Social Selling 101 – 3 Social Technologies To Get You Started

Enjoy these tips on social selling technologies that you can use to make the most of channels like LinkedIn.
Article Outline

People often ask me which technologies I use to run my day to day social marketing. There are so many you could use, which makes it tough to determine which ones you should use. I’m going to tell you what’s worked for me, without going deep into the specifics of each technology. They are all easy to use. Also, I think it’s really useful for you to get your hands on each for some trial and error, so that you get a true grasp of how they work.

Begin at the beginning

When you start out social selling, don’t automate any of your processes. Just focus on figuring out how to participate in a social conversation and getting connections through LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.

Begin with Twitter. It’s the easiest place to start a conversation and get some energy into building a relationship, and once you’re comfortable there it’s easy to do the same on other social channels as well.

Begin with automation. Social selling is really just a form of networking with your buyers and building relationships where they live. Note: we aren’t making rockets with this piece of the sales process, but you will need to automate as your following increases.

Keep in mind that automation is for (ONLY) posting. DO NOT AUTOMATE ANY FOLLOW UP. If you aren’t going to engage one on one, then I suggest you stick to smiling and dialing.

3 social selling technologies to get started with

These three are all easy and simple to use, and are free (or nearly so). They work well as [inlinetweet prefix=”3 Social Selling Technologies” tweeter=”#socialselling” suffix=”null”]starter technologies for social selling[/inlinetweet], and for many people they might be all you’ll ever need. Down the road we’ll get into social technologies that are a lot more cray cray, but consider this Social Selling Technologies 101.

BufferApp

Buffer is the bomb.com! It’s completely free for a single account and it allows you to create posts, schedule posts, and even gives you some basic analytics to show you how your posts are doing engagement-wise. You can shuffle your posts (mix them up in random order) and your posting times.

Buffer can connect you to LinkedIn, Google+, Facebook, & Twitter. You can automate all your posts to the different channels. I’m not a fan of automating your LinkedIn posts but a lot of people find that useful. If you do it, I suggest monitoring LinkedIn periodically during the day and doing it real time.

Simple Buffer strategy: Add RSS feeds and pull in content that is geared towards your audience. Make sure you add hashtags to your tweets and pictures to increase engagement. Be careful not to post too much on Facebook, Google+, and LinkedIn as it can hurt your engagement. How much is too much? You can generate a lot of activity, but don’t do hundreds and hundreds; that tends to look spammy. Here’s what I do:

  • Facebook: 2 posts daily; one positive quote, one article
  • LinkedIn and Google+: 3 times daily, 4–5 hours apart
  • Twitter: 5–10 times daily, or  more, depending on what’s new or hot

Here’s what Buffer looks like (Content, Analytics, Schedule)

Buffer


Use Riffle (By CrowdRiff) to research people

A buddy of mine (@hootreid) showed me this last month and it blew my mind. It’s a simple Google Chrome plug-in that takes about 10 seconds to download and is FREE. It’s incredibly useful for social selling.

Riffle allows you to drill into anyone’s profile and see what social channels they are plugged into. You can then connect directly to their LinkedIn, Klout, Google+, Instagram, and Facebook. Why is this important? Simple: TIME, TIME, TIME! Instead of having to search to find out which social media channels they’re using, it shows you all of them. You can then click the icon and it takes you directly to their profile. Riffle will save you tons of time as you get into making connections across channels for social selling.

Simple Riffle strategy: Leverage Riffle to see where people are from, what’s important to them, and which hash tags they use most often. You can also see what type of activity the user has on Twitter. All this is valuable research. It does take time to engage on Twitter; you want to make sure you are spending your time with a human that’s active so your chances of useful engagement go up.

Riffle


Use Tweriod.com to research best posting times

Tweriod is a simple Twitter app that takes about 15 seconds to plug into your Twitter account. This was a game changer for me and it’s FREE! Tweriod dives into your Twitter account and tells you the best times that you get engagement. Success on social (beyond being real and interesting) is all data-based. There are peak times that your network is active on Twitter; you won’t know this without some type of technology. It’s really powerful, and lets you “fish when the fish are biting.”

Tweriod strategy: When you schedule your posts in BufferApp, use your insight from Tweriod to determine what times to automate your Tweets to post. I had a 30% increase in engagement within the first two days of using Tweriod. Timing is everything on Twitter for impressions and engagement. It’s like television advertising; do you want your spots to run at prime time, or when no one is watching? If you post at the right times, your results will INCREASE! If you post at the wrong time on Twitter … you might hear crickets.

Tweriod

In Conclusion

All three of these technologies will be enough to get you started leveraging automation and analytics in your social sales process. It’s a marathon, not a sprint and don’t forget that! If you use all three of these in tandem you will be amazed at how fast your social game will go to the next level. Just don’t forget the reason to do it well: It’s all about making it easier and more effective to engage and build relationships. You aren’t selling; you are HELPING!

Click Here To Add Me On Twitter —->>>> @jackkosakowski1

Want to learn more? Check out the Social Hangout Podcast

If you want to get more insight about how to leverage social media effectively, watch the #SocialHangout podcast every Friday at noon Eastern time. The podcast hosts are @ericlmitchell,  @kevinttully, and me, @jackkosakowski1

Here is a link to the recent #SocialHangout podcast with Global Social Selling Expert Jill Konrath: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcBD8SVyHvI&feature=youtu.be

Guests coming up!

2/20 – Bryan Kramer www.bryankramer.com

2/27 – Matt Heinz www.heinzmarketing.com

3/6 – Julio Viskovich www.julioviskovich.com

3/13 – Dave Kerpen www.likeablelocal.com www.davekerpen.ceo

Marketing Automation can also be a valuable tool in assisting sales teams with insights for social selling. Check out our free on-demand demo and see how Act-On can help give you insight into a prospects behavior and activities, as well as a platform to help automate your social posts. Marketing Automation can also give you the insights and data you need to prove the ROI of your social selling activities by tracking your engagements through your prospects lifecycle.

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