What exactly does social selling mean?
In its classic sense, social selling is a sales approach. People from your company use social networks to find relevant contacts, understand questions, and develop relationships. This is also how LinkedIn describes the term social selling..
A post can be the starting point. The actual conversation might develop in the comments, via a message, or later during a meeting. The crucial factor is whether you can contribute something to the specific question your counterpart is asking.
At Vertikal Viral, we connect this idea to all aspects of a brand's communication: Consulting, production, and distribution should all contribute to a single business objective. Our approach therefore extends beyond personal interaction in sales. We think proactively about what content is needed, how it reaches the right people, and what happens after initial interest is generated.
How do social selling, social media marketing, and social commerce differ?
The terms overlap but describe different tasks. This classification helps with planning:
| Term | What is this about? | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Social Media Marketing | Shaping a brand's presence on social networks and pursuing marketing goals. | A company publishes videos, manages its community, and promotes an offer. |
| Social Selling | Developing relationships and conversations with potential customers and guiding them through the buying process. | A specialist answers a specific question and then discusses the prospect's situation with them. |
| Social Commerce | Utilizing purchasing options within social media platforms. | Someone discovers a product and buys it using a shop function available on the platform. |
A company can combine these approaches. For your planning, it should still be clear what purpose each measure serves. A video can explain a question. An advertisement can reach additional people. A personal conversation clarifies whether your offer meets the need.
How do you build a meaningful social selling approach?
For collaboration between marketing, production, and sales, we recommend five key decisions.
1. Decide who you want to reach.
“Companies that want to grow” is not very specific enough for a concrete video. A clearly described situation is more helpful: for example, a marketing manager who regularly needs videos but has neither their own production team nor a reliable workflow.
To do this, collect questions from real conversations. What do customers want to know before commissioning a project? What concerns do they have? What causes them to fail to make a decision? This will generate topics that can be directly linked to your offer.
2. Make your offer understandable
Anyone who discovers your content should then be able to understand how you help. Review the profile, website, and service description together:
- Is it clear who the offer is intended for?
- Is it clear what the collaboration entails?
- Are there recognizable examples of your work?
- Is the next step easy to find?
Open questions about positioning, target audience, or offerings belong in the Strategy and Conceptbefore a comprehensive production plan is developed.
3. Produce content that facilitates decision-making
A good starting point are the questions immediately before a purchase: What does it cost? What do we need to prepare? Which solution suits us? What are the limitations?
This can result in various videos: a short explanation, a demonstration, a project report, or a conversation with an expert. The format depends on the question. A short clip can answer a single objection; for a complex process, a longer video might be more suitable.
In the Video production Such content can be planned together from the outset. For example, a single topic can generate a detailed explanation and several short answers for different use cases.
4. Plan the post-publication interaction
Publishing includes assigning responsibility for the responses. Who answers technical questions? Who identifies a specific need? When will someone from sales be involved?
A public question deserves a helpful answer first. You can offer a personal conversation if it's appropriate for the situation. Simply commenting on a post doesn't necessarily indicate a need for a sales conversation.
Paid advertising can also help to distribute content in a targeted way. Organic engagement and ads each have their own role. You can find more information in our comparison of organic content and paid ads..
5. Connect marketing and sales during evaluation.
Regularly discuss which contacts are actually a good fit for your offer. What questions keep coming up in conversations? What expectations were raised by the content? Where is information still missing?
This feedback should be included in the next planning phase. If prospects regularly misunderstand the scope of services, a clearer explanation or a different example may be needed. Simply publishing more of the same content won't solve the problem.
What might that look like in practice?
A simplified, fictional example: An accounting software provider wants to reach companies whose invoice approvals require a lot of manual coordination.
A product expert explains in a short video how to recognize an unclear approval process. In the accompanying article, she shows which responsibilities a company should clarify first. A prospect asks how to map multiple locations.
The expert answers the question and offers to review the specific situation together. The linked website outlines the requirements, functionality, and demo process. During the discussion, it's determined whether the software is a good fit. The sales team notes which requirements were crucial and what explanations were missing.
This could lead to a new video. The professional exchange thus provides a starting point for the next production. Whether this results in a commission depends, among other things, on requirements, product fit, budget, and further consultation.
Which key performance indicators (KPIs) are useful for social selling?
Select key performance indicators (KPIs) according to the question you want to answer:
| Question | Possible metric |
|---|---|
| Are we reaching relevant people? | Available target group data and relevant professional responses. |
| Is a concrete exchange taking place? | Discussions about actual needs, qualified inquiries. |
| Are suitable contacts being developed further? | Agreed-upon meetings, offers, and their further development. |
| Is business being generated? | Acquired customers and economic contribution, taking into account the costs incurred. |
Define together what constitutes a qualified inquiry . A contact address alone says little about whether someone needs your offer and meets the requirements.
Attribution also has its limits: A customer may have watched several videos, received a recommendation, and later visited your website directly. Document known touchpoints and ask during the conversation how the person became aware of you. This provides a more complete picture than just the last click.
When is social selling a good fit for your company?
Before launching, check whether your target audience is reachable on the chosen channels and whether expert exchange plays a role in their purchasing decisions. Equally important: You need people who can populate content with knowledge, answer questions, and follow up with relevant contacts.
If this capacity is lacking, some of the preparation and production can be outsourced. However, you still need clearly defined contacts for expert answers and sales decisions. Coaching and team training can be beneficial if you want to handle these tasks more confidently yourself.
An unclear scope of services, missing responsibilities, or an offer without a clearly defined target group should be clarified first. A fixed timeframe for the first order cannot be reliably stated without knowing your initial situation and your sales cycle.
Your first step: Think through a customer question from start to finish
Take a question that frequently arises before an order is placed. Consider which video would answer it clearly. Then check what an interested person finds on your profile or website and who would handle any follow-up questions.
This will give you a manageable initial process that you can test and evaluate. We explain the journey from initial content to inquiry in more detail in the article on the Social Media Customer Journey.
Do you want to build this journey for your brand? We'll clarify the direction with you, produce the right content, and plan its distribution. Depending on what your team is already handling, we can support the entire process or individual parts.