Can I measure our social selling project?, Tim Hughes

With all of our social selling programs we are keen that measurement is part of it.

In fact we insist on it. Why?

We want to be able to tell people like you, reading this, how much our customers are generating in pipeline from social, how much the are closing from socially influenced business and how much a company is closing from socially generated business.

Social generated business and socially influence business what is the difference?

We always recommend that we measure business that has originated by social. There may also be deals were the business may originate elsewhere, but social has been crucial to win.

For example, we are working with a supply chain software company and they see that there can be 100 people involved in a sale. The prospect, may for example, send them an RFP, but cold calling or sending spam email is impractical to get around 100 people, so social is used. This is the difference. Social (probably didn't originate this deal) but it did influence the win of it.

What to measure when you kick off a Social selling program?

When you start your social selling program you are going to be focused (mostly) on Linkedin SSI (social selling index) is often a way to go short term.

It's free, available online and gamifying it will (sort of) drive the right behaviours. The problem with SSI is that it’s a blunt tool and only covers Linkedin.

So maybe, do it for 3 or 6 months. What I mean by that is run it for three months and see how it goes.

This, after all, is about getting a change in behaviour and so what often happens is that people get “bored” with it.

Run it for 3 months if people get bored then stop at 3 months, if they don’t get board, maybe run it for 6.

Another problem with SSI we often see is that people become so absorbed with SSI, they forget to sell

In terms of actual sales measurement, we usually suggest this

Activities:

connections within nominated accounts
posts
engagement

Then:

messaging exchanges
calls
forecasted opportunities

At the moment, there is no tool to get this data, it has to be done manually or created in conjunction with your CRM.

Key with all these targets is to be realistic.

Gamification and prizes

We also suggest that you might want to create a competition for the amount of pipeline you create with social, with a prize.

Leads and revenue measurement

In terms of measurement direction, you should be working to measuring the leads you are generating from social, we always suggest you create a social selling lead generation campaign code in the CRM. You can then measure leads generated and revenue closed.

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