I attended the first day of the Social Selling Forum Paris in July and spent a memorable day.
If we take into account Loïc Simon’s overflowing energy, the professionalism of the speakers, the general benevolence in the workshops, and the good atmosphere that perfumed the corridors, I regret not being able to attend the second day…
I share with pleasure my take away of the day:
- Dare. And accept returns, good and bad. To do that, we need to free ourselves from the impostor’s syndrome.
- Be authentic. Let us show ourselves as we are, give our opinion to let our uniqueness appear, and let us not forget to set ourselves a code of conduct. This is what differentiates us and will make us human with our readers, in which potential customers find themselves…
- Test and learn. What works for me doesn’t necessarily work for you. Find out what works for you based on your target. About that…
- Customers first. Should we say it, the starting point of a good social selling strategy (like any other marketing strategy) will always remain our customers: who are they, what social networks are they on ? How can I helpt them? Speaking about it, did you make your personas?
- Everything remains to be done. Many companies have not yet grasped the potential of a social seller, and marketers and salesmen often feel alone to progress on the matter. If you are a social seller, take advantage of it, you clearly have a length on your competitors!
- An additional Sales-Marketing alignment tool. And also an opportunity for marketing to provide value-added content for sales people. And facilitate the implementation of a Social Selling strategy.
Facebook also in B2B. Your target, before being a buyer, is a person. And is this person on FB? If so, then why ignore it? - THE best time to publish doesn’t exist! Is your customer a New Yorker ? Then, when they commute to/from work in the metro is a good time slot! But if your customers are in Texas, you will have to choose THEIR best time.
- A range of tools at our disposal to accompany Social Selling. To help us at every step – Business Intelligence, Marketing automation, Retargetting, CRM, Curation, Amplication – many tools were presented to us. And for me, Marketing Ops specialist, these exchanges were enlightening.
- A new stage in funnel marketing: funnel marketing no longer stops at the customer. Think of converting him into an ambassador!
- Comment or write? Of course, nothing will replace the writing of a powerful article, but it is often a disproportionate effort compared to performance. Sharing and commenting with a relevant message is also very effective and less time-consuming.
- Tips by the shovel! I leave with a ton of best practices that I cannot publish here, it would be too long, because the speakers have been very generous on the subject. Don’t hesitate to consult the program to know who they are and make an appointment, there is so much to learn! Just go one for the road: thank the likes as you would in real life when complimented.
- What about ROI? If you are a small business or self-employed, you can measure your conversion rate social contacts to meetings, and the share of your income generated directly by Social Selling. In larger groups, it is always complicated to assign a sale to a specific share. 1st touch, last touch, or % touch, everything will depend on the company’s strategy and the tools available. The number of views? A motivation indicator, at most. Especially since it is a statistic that should be divided by 25 (!!!!) since readers who stopped at the third line are counted as those who went all the way.
Convinced by Social Selling, was I ! And equipped I am now!
And I’m waiting for the next session in October to keep up.
