In the last few years and with the explosion of social media, the process of social selling has become a popular topic.
While many people might view it at as a “trend” or “fad,” it’s been clear that not only is the process of social selling not going anywhere but is a must for companies to implement.
Social selling also may appeal more towards the sales teams at your company, but almost any employee can be active in the process.
However, in order to have any success in social selling, your team needs to be armed with the right (and best) tools for success.
Since the popularity of social selling in the last few years, there are TONS of products and platforms out there to help you.
So which ones are the best?
While this is more of a personal opinion, these type of tools will definitely get you on a positive and successful path.
Social Selling Tools for Prospecting & Qualifying
After you have identified what your respective targets should be, it’s time to start prospecting and finding who is worth engaging with on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, etc.
The best place to start is on the popular social media platforms and where your potential targets are most likely engaging on the most.
However, one great prospecting tool along with that is Salesloft. This platform can integrate with everything from Slack, email providers, analytics tools, and social platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter.
The integration to Linkedin is important for gaining real-time insights on the companies you’re engaged with, see current and shared connections at those companies to build authentic relationships and uncover common areas that will help you to better engage.
Another tool for social prospecting is Nimble.
Simply put, Nimble has the best features of high-end CRM systems combined with the power of social media.
With the social media aspect, Nimble can social profile matching and enrichment, business insights on people and companies, segment prospects to reach out and connect, social prospecting.
Social Selling Tools for Company Research
Besides building, understanding, and qualifying your prospects, it’s important to fully use tools that allow you to do additional research.
While you might have a particular job title and company industry to target, to fully engage in social selling it is important to understand as much about their companies as possible.
Similar to prospecting section, you can get some decent information from the social media platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter. However, to take it a step further you’ll need help.
One of these tools and completely free to use is Owler.
Owler is the largest community-based business platform to gain insights on the competition and uncover the latest industry news and alerts.
Every six seconds, members of the Owler community contributes unique competitive insights, such as private company revenue estimates and CEO approval ratings to make sure the information on businesses is always relevant.
The other tool that compliments Owler nicely, is InsideView.
InsideView embeds all the essential elements of actionable Targeting Intelligence into your sales, marketing, and customer service workflow.
Perfect for current company and contact data, real-time insights from news and social media, and leverage personal, professional, and social connections.
Social Selling Tools for Engaging & Nurturing
Lastly, when it comes to social selling you need tools to share content and interact with your audiences.
This section might have the most tools out there, but social media and scheduling have been a consistent need.
One of the best schedulers for social media is Buffer, which also offers a free version (with some product limitations).
Yet, for smaller companies, the free version is the perfect addition to help with your social selling efforts. Individuals can sign up and manage their content, or you can go with the business version.
Buffer for business is great because you can schedule up to 2,000 posts in advance per social account, connect up to 25 to 150 social accounts pending plan, and add other team members to collaborate.
Additionally, for social selling, getting an employee advocacy platform like EveryoneSocial to get more employees involved.
As mentioned in the beginning, social selling can involve more than just sales or marketing teams, everyone has the capability to get involved and generate leads.
This is where an employee advocacy platform can amplify social selling and arm different departments with the right content to engage and share on social accounts.
The user can create feeds of specific websites, monitor competitors content, and numerous integrations (HubSpot, Slack, Salesforce, Google Analytics, Bitly, and more), while providing detailed analytics and engagement information.
Bonus: While there are six essential tools mentioned here, here is a bonus tool you might want to consider for social selling success.
MeetEdgar, unlike other social media schedulers, can automatically reshare your Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter updates again and again over time. Companies can also organize content into categories, builds an automatic query of social posts, and more.
Final Thoughts
The process of social selling is here to stay and although it may evolve in the next few years, it is an important process for companies to implement their strategies.
With all the various social media networks and tools out there, the above-mentioned tools will without a doubt, get you on the path of social selling success.
Of course, there are plenty more out there to choose, so it’s recommended to do your research and plan any budgeting for platforms you may need to purchase.
However, these tools are great starting points for your social selling needs.
Has your company started implementing social selling set? Get your complete social selling guide to learn tips, best practices, and more.