Social Media vs. Social Selling (and why marketers need to know the difference)

If you take a look at the images in the banner for this article, you might think that social media and social selling look pretty similar. People, sitting at computers, doing "things" on social platforms.

But that's pretty much where the similarities stop.

Lately, I've been thinking a LOT about how we make our marketing teams responsible for "social media" - which usually means, POSTING on social media sites - but then that's where the responsibility ends.

But what if your marketing team didn't just know HOW to post on social media, but they had the skills to START a conversation, and move it into a funnel in which it actually BECOMES a Marketing Qualified Lead?

What if, your marketers were social sellers?

Let's explore...and let's base that exploration on the Top 10 Things that Marketers are responsible for on social media (according to ChatGPT).

Content Creation & Sharing

Ok, raise your hand if this is one of the primary deliverables of your marketing team. Creating content and sharing it on social.

If you didn't raise your hand, you're lying 😉

Even for entrepreneurs, about 50% of their "marketing time" is spent on content. And why?

Because the internet told you that you "should be creating content".

And so sure. You create text and image posts, maybe even videos, infographics and white papers, to check the box of creating content. And for the majority of people and companies I talk to, most (if not all) of that effort doesn't create any kind of meaningful engagement.

So what does create meaningful engagement? And what does it have to do with layering in social selling?

Well, social selling is all about BEING SOCIAL.

That is, being a human on social media that people can get to know (which is different than just posting your latest case study on your company page).

And why does that drive engagement?

Because a human has given another human a reason to engage.

And the fun fact about this is that there isn't even really any SELLING that's happening at this point (I often feel that marketers are TERRIFIED of sales).

There's just a HUMAN-ness.

One human building a relationship with another human.

But that doesn't happen if you're only concern is in the number of posts posted.

Audience Engagement

Since so many of our marketers are now full embedded in data land, this one follows a close second to content creation. Because we need to know what our content is doing, right?

So, we measure things like likes, and comments, maybe even shares (which really only count if it's not someone internally who's been instructed to share it).

But let's take one step back and look at the definition of "engagement". I'm going to steal a definition from Gallup focused on employee engagement:

The involvement and enthusiasm of people in a conversation.

Ok, now, take a step back and look at the last 10 comments you got on a social media post. How would you rate the level of involvement and enthusiasm of those comments?

In a world where AI can comment on pretty much anything, this becomes a really important thing to watch.

Because the POINT of creating a conversation on social media is to create a connection between someone and your business. Involvement is the first stage. And enthusiasm is based on the level of resonance.

Let me ask you this...how deeply have you resonated with a case study?

And on the flip side, how deeply can you resonate with one of your Peeps?

I mean, the difference is pretty drastic.

So again, where can social selling come into play?

Social selling is about building relationships with people.

And when you have relationships with people, they are more likely to opt-in to becoming involved in your conversation. AND, if you've shared enough in the relationship building process that they KNOW you're their people, then the likelihood of them sharing enthusiasm over the same things is high.

That's what REAL engagement looks like.

Or should I say, that's what real engagement FEELS like 💖

Content Curation

This is one I usually forget, so I'm glad that ChatGPT brought it into the fold.

This one is focused on sharing third-party content; which may include industry news, trends or articles from other "trustworthy" sources.

Honestly, when you're still in the process of finding your brand voice, it's one of the easiest things to do. I mean, articles are easy to source in the information age. Remember what it was like to go to the University library and search through microfiche files to find articles? Maybe I'm dating myself 🤣

I've worked for companies that use this strategy, and it's not that it's a BAD strategy. But generally, what you end up doing is promoting other people's expertise.

I mean...not the MOST effective way to build your own brand.

So minimally, it's important to share YOUR perspective when sharing something created by someone else. And here's how layering in social selling can take that one step further.

Again, social selling is based in people knowing PEOPLE. And people have their own unique interpretations of things...even things that you might agree on as an overall brand.

So, when your team members have an opportunity to find their voice, and people can understand WHY they are sharing something, their likelihood of enthusiastically supporting it goes up.

And on social media, enthusiastic support = REACH.

Paid Advertising

This is another common thing for companies to do on social media, and whereas the first three actually have little to no cost (besides the time taken doing them), this one can be HUGE.

Running ads on social media platforms is something that a LOT of people will try to sell you from an awareness perspective. But let's break this down a bit by starting with the definition of "awareness":

Concern about and well-informed interest in a particular situation or development.

Now, most "paid advertising awareness" does NOT meet this requirement. No matter how well you've "targeted" your audience.

Why?

Because demographic details - which are pretty much exclusively used in social media advertising - have little to nothing to do with how someone develops a "concern about" or "well-informed interest" in your company.

I mean, how many digital ads have you scrolled right past without it entering your realm of consciousness?

For me, it's a LOT.

I mean, a LOT a lot.

Most of them.

EXCEPT...when I already have an interest in the business💡

Which actually means, the awareness has already been created, and the ad acted as a REMINDER.

Again, we can find a win here with social selling.

If we look at what people get concerned about, or what they form interests in, it takes more than a 3 second scroll view. It takes a conversation.

And social selling is ALL about having conversations.

So if your marketing team is having conversations with people, conversations that generate interest, then your ads might just do what you're hoping they will.

Brand Monitoring & Listening

Ok, this is a biggie. Although, I would say that if I asked for a show of hands on this one, very few companies would be doing it in a meaningful way.

When it comes to monitoring, we're using looking at things like mentions, hashtags and conversations. But most social media activities rarely drive other people to mention us.

We might also be doing competitive analysis; observing competitor activities and industry trends. But generally what happens here is we get more caught up in COPYING what competitors or the industry is doing, rather than owning our own unique brand voice.

And in both of these areas, social selling can really make a difference.

Let's look at monitoring first.

When you are actively building relationships with people on social, and are actively in conversations about the things that matter to you, people KNOW what you are about. And when they see other things that they know you would be interested in, they tag you because they KNOW you'll have something valuable to add.

People know what hashtags you generally tag. And more importantly, which ones you BOTH tend to tag. And people BRING you into relevant conversations where you can share your expertise...you don't always have to be the originator of the content.

And when it comes to competitive analysis...

You can see what your competitors (and the industry) are doing BUT it doesn't impact you and what you're doing.

I still can't believe the number of tech companies I talk to that simply copy the SEO terms their competitors are using 🙄

That's the fast track to a price competition.

Brand listening is all about seeing what you're doing that resonates with people. But if what you're doing is the SAME as everyone else, you can never observe anything meaningful.

And at the end of the day, it's marketing all about STANDING OUT anyway?

In Summary

On the daily, we are still making marketers responsible for the above activities on social media. But are we really getting all we could out of those activities if those marketers aren't using solid social selling methodologies?

To me, this is a HUGE gap in marketing training.

We're trained to do THINGS, but we're NOT trained to do the things that make those things MATTER.

And when most companies are treating marketing like a cost center, it's no wonder.

I still believe that marketing can be a REVENUE center. But only if we give our marketers the skills that make their social media activities matter.

If you're curious about what some social selling skills could do for YOUR internal marketing team, let's chat.