Social Selling on LinkedIn: How to Turn Users into Customers

1. What is social selling at all?
2. Why is LinkedIn the optimal channel for your social selling activities?
3. The Social Selling Index: the compass for your LinkedIn sales success
4. How does social selling work via LinkedIn?
5. The LinkedIn Sales Navigator: Your tool for identifying and managing customer leads
6. Trust is the foundation for successful social selling
7. Social Selling on LinkedIn: How to start a conversation

One click, one new customer? If marketing were completely without scatter loss, most online marketers would probably have to look for a new job. However, social selling here offers a simple way to address specific target groups in a targeted and personal manner and to turn them into customers with a little skill.

Our guest author and social media expert Sebastian Hering now explains how you can get on the road to success with social selling on LinkedIn.

What is social selling at all?

Social selling refers to the identification and addressing of customers as well as the building of rich customer relationships within social media with the aim of selling. In contrast to traditional social media marketing, which is designed through organic and advertising measures from the company profile, individual users use their own user profile for social selling on behalf of their company.

The special potential of social selling lies above all in personal contact with decision makers. Established salespeople will now surely say that this is no great surprise. But we are talking here about a sales method that goes far beyond "networking until the doctor comes" and has already proven itself in the fiercely competitive B2B environment on LinkedIn. Write to a hundred people, one will buy - this number will increase significantly with a social selling mindset, as will your sales. You already hear it: the focus is not on the product, but on the relationship, which is also the secret of success of good influencer marketing. No wonder, because people usually buy where it "humans"! At this point, successful social selling therefore differs from the universally despised cold acquisition, according to the motto "First give, then take!"

Why is LinkedIn the optimal channel for your social selling activities?

Over the past few years, LinkedIn has evolved from a simple professional network to the most successful content & social media platform in the professional sector, now with over 774 million members in 200 countries worldwide. Alone in the DACH region, the network records over 16 million users, trend rising. Now it is about turning these users into customers. And your chances are good, because these are particularly willing on LinkedIn. While on other social media channels like Facebook or Instagram, entertainment and inspiration and the maintenance of private contacts are in the foreground, LinkedIn users are primarily interested in professional exchange, professional contact maintenance and further education. This definitely includes the conclusion of business, provided the "sellers" do not behave like such.

The Social Selling Index: the compass for your LinkedIn sales success

To evaluate your prospects of success in customer acquisition and care, LinkedIn has even created its own key figure, the so-called Social Selling Index (short: SSI) and defined it as follows:

"Your Social Selling Index (SSI) indicates how successful you are in establishing your professional brand, finding the right people, leveraging insights gained, and building relationships. It is updated daily." (LinkedIn 2021)

The SSI compares you with users from your industry and from your network! A practical metric, or is it? Well, unfortunately the Social Selling Index only shows your status quo, but does not give specific recommendations on how to improve your personal index. However, the so-called "Four Elements That Make Up Your SSI" give a rough idea of the levers you can generally turn:

• Professionalization of your user profile
• Intelligent identification of leads (manual search vs. LinkedIn Sales Navigator)
• Sharing of own and third-party content
• Interaction with other users and leads

In theory, this would mean that you would experience maximum social selling success if you become the best in all these areas. Practically, it requires a lot of interpersonal finesse to drive the sales at the end.

Social Selling Index

How does social selling work via LinkedIn?

Social selling on LinkedIn works basically like any sales process. First, potential customers have to become aware of you, then they have to trust you and only then will they buy from you. In the following, you will find out how to best proceed and avoid beginners' mistakes.

The LinkedIn Sales Navigator: Your tool for identifying and managing customer leads

It is of course also possible to track down the target group relevant for your own business "by hand", but it is very time-consuming. A welcome shortcut here is the LinkedIn Sales Navigator as a well thought-out all-round solution for your sales activities. The intelligent lead and company search with numerous filter options, such as industry or professional experience, not only facilitates the active search for suitable contacts, but even offers you additional prospects as recommendations.

After the tracking comes the writing! The LinkedIn Sales Navigator also has a treat for you here, to easily contact your high potentials. While with a free LinkedIn account writing a private message is only possible if you are connected to the respective user, the Sales Navigator impresses with 20-50 Inmails per month, depending on the package. Nothing stands in the way of successful contact for your social selling efforts.

Then it is a matter of keeping track of your sales process. No problem, because the Sales Navigator saves your leads and activities and transfers them into your CRM system, quite uncomplicated and automatically.

Sales Navigator LinkedIn

Costs and services of the LinkedIn Sales Navigator

You have already heard it: the LinkedIn Sales Navigator is not a classic social media suite, but rather a true accelerator for your sales activities on LinkedIn - and it is not free. The prices range from 66.11 EUR per user and month in the Professional package to 86.25 EUR per user and month in the Team package.

If you want to pay for the tool monthly, the prices are significantly higher with 82.64 EUR (Professional) or 109.99 EUR (Team). To find out which rate fits your goals and your wallet, LinkedIn has created a clear comparison page for all costs and packages of the Sales Navigator for you.

Trust is the foundation for successful social selling

On websites, via newsletter or on social media, users are literally inundated with advertising for products or services that are supposed to be relevant to them. As there is a great similarity between the offers, it is almost impossible to identify the right one for one's own needs. In private, it is often the trustworthy advice from friends and family that brings the necessary clarity to make a decision. So how do you create the necessary trust when users are supposed to decide to buy your product?

