Social selling the inbound way is an approach that involves making content that connects with your potential buyers. It’s a different method as opposed to the typical cold outreach that B2B sales reps perform.
You’ll learn about the differences between inbound and outbound social selling as well as some actionable tips to jumpstart your inbound selling.
Inbound vs Outbound Selling
Inbound selling is about creating content and awareness that provides value and credibility to your brand. On the other hand, outbound selling is a proactive approach where you reach out to interested buyers.
Inbound and outbound have their use cases in B2B sales. Inbound selling is better for bigger companies. While outbound selling is better for smaller companies.
Here are some activities that differentiate inbound and outbound social selling:
| Inbound Selling Activities | Outbound Selling Activities |
| Content Engagement and Sharing | Cold Emailing and Calling |
| Webinars and Events | Networking in Events |
| Social Listening | Sales Prospecting |
| Thought Leadership | Follow-Ups |
| Customer Testimonials | LinkedIn Messaging |
B2B vs B2C Social Selling
B2B social selling is curating content that appeals to sales professionals and business leaders. B2C social selling is personalizing content that appeals to a general group of people.
Additionally, B2B and B2C companies greatly vary in target audience and method of selling. B2C companies can benefit more from inbound selling to manage their sales prospecting.
B2B companies can benefit more from outbound selling because their primary target is C-suite professionals. According to the 2022 LinkedIn B2B Sales Report France Edition, 60% of decision-makers prefer email as an outreach method
What is Social Selling the Inbound Way?
Social selling in the inbound way is a strategy that focuses on using social media to attract and engage potential customers by providing them with valuable and relevant content.
Unlike traditional outbound sales that push products onto prospects, inbound social selling aims to pull prospects in by building relationships and offering helpful information.
The key to inbound social selling is to focus on building relationships and providing value rather than making a hard sell.
By engaging with prospects on social media and offering them relevant content, sales professionals can nurture leads and ultimately convert them into customers.
Why is Inbound Social Selling Important?
Inbound social selling is important for B2B sellers because it provides valuable content for your audience. Interactions via content are crucial for building reliability for your customers.
Furthermore, social selling is a low-cost way for you to reach customers. According to 2024 data from Ebsta, organic inbound selling is the best-performing source for B2B companies with 500+ employees.
Here are some points on why inbound social selling is important:
- Builds Trust and Credibility: Salespeople can establish themselves as trusted professionals in their industry by providing valuable content and engaging with prospects on social media.
- Generates High-Quality Leads: Inbound social selling focuses on attracting prospects interested in your products or services.
- Increases Brand Awareness: By regularly posting valuable content and engaging with your audience on social media, you can increase brand awareness and visibility in your industry.
- Cost-Effective: Inbound social selling is more cost-effective than traditional outbound sales tactics. It requires less investment in advertising and allows you to reach a wider audience organically.
- Improves Client Relationships: Social media provides a platform for ongoing communication with prospects. Regularly engaging with them can build stronger relationships that lead to long-term customer loyalty.
5 Tips for Inbound Social Selling
Here are the 5 tips to help you in your inbound social selling. These can kickstart your social selling activities.
Additionally, these can help you achieve your goals. According to 2024 Salesmate data, 31% of B2B professionals have stated that social selling allowed them to build deeper relationships with their clients.
Define your target audience
For B2B sales reps, you need to identify your target audience so you can curate your content for them.
You can define your target audience by creating an ideal customer profile (ICP). An ICP is a hypothetical customer you want to cater your business to. This method is great for companies that use account-based marketing (ABM) to find prospects.
These are the characteristics that you need to define for your ICP:
- Revenue: What is the minimum revenue threshold for a customer to pay for your service?
- Company Size: How many sales representatives within a team does a customer need to use your service?
- Industry: Are there specific industries that you want to work with? Are there any industries that you don’t want to work with or don’t align with the service you’re offering?
- Geography: Where is your product serviceable?
- Timeframe: How long will they be using your product?
Choose a platform that caters to B2B sellers
The best platform for B2B sellers is LinkedIn. It’s a professional networking platform that allows users to connect with colleagues, peers, and industry professionals.
