If your company isn’t training salespeople to maximize social media, you’re missing a huge opportunity. Social media can boost your sales team’s client connections, revenue per customer, and overall financial success - plus, your employees add an army of extra followers to your company’s social networks. Here’s a breakdown of easy ways to sell more with social media.
Double-Check the Basics
First, do all of your reps know how to use all major social media? Are you absolutely sure? You might have a few salespeople who are secretly uneducated about social media, but scared to admit it. Or you might have a few who are openly averse to it.
Some of the world’s most successful companies handle this by making social media a formal part of their company’s training program. They create learning experiences that start from the assumption that employees need social media education and have the potential to be brand ambassadors for the company. Starbucks, for example, treats every employee like a mini-manager of social media, empowered to tweet, post, and share photos about Starbucks products.
Follow and Tag
Speaking of tweeting, posting, and sharing: Make sure your salespeople know how to do all that! Without a basic understanding of the lingo and actions required to navigate social media, they’re not really going to do it.
As you encourage employees to join the social conversation, educate the stragglers about exactly how to follow, tag, pin, tweet, post, snap, share, and upload photos. Make sure they are connected to your company, not just their personal interests. If you don’t quite understand how to do all this yourself, you can work with a professional learning company that uses innovative techniques to enhance education.
Set Social Guidelines
Establish a set of social media guidelines or work with your marketing/branding department to communicate them. Your salespeople, who are competitive and goal-oriented, will probably want a clear list of apps and platforms they’re expected to know.
Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter are essential. For salespeople, Facebook and LinkedIn are basically two sides of the same social coin - Facebook for personal connections, LinkedIn for business contacts. Both are great ways to see who works at certain companies, who’s looking for jobs, and what their interests are. Twitter can help salespeople see problems to be solved and opportunities for selling. So, for example, if someone tweets frustration with teaching a teenager math, your learning software salesperson could reach out with a free trial offer.
Instagram and Pinterest, which are photo-dominant, are perfect for businesses based on selling physical products and getting people to attend events. If your events are sparsely attended, have your employees start pinning photos of the beautiful gift bags and product samples. Suddenly, your target audience can see reasons to stop by.
Keep it Personal and Real
Encourage your employees to keep their social media interactions professional, but let them know that it’s okay to be real. Just like in face-to-face interactions, potential customers will sense fakeness if it’s all push, push, push - and your salespeople won’t like it either. The best social media programs are voluntary. Your sales reps have to want to do it.
So rather than asking them to post boring product facts and testimonials online, suggest that they Instagram themselves, or their friends, using the product or service - and tell them to tag you and their client. Ask them to post pictures when they go to a client’s restaurant or use a client’s camping gear. Remind them to snap a photo of someone next time they mention how happy they are with your company’s services. Share those smiling faces on social media.
Make it Sustainable
As your social media plan expands, find ways to keep it at the top of your sales team’s priority list. The easiest way to do this is by setting up an ongoing schedule of training sessions with a social media expert or professional learning company. This ensures you know what’s new in the ever-changing social media landscape and keeps your sales team enthusiastic about the new opportunities it brings.
Need help creating a sales training plan? Contact Option Technologies for an array of education options.