Use all possibilities to professionalize your LinkedIn appearance!

As with a good salesperson in the store, a well-groomed appearance should also be your absolute priority virtually. What does this mean for your profile? You should use all the possibilities LinkedIn offers to spruce up your appearance - and there are a few!

1. Your LinkedIn profile, header picture and slogan

Sample LinkedIn Profile

Your profile picture is your business card. Therefore, it should be professionally shot and make a friendly and authentic impression. This is best achieved when your face is clearly visible and you are well lit. In addition to the profile picture, your profile should shine with a header picture that clearly shows your added value or that of your company. The same applies to the profile slogan, which is displayed below your profile picture.

2. Your LinkedIn info text

What are your professional focuses and how do you tick as a person? The info text on your LinkedIn profile should answer exactly these questions. With a short but personal outline, you can give the other users an insight into the professional journey you have behind you and the visions you have ahead of you. Don't forget the small human nuances that breathe sympathy into your profile. But please refrain from superlatives or comparisons! Few people like show-offs. The right measure of self-confidence should not be lacking, though. You can see: your info text wants to be well thought out.

Sample LinkedIn Info Text

3. Your LinkedIn resume

Self-explanatory, understandable and as gapless as possible, this is how your resume should look on your LinkedIn profile. Why? At a glance, users should be able to understand your career path based on the various career steps and the associated descriptions in short keywords. If gaps or inconsistencies occur, this is rather bad. If you are tangible as a person with your profile, however, this adds to credibility, especially when you enter into a personal conversation in the third phase of the social selling process.

Example LinkedIn professional experience

4. Your recommendations and knowledge confirmations

Now it's time to collect references! Former colleagues, fellow students or other contacts can confirm your skills, for example in the field of project management tools, or specific professional skills. In addition, LinkedIn even offers the possibility to write a written reference for users. Therefore, go confidently to your followers and make them aware of these options. One or the other will certainly follow your friendly hint and soon you will climb a few places on the trust scale with potential customers.

Example LinkedIn skills and abilities

Demonstrate expertise with your own LinkedIn content!

Anyone can claim to be an expert. When you demonstrate your expertise on LinkedIn with your own content, even the last of your potential customers will realize that you are not blustering. What options do you have for this?

Document posts are particularly popular on LinkedIn right now, and the best thing about them is that they not only look great, but you can create them yourself in no time with graphic tools like Canva.

LinkedIn polls are also popular - and they are brimming with advantages. On the one hand, you can show your users in a trustful way that you are interested in their opinion. On the other hand, you generate target group insights with polls that you can use for other marketing activities in addition to your social selling on LinkedIn. Positive side effect of your editorial work: With the regular publication of content, you constantly create new opportunities to start a conversation with your users.

Activate your network!

Social selling on LinkedIn is not a self-runner, after all it means to create visibility, to make contacts and to maintain them in order to get your service or your product to the man or the woman at the end.

To increase your reach beyond your contacts, creating content is a good option, but one that involves a lot of work. It is easier to participate in discussions in relevant LinkedIn groups or to interact with posts from other opinion leaders in your field of expertise. When commenting on LinkedIn, you don't have to be afraid of negative feedback. On the contrary, most post authors will probably be very happy about your words. They mean one thing: additional reach. What do you get from it? Chances are good that he or she will connect with you and interact with your content in return. Potential customers are guaranteed to notice this ping-pong game among experts. One more reason to enter into a business relationship, right?

Social Selling on LinkedIn: How to start a conversation

All or nothing! You have identified potential customers using the Sales Navigator, your profile is spruced up and your LinkedIn activities underscore your expert status? Then you are ready to enter into a direct conversation. Nothing easier than that, because LinkedIn offers more than enough opportunities to find a suitable occasion.

Opportunities to start a conversation on LinkedIn are for example:

• Promotion
• Company anniversaries
• Birthdays
• Common acquaintances
• Content shared by customers or you
• Comments or likes

As you can see, the opportunities to start a conversation with someone on LinkedIn are more than diverse. However, you should choose the timing to start a sales conversation wisely. It depends very much on your relationship with the respective user. If you have just recently connected, you should definitely wait a while, otherwise you will quickly slide into cold acquisition territory and that's not where you want to go.

You want to try it anyway? Please don't rush anything now, because starting a sales conversation at the beginning of your customer relationship might end up as promising as a marriage proposal on the first date - with slight disturbance and break off contact. Therefore, enrich your relationship a little before you go all out. For example, warmly welcome users in your network with a small but personal private message when you are freshly networked. Afterwards, use the various possibilities to get into conversation at regular intervals. It can't hurt - if the opportunity allows - to share online articles or white papers, provided there is a need. Otherwise, it quickly seems pushy and forced.

At some point you notice from comments or a response in chat, with a little fine feeling, that the right time has come to talk specifically about cooperation. It is best to do this "personally" at a meeting via Zoom, Teams or another video conferencing tool. LinkedIn now even has its own video conferencing tool integrated into the chat area. Face to face still sells best.

There is no sure secret recipe to be 100% successful with social selling on LinkedIn. As everywhere in marketing, it's all about testing, testing, testing. If you ignore your own needs, keep an eye on those of your target group and spend your energy on genuine human exchange, you are definitely on the road to social selling success.