How salespeople can leverage social media to boost sales performance
01/11/2023
4 min
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In an increasingly competitive sales environment, salespeople must be abreast of advancing technology, especially in our digitalized world. Professor Deva Rangarajan (IÉSEG) explains how incorporating social media into every salesperson’s tool kit and using it in the right ways can be integral to success.
Based on an interview with Professor Deva Rangarajan on his paper “The impact of business-to-business salespeople’s social media use on value co-creation and cross/up-selling: the role of social capital,” co-written with Professors Omar S. Itani and Vishag Badrinarayanan, published in European Journal of Marketing, September 15, 2022.
Digital technologies, especially the now-ubiquitous social media, have altered the sales landscape forever. It’s flagrant with celebrities leveraging their Instagram or Twitter accounts to advertise to their millions of followers, but the process is less obvious in the business-to-business domain. “When Kim Kardashian says, ‘buy this product,’ people will buy it, but with B2B it is not so clear,” comments Professor Rangarajan, who devoted a recent study to B2B sales and social media. Indeed, telling a story in just a few characters in a LinkedIn or Twitter post is unlikely to win a client over.
It is therefore hardly surprising that some B2B salespeople remain skeptical about the use of social media for their job. But social media has gained such traction, especially during the pandemic, that continuing to try to sell in the traditional face-to-face way is no longer enough. According to previous research quoted in Rangarajan and his co-author’s article, “B2B buyers increasingly rely on social media for interactions with salespeople during the purchase process”; and “B2B salespeople report that social media use enables them to close deals faster, exceed quotas and outperform their peers.”
What has been missing so far is rather an understanding of how a salesperson’s use of social media enhances sales and with it, organizational performance. So, Professor Rangarajan and the team shed light on the process by surveying more than 150 salespeople.
Building a reputation to gain trust
The researchers discovered that while it is assumed that social media will distract people, spending time on these platforms helps build value in the form of social capital. This is a precious resource characterized by market knowledge, reputation and networking. Salespeople who use social media effectively can thus achieve greater success because as Professor Rangarajan outlined, “They have more knowledge about what is happening in their customer’s world and they can craft a reputation.”
As an example, LinkedIn offers salespeople the opportunity to follow groups, pages and hashtags around specific trends, topics, industries and markets. Salespeople can find out what competitors are doing and what is happening with customers. They can contact clients to whom they are directly connected, or broaden their network.
Customers can gauge information posted by a salesperson to decide whether to trust them to share information about their own needs. If the customer then does share information with the salesperson, the pair can co-create value for both of their organizations. A convincing social media presence and co-creation thus leads to cross and upselling opportunities (i.e. upgrading customers to more profitable offerings).
What can sales managers do?
Sales managers need to encourage salespeople to use social media to create social capital. Leaders may act as role models by using social media themselves. This allows guidance to be provided in ‘dos and don’ts’ through leaders’ own behavior and actions, by providing clear direction and providing training and/or coaching, and perhaps checklists too. Managers can also encourage salespeople to be proactive and post content that can be vetted by the organization to help develop a reputation as experts in the field. Encouraging salespeople to build their networks on these platforms is also important.
However, Professor Rangarajan did offer a word of warning: “Salespeople need to understand that social media alone is not the way to close the deal. It is a means to an end but not the end in itself.” There is a need for a balance to ensure that social media is used sufficiently to reap sales rewards, but without becoming distracted by it to the point that sales are not made. This means leaders must focus not on superficial metrics such as the number of posts, but on metrics such as those based on the social capital dimensions of market knowledge (i.e. engaging with insights), market reputation and networking abilities (building relevant relationships).
Applications
Sales leaders should encourage salespeople to use social media platforms to gain market knowledge, build a network and craft a reputation that can be used to sell, but also to cross-sell and upsell. Leaders can achieve this through training, coaching and role modeling effective use of these platforms. But salespeople must remember that there is more to making a sale than using social media alone – at the end of the day, a successful sales process answers the clients’ needs.
Methodology
The researchers surveyed 153 B2B salespeople working in the USA to measure variables such as use of social media sites as part of normal work routine, salesperson’s level of knowledge and abilities, reputation, networking, co-creation with customers and cross/upselling. This data was analyzed using structural equation modeling to test a range of hypotheses.
