90% of C-suite executives (a.k.a the decision-makers) say they never respond to cold calls or email blasts. If they aren’t responding, how can you possibly make a sale? Over time, social media has proven to be a powerful tool – 78% of sales people using social media outsold their peers. Great, but where do you start? Check out our Sell with Social Media whitepaper and learn how you can use social media to shatter your sales goals.

1. SELL WITH
SOCIAL MEDIA
Insights from Butler Manufacturing and MoJo Active.

2. 2
How to Succeed with
SOCIAL MEDIA
According to the Harvard Business Review,
90% of C-suite executives say they never
respond to cold calls or email blasts. In a
world where cold calls and emails aren’t
working, how do you reach your prospects?
Many are turning to social media, and it’s
working! According to results from the
Social Media and Sales Quota Survey, ​
78% of salespeople using social media
outsold their peers.
WHERE TO START
Decide which social media platforms make
the most sense for you. A do-them-all-at-
once mindset is not the way to go. If you have
a limited staff, choose one and do it well,
rather than trying to manage several.
To help you decide where to start, we’ve
included some information from the Content
Marketing Institute (CMI). They recently
partnered with MarketingProfs to release a
report called B2B Content Marketing – 2016
Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends. We’ve included an excerpt to the right regarding
which social networks B2B marketers have found to be most effective.
LinkedIn tops the list. And Sales Benchmark Series notes that you are almost
five times more likely to schedule a first meeting if you have a personal
LinkedIn connection.
B2B Content Marketing
Social Media Platform Usage
Note: Fewer than 25% of B2B marketers said they use the
following social media platforms: Vimeo (21%), iTunes (10%),
Tumblr (9%), Vine (7%), Medium (6%), Periscope (6%), and
SnapChat (5%).
2016 B2B Content Marketing Trends—North America: Content
Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs
Effectiveness Ratings for B2B
Social Media Platforms
2016 B2B Content Marketing Trends—North America: Content
Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs
OF SALESPEOPLE USING SOCIAL MEDIA OUTSOLD THEIR PEERS.
(socialMediaandSalesquotasurvey)
78%

3. 3
SOCIAL SELLING
Social media gives you a way to prepare above and
beyond what you’ve done in the past – regardless
of whether you know the prospective contact you
want to reach, or are trying to find a point person
at a particular company.
LinkedIn allows your sales team to interact,
educate and listen. This will help you to prepare
and provide leads with information that they will
see value in.
Begin with having your sales team create
(or update) a LinkedIn profile.
People like working with people, not logos. Each member of your sales team and
executive team should build a complete LinkedIn personal profile. This will allow
your profile to appear 40 times more frequently in search results.
According to LinkedIn, to have a “complete profile” you need to have the following
fields filled in:
• Industry and location
• A current position with description
• Two past positions
• Education
• Skills (minimum of 3)
• Profile photo
Educate your sales team on how to post and how to make connections
with leads on LinkedIn.
The second part of the complete profile is having at least 50 connections. So,
once you have a profile with your photo and other information it is time to start
connecting with others.
• Search for people you know using the search bar at the top of the
LinkedIn home page. Begin with co-workers, friends and family to
get a start on those 50 connections.
• You also have the opportunity to post and share content on LinkedIn.
Sharing content that’s related to your industry or business can be
beneficial in demonstrating your expertise, and in turn, getting you
more connections.
82%OF B2B DECISION MAKERS
THINK THAT SALES
REPRESENTATIVES ARE
UNPREPARED
(SiriusDecisions)


4. 4
• Your daily homework:
 Update status with new text, photo or video content
 Request new connections
 Reply to new connections with a custom welcome note. This
means not sending the templated LinkedIn message, but instead
provide value with a case study, whitepaper or resource link that
the connection will find beneficial. Use that to build a relationship
before taking the relationship offline and making the pitch.
Join LinkedIn Groups related to your industry and interests.
LinkedIn Groups are a great place to start. Identify which groups best align with
your industry and join them. And then think about what groups align best with
your target audience. Join those too. These groups allow you to:
• Listen and respond to what people are talking about. Be sure to
comment on discussion boards with your professional thoughts and
opinions – it positions you as an industry expert.
• Message and engage with others on LinkedIn that you are not
directly connected to for free. Normally you can only connect with
people you have a common connection with. If you’re in a group with
that person, you are able to skip that step.
Work with your marketing team to create (or update) a LinkedIn
company page.
A company page involves a lot of strategy and planning. It is a separate page on
LinkedIn where people can “Follow” your organization as they post updates about
their offerings and industry.
Does your business already have a blog or case studies? This will make the process
easier. Sit down and compile a content calendar, a calendar that maps out what
information you can post and when you plan to post it. Plan to publish at least
one piece of content per week. This is content that your sales team will be able to
share, helping to demonstrate their expertise and market the company.
As you build your audience, you can allocate some advertising dollars to sponsor
updates to a segment of your followers by factors such as location, title and industry.
SIT DOWN AND COMPILE A CONTENT CALENDAR, A CALENDAR THAT MAPS OUT WHAT
INFORMATION YOU CAN POST AND WHEN YOU PLAN TO POST IT.
• Industry articles
• Videos
• Downloadable content
• Blogs
• Landing pages

