Now that we all realize the impact social media can have on a business or brand, what are the ways to maximize the effect? Does your organization utilize social intelligence for prospecting and leverage the social data extracted from these outlets to engage with your target audience? Each day there are new case studies promoting the value of Social Media in the sales process and by now most organizations must realize that if they aren’t utilizing Social Media, then their competition will be.
Too much information can be gained from profiles and tweets to ignore the impact on the sales process, whether it is a shorter sales cycle, the ability to foster a better relationship, or an opportunity to nurture a prospect until they are ready to engage with a sales rep. Organizations need to learn to embrace the use of Social Media by their sales teams, not block employee’s network access to social sites. Recently, The Aberdeen Group released a study on social selling in which they showed that sales reps who have leveraged social selling in their sales process are 79% more likely to attain their quota then ones who don’t (15%). The study sites that the industry average is 43%, so I ask you; do you think it makes sense to start using social intelligence in your business process?
In a separate study done by The Aberdeen Group they note that organizations who have social intelligence initiatives are 21% more likely to attain revenue growth, while only 6% of organizations not using social intelligence will see growth. I could continue with the numbers supporting social selling, but I think most of you get the point.
So why do you think it has taken so long for organizations to embrace the idea of Social Selling? Could it be that it is so difficult to measure ROI that most decision makers are too scared to take the leap? In most cases it would only take one closed deal to justify this type of initiative, so what’s the hold up?
It’s time to break down the barriers and realize that it makes sense for sales reps to be unleashed upon social networking sites. When done right, it should not be that difficult to show ROI because the numbers will speak for themselves.
