforts on reaching out for new customers.
Then it comes down to knowing what they aren't interested in, whether it's usually a good idea not only because there won't be any resistance but also because it shows respect towards them (which increases trust).
Identify Opportunities
Identify prospects.
Identify clients.
Identify leads.
Identify buyers.
Identify decision makers (the people who will approve your project and grant you access to the resources that you need).
Identify influencers (people who don't have a direct stake in buying from you, but who can help spread awareness about it).
Create a Great Profile
To create a great profile, follow these steps:
Create a profile that is consistent across social media platforms. Social media sites have different ways of sharing information, so it's important to make sure your profiles are all the same on each platform. For example, if you use the same photo for LinkedIn and Twitter but not Facebook, people who don't follow you on LinkedIn might think that's how you look in real life! Your photo should be professional and appropriate for your industry—no selfies!
Make sure that your profile is complete. Do this by filling out every field possible—even if they're optional! If there are fields or features (such as "interests") that aren't relevant to what you do professionally or personally, don't include them in order to avoid confusion when reading through followers' profiles later on down the road while searching out potential new connections online knowing which fields might have been left blank because they weren't interested in those topics rather than because those fields simply didn't exist yet at time when creating their own account (which could still be worth mentioning). If there aren't any required details needed then feel free about leaving those blank too - just don’t forget about them altogether though as especially after making changes where some edits may need updating regularly over time if someone isn't careful enough during initial setup process (i'm talking specifically about bio details here)
Contribute to Groups and Forums
You can use social media to help you find relevant groups and forums on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, Reddit and other networks. Once you find a group or forum that’s relevant to your business, industry or target audience, contribute valuable content to it with the goal of getting more people involved in the conversation. This will help build trust at both a personal level (by showing that you care about the success of others) and an online brand level (since people will see how much time and effort you put into helping their community).
Create Your Own Content
Write a blog.
Write a book.
Create a video.
Create a podcast.
Write a white paper.
Write a case study or research paper
Analyze Your Efforts
If you've reached this point, congratulations! You've done the hard part. Now it's time to analyze your efforts and determine whether or not social selling is really working for you. Like any sales campaign, the key to success with social selling is data. You should keep track of all of your efforts in one place: metrics like follower growth and engagement rates are important here. If you see that it's taking a long time for your accounts to grow organically (e.g., no one is following or engaging with your content), evaluate what you're doing wrong and try something different next time around.
If things are going well, try adding some new tactics into the mix—and don't be afraid to experiment! After all, if there weren't any risks involved in trying something new then everyone would do it already
Do's & Don'ts of Social Selling
Use social selling as a tool to your advantage
Social selling is not a sales tactic. Social selling is a way for you to be able to reach out to prospects and customers with the right content at the right time. Social selling helps you connect with them so that they can then continue their journey by reaching out to you.
Don’t use social selling as a substitute for personal or telephone sales
Social media should never be used as an alternative method of contacting people who have expressed interest in your product or service by calling them directly. You need to maintain that relationship by following up with these people over the phone or in person, as well as through direct messaging on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook Messenger (if allowed).
Learn how you can use social selling to grow your business
Social selling uses social media to engage people in conversations that lead to business opportunities. Social selling is not a new concept, but the tools available today make it more effective than ever before.
Here's what you need to know about social selling:
Social selling builds relationships. It's easier to build trust with someone when they know you as a person first, so using platforms like LinkedIn or Instagram gives customers a reason to connect with you on an emotional level before they ever talk about business.
Social selling builds trust by demonstrating expertise in your industry through unique content such as blog posts or videos that go above and beyond basic information found on company websites. The ability for consumers today is unprecedented; if one brand can provide something better than another based on research or personal experience (or both), then why wouldn't shoppers choose them?
Conclusion
The entire point of personal branding is to stand out from the crowd, which means that you can’t just do what everyone else does. Use social selling as an opportunity to be creative and have fun with it! Now that you’ve read this article, we hope you feel empowered to go out there and make your mark.
