It's something we hear people say

"what we need is more noise in the market"

Really is that what you want?

We have seen company after company invest in employee advocacy tools for what purpose?  They do have a purpose, but let's get there in a moment.

First, let's look at how social media works.  Social media is social and it works exactly the same as a networking event.  You go up to people and have conversations.

Throwing content at strangers or people you know has limited success, here is some research that backs that up, here. 

What are our prospects and customers hanging out?

Simon Kemp's social media research shows that social media is no longer a place to go, it's a place where we are. 

So we know our prospects and customers are on social media, we also know they have business issues that we can solve.  

Our prospects and customers are looking for answers to their business issues 

We also know they are searching for answer to those business issues.  We also know, they don't want "just another salesperson" they want an expert, somebody that can help them.  Somebody that won't sell something and then disappear into the sunset.

Social media, as I say is social, so let's leave the spam and pitching and ...

Join the conversation

You will often read in the world of social "good practice" the term "join the conversation" and it means just that.  Back to our networking event analogy, ou arrive at a networking event, you grab a coffee and you go up to somebody and talk to them.  That's joining the conversation.

On social, this could mean, leaving a comment on a prospects or a customers post. Resharing a prospects or customers post, with your own comment.  Joining a Linkedin group and talking to like minded people.  Joining a LinkedIn group and starting a conversation.  Following hashtags on Linkedin and adding your ten cents.  This article by Gary Vee is great counsel on how to do this. 

You want to ace your number?

But you want to be better than everybody else?  You want to over achieve your number, yes?

The the best thing you can do is create your own content.  Why? because it's the most authentic thing you can do.  Your content should place you at the centre of the conversation.

NB: You also need a great profile, so you don't look like just another salesperson and to have a wide and varied network.  Think about moving your whole territory onto digital.  This is how you will get economies of scale. 

Engagement is prospecting gold

Many people say that engagement is vanity, if anybody says this they don't understand social.

All engagement is your excuse to have a conversation with somebody.

If they like your post, that's your excuse to have a conversation.

And conversations create sales!

So why would you share corporate brochures on social which gets no engagement and therefore no conversations and therefore no sales.

When you can create your own content, that will get lots of engagement, lots of conversations and lost of sales.

I know what I would do.  Well I do it.

And the results are better than cold calling and email. 

So where does employee advocacy tools come in?

If you are a lazy salesperson and don't really want to get on, then post out some corporate content won't do you any harm.  It won't do you any good, but it won't do you any harm. 

So who's doing this?

In case you missed it, the Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch have banned cold calling and have moved all their people to social selling. This isn't some trendy tech company that might have decided to do this on a whim, this is a very conservative financial services company that has made a decision based on data.

But surely cold calling has a better ROI than social selling?  Not according to Merrill Lynch.

"They will also be encouraged to contact prospects over LinkedIn, which has a higher hit rate than cold calling"

The CRO (chief revenue officer), Richard Eltham of Namos Solutions, of one of clients posted a comment on LinkedIn about social selling. See here.

“Social selling is not an option now it is the way of the world and you either learn and execute it or fear getting left behind” 

Kevin Murray who is the Head of Sales at MacArtney Underwater Technology recently posted about his success with social selling here and wrote an article about the transformation that has happened in sales here.