Social Selling: The Way Forward for Business

Social Selling: The Future of Connection & Business

Social Selling Can No Longer Be Ignored to Survive in Today’s Digital Landscape

by Jonathan Gilliam, Momentum Factor

Anyone driving sales for their organizations these days understands cold calling is more challenging than ever. It is time-consuming, costly and becoming less effective. Even email campaigns are not generating the traffic they used to. So, what has changed? Why do businesses everywhere feel like they need a boost to keep sales up and costs down? Have people stopped checking their phones, their email? No. But they have started checking social media.

To understand the power of the internet and how you can harness it to sell your products, we must start with the “Early Internet” era; think late nineties. At the onset of the internet age, businesses could not get their foot in the door as far as online selling. With the vast desert of the early internet made up of small, independent blog- and forum-based websites, there was no surefire way to reach a large audience of consumers. Now, we have never been more connected. The internet has become a much more concentrated, widely used tool, and social media is at the center of it all. And although online connections are now easily viable, the many different voices, faces, and opinions coming from all directions on social media makes it easy to get lost in the crowd. This is why many industries have continued to struggle online – but not direct sellers.

With the expansion of culture through social media in just the last 10 years, social selling is no longer a young person’s game. It is now almost a requirement for every direct selling company to harness the power of social media selling and pave the way to creating meaningful digital connections in order to be successful.

So, what is social selling?

Social Selling 101: It is not just bombarding users with direct messages and tweets. It is the use of social media to create relationships with target demographics. These digital connections are useful because they level the playing field between business and consumer, allowing users to interact with sales campaigns in a way they were not able to do via phone or newsletter. In my book, Social Selling: How Direct Selling Companies Can Harness the Power of Connectivity … and Change the World, released at the dawn of the social revolution in direct sales, I talk about how direct selling companies can capitalize on these opportunities and help map out a future bigger than our industry ever dreamed. And that is what happened. Of course, these days it’s a much more crowded space.

What does social selling really look like? It looks like posting to X, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn with the intention of reaching a particular group in an entertaining and engaging way. Every time you find yourself scrolling on X, you are bound to come across a brand utilizing social selling. Sounds a lot like social media marketing! Spoiler alert: It’s not.

While connections will still be made in person through those tried-and-true sales methods I mentioned above, our new digital norm has allowed those bonds to be forged online. And by connecting through social platforms, we are now meeting people in a place where inspiration meets opportunity. People already search social media for products, so if the connection is made where they are already looking for information, it is quite simply easier to move consumers to purchase as it’s only a click away.

Although social media will continue to evolve and impact the practice of social selling, the changes yet to come are sure to focus on connection. And the continued building of these digital binds will be key in finding business success for direct sellers and others into the future.

To learn how Momentum Factor can help with compliance issues related to social selling, contact our team today!

And to expand your knowledge regarding social selling, check out the following links:

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