3 ways to get your team believing in social media
“I don’t bother with social media. There’s no direct ROI.”
Sound familiar?
If your sales team, c-suite or just your team, in general, don't believe in social media marketing purely because they don't see a direct return on investment that tells me three things.
One, they have absolutely no idea what marketing is and what purpose it serves
Their social media activities are absolutely abysmal.
There is this severe disconnect between your marketing team and your sales team.
So here's a couple ways you can fix that.
Put them on the spot, and prove it to them social media marketing works
Put them on the back foot by asking them what they actually think marketing is. And I mean ask them to give you a definition.
Chances are they have no idea.
As we know (especially if you follow me or any other marketer), marketing’s purpose is to build trust between your business and customer.
Ask them if they know exactly how many touchpoints it took a customer to go through before they actually ended up converting.
Chances are, they dont.
FYI, it’s estimated it can take 20-30 touchpoints, from awareness to an actual conversion. Only a few years ago it was 10-15.
You can thank social media for making the sales cycle a touch harder. #SorryNotSorry
So prove it to them that it actually worked.
Find someone within the team that has your back, get their profile on whichever channel you have more leads coming from and optimise it. Create a posting schedule and get them posting. Digitise their networking.
You and I both know what’s going to happen.
Their impressions, engagements, everything will climb.
Document it and make a mini case study.
Salespeople are naturally competitive. So obviously if they see someone within the team being more successful than them, they're going to want to figure out why and how they can be as successful.
With management or c-suite, they should have the brand’s best interest at heart (at least, we would hope so).
C-suite should not only be setting the example for the rest of the company, but being active on social is also a powerful way to influence potential employees. Showing them how similar C-suites or even your competitor’s c-suite, use social can drive them to get involved.
Get them involved with your strategy process
If marketing’s purpose is to build trust, then sales is there to convince and close the deal.
No trust = longer sales cycle, or no deal.
Each go hand in hand.
If your sales is involved from the beginning of your content and social media strategy process, they may subconsciously start to feel responsible for the success of that strategy.
Set up a recurring meeting when you ask them what customers have been asking about, give them updates on what’s coming up so they know what they can re-post and share on social.
Educate them
And last but not least educate. Knowledge is power.
Share statistics from the top companies in the social media space that show the power of social.
Hootsuite’s State of Digital report is a great place to start.
Give them Marcus Sheridan’s book They Ask You Answer. It puts in the most basic way why having sales and marketing working together and why answering customer questions in the digital and social media space is crucial to the success of your business.
Get a social media consultant or coach (like me) to do a social media workshop with the team so that they put their best foot forward on social and sell without sounding like a sleaze bag.
If a workshop sounds like something you’re interested in, get in touch.
What if none of this works?
Well, you can’t convince everyone. But at least you tried.
And if they’re in a position where showing their support for the business publicly can have a major impact, are they really the right person for the job?
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