I was reading the weekly email from Cameron Brain at Everyone social and he mentioned.

“Every company has a social media management solution, but not every company has a brand advocacy program," the CEO of a large marketing automation software company said to me recently. "Why is that?” 

This got me thinking along the same lines that every company is using social media but why hasn't every company adopted strategic social selling, after all the data and the figures inter of the competitive advantage and revenue uplift is so compelling. 

Let's pick up on Cameron's recent email.

"1. Your marketing team thinks social begins and ends with brand pages

The problem with brand pages is they don’t do much in the way of helping you to reach your target audiences.

Firstly, a lot of people don’t follow your brand page. They don’t and they never will. People follow PEOPLE, not brands.

Secondly, the content you post to your brand pages is exposed to only a tiny portion of your followers — unless you boost those posts with ad spend. (After all, that's the reason brand pages exist in the first place: They're a mechanism to extract ad dollars.) 🤑

Don’t get me wrong, a well-maintained brand page is important. People will search for your company on social media and you want your brand to present well.

But the truth is that brand pages are NOT an effective distribution channel. They're a tactic — not a strategy."

2. Your marketing team is intimidated by running a social selling program

This is a far more valid concern. Running a social selling program requires your marketing team to build support in other areas of the organization, and that’s not something that every marketer is comfortable with. 

It requires your marketing team to relinquish control of social media. And as we know so often in companies, owning that knowledge of social media by marketing, is “power”. 

However, I think this concern is outdated for two reasons:

• All of your co-workers are already on social media.
• Activating them with social selling is actually super simple.

In years past, not everyone was on social media, which made it hard to determine who you should approach to join your social selling program.

Remember those people who said “I’m never going to put my Rolodex on LinkedIn”?  Well, those people are on Linkedin now just like everyone else.

As for the process of activating people on social (an exec, a recruiter, an engineer, somebody in human resources or anyone), it couldn't be any simpler than it is today.  

Point being: Activating and empowering your employees on social is SUPER simple. (Did I mention that everyone wants to be empowered to do this?) And being on social doesn't need to take time out of employees' already-hectic schedules.

Myth busted. 👊

3. You're marketing team is just too busy, social selling isn't a priority.

I totally get this. Reaching your customers and buyers efficiently, effectively, and authentically isn’t a priority for every marketing team.

There’s lots of other things marketing have to spend time on, such as sending emails that get caught in spam filters, spending loads of money on ads that nobody reads, and creating content that'll never be seen.

Of course I'm being cheeky. 😉

The #1 goal (and responsibility) of EVERY marketing team is to reach their company’s target buyers efficiently, effectively, and AUTHENTICALLY. 

Here at DLA ignite, we’re extremely fortunate to have worked with some of the fastest-growing companies over the last 8 years.

What these and our other clients understand is that the ONLY thing that matters in the world of marketing is alpha: the ROI on their marketing investment.

And, to achieve alpha, you’ve got to explore new frontiers. As a CEO once said, “Marketers need to be bold!”

If you do the same stuff you and others were doing five years ago, guess what? Your results are going to be less than exceptional. They're going to be the same as everyone else's. 🤷

As I’ve said in recent emails and posts, awareness is on everyone's’ mind right now, including the biggest brands in the world. And social selling is an AMAZING way to build awareness.

There's never been a better time to invest in a social selling program and, frankly, given the macro environment, it's exactly the solution most companies need to reach their key customers, buyers, hires, and other audiences on social.

(I hope Cameron, forgives me for quoting and “butchering” his post.  As Oscar Wilde said “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery”)

Want to know more about social selling, check out my new book

"social selling techniques to influence buyers and changemakers - 2nd edition".

In this brand new edition, I have updated all the text, I have also got 15 practitioners, so people who are doing this already to explain how they are get (practical) business benefit. From the CEO that has been running a digital business for over 18 months to sales leaders who use social selling every day.  

Articles on how these business have and are implementing digital, from Mercer, Telstra Purple, Ring Central, Cyberhawk, Namos, Ericsson, DLA Ignite and more.

What does Mark Schaefer, Marketing guru think of the book "social selling - techniques to influence buyers and changemakers - 2nd edition"? watch the video here

It's available on Amazon worldwide.  Link to Amazon.com here and Amazon.co.uk here.