 Social media, social media marketing, social selling, social listening, aren't these all the same thing? Unfortunately, peeps, they're all very different. And today we're gonna talk about social selling as an effective way of reaching clients and prospects in your meetings and events business. We're not only looking at the foundations of social selling, but also looking at a strategy that'll help you get started in social selling in your own business. Stick around, hey friends, it's Leanne and prospecting for new clients or new delegates or new business as a whole has really changed as of late. It was changing even before COVID-19 hit, but now that we have lost some of those networking opportunities, we really need to go back to the drawing board on how we connect with prospects. Enter social selling, one of the most time consuming ways to prospect, but in my opinion, one of the ones with the most ROI as well. In fact, doing this blog post and video for you today was the kick in the butt that I needed to do even more social selling for my own business. So I wanted to share with you some of the foundations of social selling, some pitfalls to avoid, and of course, some best practices in creating your own social selling strategy. And if you stick around to the end of the video, I have one bonus tip that I'm only sharing on this video. In addition, I've created a worksheet that you can use so you can map out your own social selling strategy once you have all the foundations in place. But before we dive in, don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel and click on that little bell to be notified of new content. Each week we're creating content for the meetings and events industry that will help you grow your business. Let's first take a look at the definition of social selling. As defined by Wikipedia, social selling is the process of developing relationships as part of the sales process. Today, this often takes place via social networks such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest, but it can also take place online and offline. Examples of social selling techniques include sharing relevant contact, interacting directly with potential buyers and customers, personal branding, which we covered a few weeks ago and you can check out that video here, as well as social listening. Social selling is gaining popularity in a variety of industries, though it is used primarily for business to business selling or highly considered consumer purchases. So to confirm, social selling is that one-on-one relationship as opposed to social media marketing, which is a one to many. So some examples of social media marketing was when you create content and you broadcast it out on your social media platforms. That is social media marketing. Social selling, however, is the strategic targeting and use of listening to others and their queries on social media and then responding in kind. It is the act of listening to the cues of the prospect and then reacting in a selfless way to help elevate the status of that prospect. So basically you're building relationships, but we are really going from a one to many building of a tribe or a following to a one-on-one building relationships that will hopefully generate future business opportunities for you. So what are some of the pitfalls of social selling? Number one, it can be quite time consuming because time spent listening is a lot harder than time spent broadcasting a social media message. But taking that time, you are creating a more targeted approach to who it is that you want to interact with and potentially do business with. You also need to be careful not to social sell on every single social media platform. That can be exhausting. Choose one platform, get a handle of what needs to happen there, and then to start to add additional platforms and additional components to your strategy. The third pitfall is starting a social selling strategy and then falling away, becoming inconsistent in your content. You remember the old adage out of sight, out of mind? Well, that certainly applies to a social selling strategy as well. And pitfall number four, because it is time consuming, don't get lazy and just revert back to social media marketing. And I guess this is the kick in the pants that I needed as well because I feel I can do social media marketing quite well and social selling is a bit of a struggle for me, but I need to be more strategic in my social selling strategy. So how is it that you can successfully social sell? I have seven tips for you. Number one, make sure your social media profile is complete. Regardless of the platform you choose to start on, make sure that it's complete and up to date so that if someone is looking for you, they know how to find you and they start to get a sense of who it is you are. If LinkedIn is your platform of choice and you're looking to optimize your profile for the meetings industry, I have a resource coming out in the fall that might just be for you. It's a resource called LinkedIn for event profs. And if you'd like to be notified of updates of when the resource will be ready, go to pages.leannculderwood.com forward slash LFE wait list to be added. Social selling strategy tip number two, create a targeted list of clients and prospects. Rather than just fishing around on the social media platform, go back to your training on defining your ideal client and you can review that information here and create a list of people that you would like to start listening to and reaching out to. Tip number three, start with one platform. Like I mentioned earlier, trying to do it on all the platforms will run you ragged. So choose one platform and get a really good sense of how that would work for your social media strategy before adding on additional platforms. Tip number four, create a strategy. And this is where you need to put pen to paper to make sure that you're tracking your progress and staying on target. And I've created a worksheet for you to hopefully make it easier. You can download your copy of the worksheet over at pages.leannculderwood.com forward social selling. Strategy tip number five, start listening for those cues. Now that you have your target audience and you have the platform you wanna be on, spend time each and every day going in and starting to pick up on some of the things that they're laying down. Maybe they're asking questions in groups. Perhaps they are posing questions and challenges out to their community. If they're looking for advice or if they're looking for any solutions to problems or if they're offering solutions for other people's problems, these are the cues that you can pick up on and start to piece together a strategy of how to connect with them, listening in on what it is that they are asking or doing. And then of course, you're going to start to provide relevant information. If their cues are including problems that need to be solved, you now have an open door to find information that will solve their problem. Do some research, provide really good content and relevant information that will help them with their problem. If they're posting solutions for other people's problems engage in their content and elevate the discussion by taking it one step further. And finally, do not forget to track your progress. Create some goals for your strategy and check in on them on a bi-weekly or a monthly basis. By staying consistent and staying on top of your goals, you will see ROI on your efforts in the social selling world. And I assured you a bonus tip if you hung in with me to this point, here it is, if you work in a team, create a coordinated effort when it comes to social selling. By engaging with that prospect on a number of different fronts with different people in your organization and doing it respectfully, you are increasing eyes on the potential of your organization being a good fit for their business. So that's my bonus tip for you. Are you currently using social selling as part of your overall prospecting strategy? If you are, I'd love to hear from you because like I said before, I need that encouragement. I see so much ROI in it and this post has really been the wakeup call that I've needed to do more of it and do it intentionally every single week. So leave your tips below this video, I could really use them, thank you. And if you haven't downloaded it yet, my updated 10 ways to connect better with event planners is now available. Go to pages.leancolderwood.com forward slash connect better. I hope this has helped you look at prospecting just a little bit differently as we head into a new season. Best of luck everyone, bye for now.