How do you use social media? For social purposes or to bring commerce to business?

Social Media has evolved from merely being a platform to connect with people socially. In fact, they have become a medium for companies to generate commerce. Businesses are leveraging social media channels to generate more leads and foster healthy relationships with prospects.

As social media has quickly emerged as the go-to channel for most people, even marketers seeking the right audience. An estimation says 90% of best-performing companies make use of social media and social selling strategies.

Although social selling offers immense value, only a comprehensive strategy can detail the benefits. Incorporate a strategy that helps track down the program’s success and metrics indicating high performance. 

Most businesses are aware of the importance of data for improved marketing results. But, looking at wrong metrics is way more wrong than looking at no metrics. In a world that is wildly socially driven, it is important to understand and measure the social media platform and social selling strategies.

Here are 6 social selling metrics to measure your progress:

Metric 1: LinkedIn’s Social Selling Index

Most refer to LinkedIn’s social selling index as one of the most critical social selling tools. It helps in monitoring the selling efforts via 4 different aspects:

• Establish personal brand
• Engage with social selling insights
• Find right people
• Build relationships with decision-makers

Why is it the most popular social selling metric? Because it helps amplify encouragement and set goals for performances. Studies say that companies with higher SSI show 45% more opportunities for sales.

Yet, remember SSI is not everything. A company needs to have a powerful workforce simultaneously to work on generating leads and referrals.

Metric 2: Inbound connections & Network Growth

The Customer-brand relationship plays a significant role in the ROI of a brand. The right strategy shows critical improvement in probability to foster valuable relationships with prospects online. 32% of professionals engaged in B2B business presume social selling nurtures better customer relationships.

SSI score gives insights into the team’s activity- on inbound connections and growth in the network. Higher network growth indicates your presence on social platforms whereas inbound connections help in the identification of every communication. 

Metric 3: Content Engagement Rate

The most powerful thing to work upon on social channels is the content engagement rate. It empowers the marketing and sales team to publish relevant content across social media platforms. Keep the platforms activated and establish authority as an industry. 

81% of consumers prefer to engage with sellers of brands on social channels. This implies leveraging content on social media to develop a reputation. 

Share the right content to connect with your audience, measure how representatives are participating in conversations on social media. As your employees develop the ideal content sharing habits, you can take one step ahead and analyze the engagement rate. Measure the likes, comments, and shares. 

Metric 4: Followers Who Find & Engage With Content

Before you calculate your ROI, understand the root of it first. Brands need to understand that social selling is not only about creating awareness, it plays an active part in boosting engagements and conversions. As 91% of buyers are active on social media channels, the strategy allows you to reach out to buyers, engage with buyers, and direct them towards websites or landing pages for conversions.

Key Performance Index (KPIs) of your website not only informs you about the number of followers but also lets you know about the value offered by the followers concerning engagement on your content. Social media platforms and employee advocacy are two of the important analytical tools. They provide information on followers and the value brought attributing prosperity back to the source. The social selling tools help in moving the customers ahead in the buying cycle.

Metric 5: Prospect Referrals

Whether you are selling online or offline, referrals are the most powerful thing in the world. A report by Demand Generation states that warm referrals show fourfold success in sales. It is believed that the chances of conversion increase as the ones interacting with the social selling efforts are already involved deeper in the buying cycle. 70% of B2B businesses say that referrals have the power to convert and close deals more efficiently compared to other leads.

Be mindful that social selling does not always mean a confirmed sales conversion. Therefore, you need to keep an eye on your marketing efforts besides social selling efforts to have an increased graph of ROI. All your efforts together will set up a foundation for your business to generate leads in the future.

Prospects are five times more likely to engage with representatives via referrals. Whereas, approximately, 45% of social buyers are more inclined towards connecting with people they are planning to buy from. Businesses can ask their reps to input the source of every prospect and analyze the outcome of the referrals.

Metric 6: Lead Activity

As made clear earlier, not all social selling activities directly lead to conversion. However, it helps in measuring the impact of the activities by observing each lead activity. Today, 80% of potential customers can be found on social media platforms. Although it is necessary to have effective conversion via reach and amplification on published posts, the key lies in sharing the right content that resonates with the prospects.

CTR

Click-through rate is one of the highly valued metrics in KPIs of social selling because it informs about the surety of receiving attention from the right target audience. 

No. of Conversations Started

Since the ultimate goal is to create a more streamlined and seamless path for efficient conversions by sales reps, it is important to track engagements on posts. Analyze the comments, likes, shares on social media platforms that further lead to conversions in the buying cycle.

Time Spent and Time Connected

The quicker the connections, the better the conventions and high-quality leads. Every business should have a workforce knowledgeable to optimize and leverage social selling tools for an efficient conversion across all platforms.

In Conclusion

In today’s world, social selling tools are extremely powerful in driving ROI for a business. As customers are increasingly opposed to outbound sales, the sales reps need to figure out the strategy to retain conversations and nurture relationships to ensure trust and credibility. 

While tracking and monitoring everyone sounds like a difficult task, the metrics can help in a quick analysis. It offers insights into the strength and weaknesses of any marketing strategy of your business. Now, management can bridge the gap with the aid of tools and training. 

How MarketBeam empowers companies to accelerate their social selling journey

MarketBeam helps to arm your sales force with strongly crafted content to be shared across their social networks. The sales team can connect the brand with prospects and nurture leads on a larger level by publishing strong, relevant content. Its powerful framework helps to track and monitor each lead to understand audience preferences and equip salesforce accordingly. 

3 Simple Steps to Efficient Social Selling:

STEP 1: Discover Content

Create and curate brand and industry content for the sales force. Allow them to demonstrate subject matter expertise by posting social media with a consistent cadence.

STEP 2: Scale Nurturing Leads On Social Media

Automate marketing content distribution to sales teams. This will enable them to educate and keep prospects warm and informed through social channels.

STEP 3: Measure Engagement

Let every sales and account executive monitor and measure their own engagement through MarketBeam’s user dashboards.

Equip your sales force to reach and nurture prospects every day with MarketBeam. Book a demo today.