Selling a product or service is about so much more than having the perfect pitch and researching your target audience. It’s about getting to know your potential customers, forming relationships, and meeting needs. That’s why social selling is such an important part of the sales process.

With the rise in social media, social selling has become more and more popular. Let’s take a look at what social selling is and how you can leverage it to boost your sales.

What Is Social Selling?

Social selling is the practice of using social media platforms in order to form connections with your prospective customers and have meaningful interactions. Through this form of sales, your company becomes humanized and your customer feels cared about. Social selling takes the sales conversation beyond a matter of trying to get the customer to the purchase and into a relationship of meeting each other’s needs.

Social selling is not a form of social media advertising or even marketing. The point of social selling is to have genuine engagement, with interactions that occur naturally. You can offer helpful information to customers and establish your brand as a solution rather than another thing to sell.

How to Leverage Social Selling To Your Advantage

Social selling sometimes takes a gentle touch, but it can be extremely effective. If you social sell well, you won’t just get customers but a loyal base for your brand. As they recommend your brand to their friends and family, your reach will grow. So how do you leverage that?

Get On the Right Social Media Platforms

First, you need to be at the right place to start those connections. Do some market research to see where your target demographic typically spends their time online. For younger generations, that might be Tik Tok or Instagram. For professionals, it might be Facebook or LinkedIn. Since the steep decline of popularity of Twitter since becoming X, there have been a number of alternatives cropping up, such as:

• Bluesky
• Mastodon
• Threads

You might be able to find some of your audience on there. Be intentional with the social media platforms you join and try not to overload yourself.

Post Helpful, Engaging Content

Once you’re on those social media platforms, you need to post content that your potential customers will engage with. Make posts that relate to those customers, such as helpful information on topics relevant to them. Invite engagement by asking them to share stories of their own experiences, and then respond to or repost those stories. You might even set up a poll to get opinions, with an invitation to reply to the post and explain the reasoning for their vote.

Follow Back

Do you see the same users engaging with your content over and over? They’re probably already interested in your brand so make sure you capitalize on that. Follow them back and engage with their content, as well. Again, you don’t just want this to be a matter of pointing them towards buying a product. Engaging with their content shows them that you are interested in what they have to say, rather than just making them another sales number.

Be Authentic

Remember, social selling is not social media advertising. Don’t come on too strong by sending unsolicited DMs or replies just to get engagement or sell your product. That’s jumping the gun, and it will likely ward off any genuine interactions. Instead, have authentic, meaningful conversations with potential customers. If they’re in the market for something like your brand, you already have something in common. Use that as a basis for connection.

Set Up a Community

One way to really form connections through social selling is to set up a community. On Facebook, it could be a Facebook page or group. You could even create a Discord server for your brand. This will allow potential customers and current customers to connect with each other and share their experiences. This will help to build trust and community within your brand overall.

Show What You Can Do For Them

Rather than talking about what a great service you offer, or how cool your products are, frame the conversation around your product as the solution to a problem. Imagine that this is a friend — because after all, you are building a relationship. Your friend comes to you and tells you about a problem they’re struggling with. You want to help, and you have an idea. That’s your brand. Through natural conversation and posts, show your potential customers what you can do for them through your brand offerings.