The Four Pillars of Social Selling

Over the last couple of weeks, I shared my thoughts on what social selling is, and some of the benefits of social selling.  This week I’d like to start a series that cover the four different pillars of social selling.  These pillars are really focused on the actual execution of the behaviours of a professional social seller. 

Over the next few weeks, I’ll highlight and dive deep into a discussion on these four pillars, and what they mean for professional social sellers.

The four pillars are:

Branding – Branding is the story that you want to tell about your professional journey.  Does your LinkedIn profile and other social media profiles match that story?  Do the things that you share, and the engagement that you do on other’s posts match that story?  Careful crafting of an authentically compelling professional brand is the foundation of being a successful social seller.

Listening – We have two ears and one mouth, which means we should listen twice as much as we speak.  This “old adage” applies to sales as well, especially social selling.  We can gain such amazing insights from “listening” to the conversations that are happening – whether that is on social media, or other community or industry platforms.  That listening gives us extremely valuable clues as to how, when and on what platform to start with the next piece – Sharing and Engaging.

Sharing & Engaging – This is so much more than sharing your company content and being another “marketing mouthpiece”.  Sharing content from a variety of sources, with your own context, builds you up as a trusted advisor and thought leader.  Commenting on other people’s posts, and engaging them with relevant and valuable information and insights bolsters your brand and reputation, with the ultimate goal of people coming to you, instead of you seeking them out.

Tools – One can become quite overwhelmed with the number of tools that are available to support social sellers.  I prefer to keep things as simple as possible, with a focus on getting the most value out of the tools as possible.

I look forward to the next few weeks with you, and would love to hear your feedback on what I’ve share so far!