The Ultimate Guide: Getting Started with Social Selling [New eBook]

While technology continues to evolve the sales and marketing process, ask yourself: Are you adapting your organizational strategies accordingly? If the slew of cold calls and emails coming through on a daily basis is any indication, there’s still significant room for growth on the social selling front.

The traditional “engagement model” where marketing tells a targeted group what to want, and then sales tells them why they want it and takes the order is far less effective now that buyers are more active in information gathering. They know what they want and why. When today’s buyers have questions, they search for answers online instead of relying on information from a salesperson.

Alignment is not just important to improve the efficiency of marketing and sales, it’s essential in establishing a new, shared set of goals to reach buyers meaningfully. To help marketers harness the power of improved engagement and more efficiently adapt to this critical model, today we’re launching “The Ultimate Guide: Getting Started with Social Selling,” a new eBook created in collaboration with LinkedIn Sales Solutions.

Why Social Selling? And why now?
Your social media presence is your introduction to buyers. In fact, 81% are more likely to engage with a strong, professional brand, according to LinkedIn’s Global Survey of

1,500 B2B Decision Makers and Influencers. The social selling model ensures that your company’s brand will encourage buyers to seek you out.

Additionally, you’re tasked with engaging more than one stakeholder, as research shows the average B2B opportunity has more than five decision makers involved. Helping buyers reach a decision requires multiple points of contact in the company.

We focused the content of this new eBook on defining the core value of social selling as a business practice, but also the practical realities of where to start, who owns it, as well as how to operationalize the strategy, and truly uncover the benefits of it for your company’s bottom line.

The eBook includes case studies from ADP, Comunycarse, Concur, Oracle, PayPal, and Pitney Bowes, to demonstrate how real sales and marketing teams addressed these realities and strategically positioned their companies for success (metrics included!)

Here are 3 key takeaways from the eBook that your organization needs to know about social selling:

1. Who owns social selling? Sales and marketing both can use social selling to influence buyers at any point of their journey. But it’s not just for the sales team. For the model to work most effectively, it should be implemented holistically across sales and marketing.

2. How you can operationalize social selling? Help your team stay authentic online. Concentrate less on the sales angle and more about sharing quality content and building connections.

3. How can you make the practice of “social selling” the new normal? Make sure your team optimizes their time on social networks. Focus on finding good prospects through advanced searches, making connections, and sharing quality professional content.

Get your organization on the fast track to success with social selling! Download the eBook The Ultimate Guide: Getting Started with Social Selling.