Social Selling: Definition, Benefits & Tips for Sales Leaders

Discover why social selling has become a leading modern sales approach. Create genuine connections with prospects and increase your revenue streams.

What Is Social Selling?

In a nutshell, social selling is a strategic method for sellers to connect and build relationships with prospects through social networks. In recent years, social selling has morphed into virtual selling as sellers are increasingly using sales technology and sales tech (and not just social media) to connect with buyers. Social selling and virtual selling allow salespeople to build trusted relationships, boost social credibility, and ultimately reach their sales goals.

As technology and communication methods continue to advance and change, connecting with potential customers in both B2B and B2C markets has replaced outdated selling tactics. These older sales techniques, like cold calling, lack the convenience and more personal nature of social and digital selling. Using your brand’s social media channels and the sales tech stack to actively engage with prospects and develop a connection with them can help you reach your business’ sales target.

Social selling is not just about adding new contacts to your sales list, though. It’s about forming meaningful social interactions and presenting your brand as a trusted source to solve a customer’s problem via your product or service.

Rather than a hard closing plan or one-and-done deal, social selling is more closely related to lead generation — the process of forming and maintaining relationships with customers through every stage of the sales pipeline and sales funnel. With that in mind, sales teams must be willing to put in ample time and intentional effort to engage with their prospects and buyers on an ongoing basis.

Create a professional brand with value

When engaging with prospects and customers on social platforms, it’s important to avoid being too salesy. If your brand is new to a social network, don’t dive into social selling right away. To build trust and provide real value, you’ll first want to establish your position as an expert in your industry.

One way to do this is by sharing interesting, valuable content. If you’re a B2B brand or business tastemaker, you can utilize LinkedIn by sharing content written by others that aligns with your brand. Or write and share your own relevant content that others might find useful to help establish your brand as an industry thought-leader. The goal is to show prospects that you’re providing something for them, rather than just out to get something for your business.

Build relationships with the right prospects


Social selling is not about increasing your contact list — it’s about building rapport with the right prospects for your brand. If you reach out to prospects that aren’t a good match for your solutions, you’ll come off as inauthentic and your sales reps miss out on forming more genuine connections.

Use social selling tools and methods (more on these in the next section) to identify prospects that meet your criteria, including function, role, or industry. When you do, you’ll make more meaningful connections and have more success converting prospects into paying customers.

Be authentic

Sharing your insights and providing useful information that addresses your prospects’ pain points builds trust. Communicate with authenticity and focus on the needs of the prospect first and selling second.

Just like the importance of writing unique cover letters when applying to multiple jobs, instead of sending a cookie-cutter note to numerous potential buyers, take the time to personalize your social selling messaging. This could mean acknowledging shared professional contacts, referencing a piece of content you both engaged with, or highlighting something you have in common.

Stay informed and consistent with insights

Don’t expect immediate results — social selling takes time! Even if some prospects you’ve reached out to may not be ready to purchase what you’re offering, stay in touch. Maintaining meaningful relationships will keep you at the top of your prospects’ minds when they’re ready to take the plunge.

Many social media platforms also have built-in tools to measure the success of your social selling efforts (more on that below), so you can identify what’s working and when you may need to adjust your tactics.

Optimize your social media profiles

Even after you’ve established your professional brand on social media, it takes time to build a true presence with credibility. Along with consistently producing and sharing valuable content, you’ll want to ensure your profile is optimized to directly cater to your prospects. Keep reading for our tips on how to optimize your LinkedIn profile.

Join LinkedIn groups and other relevant forums

What groups are your prospects and customers engaged in? Once you find out through their profiles, follow suit with a thoughtful message. Joining relevant groups is also a great way to stay informed about what’s happening in your industry, along with any potential challenges your buyers are facing.

Create social listening alerts

Sales reps can go a step further by using Google alerts or social listening tools to set up notifications that identify prospects talking about their business or service. This way, you’ll reach an audience that already has an interest in what you can offer so you can more authentically connect with them. Authenticity leads to trust, which leads to customer loyalty.

Share content to build credibility

As outlined in our core principles to social selling, sharing compelling, relevant content is one of the most effective ways to build credibility while increasing your engagement on social media.

Anytime you come across interesting articles that are relevant to your industry, share them! These easy conversation starters are a great way to lend value to others while establishing trust with your prospects.

Use LinkedIn Sales Navigator

Our B2B social selling tool can help you find and target new leads based on specific criteria like location, industry, role, and more. LinkedIn Sales Navigator can also help you better understand your performance with in-depth lead tracking and analytics.

Optimize your profile

Creating a strong profile that showcases all the critical information about your company will help you gain your target audience’s trust. Some other important ways to make your LinkedIn profile stand out include:

Prospect and connect

LinkedIn is one of the most effective online platforms to learn more about your prospects, customers, and industry. Use features like Advanced Search, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Sidebar, Lead Builder, Saved Search, and LinkedIn Pulse to prospect and connect with your audience.

Build and grow your network

LinkedIn is known for creating networks. By joining groups relevant to your potential customers and sharing and engaging with useful content, you can help increase your reach.

Keep things relevant and concise

Avoid sending too many connection requests or cold messages — remember social selling is about forming genuine relationships! Keep your interactions as relevant as possible, with concise yet valuable information.