9 Ways to Boost Your Social Selling in under an Hour

There are so many things that a sales rep can do on social media. It can be daunting.

But believe it or not, social selling doesn’t have to be overwhelming. There are several quick and easy wins for sales reps. That’s why we put together this list of ways to improve your social selling in under an hour.

Let’s jump in!

1. Tweak Your Twitter Bio

Twitter gives us 160 characters for our biographies. That doesn’t give us much space to capture someone’s attention and gain someone’s trust. So, you have to be a little creative. Here’s a formula you can use:

By listing the things you love, you humanize yourself for your followers, and by listing what you tweet about, you establish your expertise. Moreover, you create a pact with your followers. If they follow you, they will get info on the topics mentioned in your bio.

2. Optimize Your LinkedIn Summary

After your photo and headline on LinkedIn, your summary (i.e. your bio) is the most commonly viewed portion of your profile. If you’re in sales, your LinkedIn profile shouldn’t read like a resume for a hiring manager. Rather, tell your story to a potential customer.

Not sure of the difference? Here’s a simple template you can use:

Here’s an example:

Don’t like this template? HubSpot has created three additional templates you can check out.

3. Check Who’s Following You on Twitter

If you’re using Twitter well, you should attract new followers, many of which can be useful to you. They me be leads, who may want to purchase your product, or they may be industry influencers, who can promote your company to their contacts.

Whatever the case may be, it’s important to actively monitor who’s following you because you never know where your next business opportunity might come from.

Bonus Tip: Follow some of your followers, but don’t feel like you have to follow everyone who follows you. Be judicious. For example, you may want to follow the people who fit your buyer persona.

4. Check “Who’s Viewed My Profile” on LinkedIn

On LinkedIn, you can see who has visited your profile. Admittedly, it’s much easier if you have a paid version of LinkedIn. But if you don’t, you still can gain access to this feature if you select the right viewing settings.

To change your viewing settings so that you can see who’s viewing your profile, go to Privacy & Settings → Manage

→ Click the Privacy Tab → Profile Viewing Options → Choose “Your Name and Headline.”

You can use the “Who’s Viewed My LinkedIn Profile” section to look for potential leads. Do any of your profile visitors sound like potential leads? If so, see how you’re connected to the person and ask for introductions from your LinkedIn connections. If you can’t get a warm introduction but still want to reach out, craft a highly personalized message to the person.

You can also use the “Who’s Viewed My Profile” feature as a source of affirmation. Perhaps you sent a LinkedIn message or email to someone. Check to see if that person followed up by viewing your LinkedIn profile.

5. Follow Your Target Accounts on Social Networks

Maybe you’re new to social selling, or maybe you’ve fallen behind on your social listening. Whatever the case may be, take the time to follow your target accounts on social networks. Look for both the corporate profiles, as well as the social profiles of the individual buying committee members.

On LinkedIn, you can search for company names and people’s names using the search bar at the top of the page:

On Twitter, you can use the search bar at the top of the page, or you can use their advanced search, which you can find here: http://www.twitter.com/search-advanced

In fact, we wrote an entire blog post on how to use Twitter’s advanced search for social selling.

6. Engage with Social Updates from Your Target Accounts

It’s important to research your target accounts on social media. Not sure how? Check out this blog post on social listening for sales reps.

Remember, though, that listening will only get you so far. There comes a time when you need to engage with your prospects and current customers. When you see the opportunity to add value, don’t let it go to waste. Add an insightful comment. Link to a relevant piece of content. That will help you get buyers’ attention. Not only will the poster see your comment, but others will see your comments, too.

7. Dive into Your Analytics

As a social seller, you should share insightful pieces of content on a regular basis. To find out what’s working for you, you need to dive into the numbers. If you’re using a social selling platform like Trapit, you’ll have access to a dashboard of statistics.

If you don’t have Trapit, you can use Twitter’s native analytics here: https://analytics.twitter.com/

If your sales team uses Sales Navigator, you can check your Social Selling Index. But keep in mind that there are some downfalls to the SSI.

8. Reshare a Popular Post

If you share a great piece of content only once, you could be missing out. Your buyers may have missed it the first time, and your new followers may have never seen it. There’s nothing wrong with re-sharing a great piece of content. So, go for it.

9. Read about Your Industry

Top sales reps understand their market and the markets of their buyers. To have better conversations with buyers and to position themselves as trusted advisors, sales reps need to continuously self-educate.

One way to do so is by perusing the conversations related to specific hashtags on Twitter. If you’re looking for hashtags to follow, you might want to check out: http://hashtagify.me/

Additionally, a good social selling platform will continuously surface content about your industry and your prospects. Take the time to stay informed.

What Tips Do You Have?

I hope that you found these quick tips helpful. I’d love to hear if you have any quick tips for boosting your social selling. Leave them in the comments section below.

If not, check out our cheat sheet for social selling. It’s full of more quick tips.