5. 5
AUDIT COMPETITORS
You know which companies are fighting you for your target audience. Social media
gives you an opportunity to see how they are positioning themselves in the market.
Take a look at your competitors’ social networks.
Make a note of which social networks they are on, what kind of posts get the
highest level of engagement, and what kinds of questions your shared audience is
asking. Then, come up with your own game plan.
Start with searching for competitors on the following social media channels, and
answering some of these key questions:
• LinkedIn
 Do they have a company page? Do they have a group?
 Is there a contact at that company that you know is successful? If
so, look up his/her profile.
• Twitter
 Do they have a company Twitter account?
 Who are their followers? Who are they following?
 What types of information are they sharing? Is most of it their
own content, or sharing someone else’s?
• YouTube
 Do they have a company YouTube account?
 Who are their subscribers?
 What types of content are they posting? What is the purpose of
the content (to educate, sell, etc.)?
• Facebook
 Do they have a company page?
 Who are their page likes?
 What types of content are they posting? What is the purpose of
the content (to educate, sell, etc.)?
 Are people engaging with the content? If so, scroll through and
make a note of some of the posts with the most likes, comments
and shares.
IS YOUR ORGANIZATION USING FACEBOOK?
THEY HAVE GREAT GROUPS TO LEVERAGE TOO! CHECK IT OUT.

6. 6
• SlideShare (the platform for this document)
 What types of content are they providing? What is the purpose
(to educate, sell, etc.)?
 Is there related content you could create and put into SlideShare?
• Instagram, Pinterest, Google+
 Do they have a company account?
 While these are the least used B2B social networks, they may
be worth exploring if you have the manpower to thoroughly
maintain several channels. For example, Instagram lends itself to
showing off impressive building photos, Pinterest could be used
as inspiration for builders and clients, and Google+ is a great
place to share content you’ve posted elsewhere, just because it’s
a Google supplement.
Through answering these questions, you will not only be able to see what your
competitors are doing, but also get insight to what kinds of content your customers
are engaging with. Social media gives a much higher level of transparency, not only
into your company, but into your competitors as well. Take advantage of it.
Become a
THOUGHT LEADER
Your website should already be full of great
content, but social media channels add to your
digital footprint. The more content you have
online, the greater your chances are of appearing
in search results.
Brainstorm and gather content you can use to
demonstrate your industry knowledge.
You have the opportunity to demonstrate your
expertise – whether that is through sharing certain
pages on your website, articles you read about
the industry, or creating additional content (blog posts, whitepapers, etc.) to
supplement your social media. Ideally, a mix of all of these would be used.
Regardless of which social media channels you use, you will be on your way to
establishing yourself as a thought leader, which means people will see you as a
resource representing your industry. The goal? These leads will be more likely to
come to you when they are ready to make a purchase.
89%OF PEOPLE BEGIN THEIR
BUYING PROCESS WITH A
SEARCH ENGINE
(Fleishman-Hillard)


7. 7
Once you’ve gotten the hang of LinkedIn, consider Twitter.
While LinkedIn is the social network with the most success in social selling, Twitter
can be a valuable next step in demonstrating your expertise. B2B marketers who
use Twitter generate twice as many leads as those that do not (source: Inside
View), so it’s an obvious place to go to share your content.
Twitter Tips – Follow other thought leaders and industry experts
and share their content. Don’t forget to add a few words to express
your thoughts. You’ll begin to show your expertise and network with
others who share your industry expertise and interests. While this
is a great place to start, ideally you would have a mix of your own
content, and not rely fully on sharing others’ content. Remember,
your own content could be posts with links to helpful pages on your
website. Balance is key.
This all comes back to that content calendar. Social media takes a lot of time and
planning to do effectively. A strategy helps to ensure that time isn’t being wasted
and you can track some kind of return on your investment.
LONG-TERM
INVESTMENT
Over the past few years, there has been a clear shift
in how consumers make purchase decisions. With
the overwhelming majority of people beginning their
buying process with an online search, the key is to
be present and have a plan in place to educate and
engage your audience.
It’s important to realize that though the results of
social selling are not immediate, you need to stay
top-of-mind and be a player in this space (or else
it will just be your competitors!). Think of it as both
personal and company branding. People are seeing
you, learning about your product or service offerings
and ultimately you are establishing yourself as a
resource for endless leads.
So, what are you waiting for? It’s time to get started.
TODAY’S SALES
PROCESS TAKES
22%LONGER
THAN FIVE YEARS AGO
(SiriusDecisions)