LinkedIn is the best platform for inbound social selling because there’s a large audience of C-suite professionals, sales directors, account executives, and sales reps. According to 2024 Spotio data, 78% of salespeople who use social media outsell their peers.
You can connect and follow various people based on your ICP to build your network. This can help you reach your target audience. These people can share or engage with your content in their network.
Engage in discourse
When you’ve built a large network of like-minded people, you can begin commenting and engaging in other people’s posts and content. This will help make your profile more visible to people.
Engaging in discourse can boost your rapport with other people. It can signal to them that you’re knowledgeable in your field.
When commenting on other people’s posts, here are some things you need to remember:
- Be respectful: You should observe your tone and word choice. When disagreeing, be polite and provide another perspective on the subject.
- Keep it concise: Be straightforward in your response. Keep your replies snappy and quick.
- Provide value: When commenting, you should always provide insight into the topic. Bring something new and fresh to the conversation.
Create targeted posts
Targeted posts are your main content for inbound social selling. These posts typically revolve around a subject closely related to your product or service.
You can create various posts that can appeal to your audience. Here are some types of posts that you can make for your profile:
- Brand Awareness: These posts are for your audience to know what solutions you’re offering.
- Educational Content: Provide valuable insight to your audience through data reports.
- Rational Content: Explain why people should choose you. These posts should explain why people should pick your product or service.
Track attribution rates
Attribution rates are the percentage of conversions that can be attributed to a specific channel or campaign. It helps you understand the effectiveness of your social selling efforts.
There are two types of attribution models that you can track:
- Single-Touch Attribution Model: You either attribute the touchpoint that the prospect first interacted with or the last one they interacted with.
- Multitouch Attribution Model: This model attributes each touchpoint that the prospect interacted with. This is typically the most accurate model.
Furthermore, understanding attribution rates can help you curate your content campaigns on LinkedIn. You can create a step-by-step plan to create social selling posts that are highly interactive.
Inbound Social Selling Posts Templates
Talk about pain points and needs
When writing your posts, you should start by addressing common pain points that your audience faces in their business processes.
Once in a while, you can post a post that tries to convert your network to sales opportunities, but remember to keep these at 1 out of 10 posts at maximum. Example below:
Sample sales post template
Did you know that many businesses struggle with [specific pain point]? It’s a common challenge that can hinder growth and efficiency.
At [Your Company], we understand the impact of [specific pain point]. That’s why we’ve developed [Product/Service] to address this issue directly.
By using our [Product/Service], businesses can overcome [specific pain point] and experience improved [benefits of your solution].
Our customers have seen a significant improvement in [relevant metrics] after implementing [Product/Service].
Ready to eliminate [specific pain point]? Discover how [Product/Service] can help: [Link to your website].
Provide analytics and data
You can set the scene by providing sample data that shows which pain points your audience struggles the most with. Moreover, you can provide data that shows when people use your solution, they’ll see significant improvement in their processes.
These are possible through case studies that you can share via graphs or charts. You can give your input on the data to bring a different point of view.
Call-to-Action (CTA)
Make sure that you have an open-ended ending on your posts. This allows for potential interaction with your audience which boosts your engagement metrics. The CTA could be a question of interest or an invitation to comment on the post.
Post Ideas for B2B Inbound Social Selling
Share customer feedback
Social proof is an excellent way to provide trust and credibility for your business. You can discuss how a specific pain point was resolved through your solution. Using customer testimonials that highlight achievements and key benefits can help generate interest in your service.
Offer free webinars or networking events
You can create online webinars or networking events to engage with your network and showcase your expertise in the industry. These webinars can provide valuable insights and information related to your industry or service.
Moreover, you can focus on topics that address common challenges faced by your target audience. Don’t forget to gather feedback from participants to understand what worked well. Use this feedback to refine your future webinars and events.
Share your sales team’s success stories
Lastly, sharing your sales team’s success stories can be a powerful way to showcase the effectiveness of your product or service and build credibility with your audience.
You can create case studies that detail how your sales team helped a particular client achieve their goals. You can also metrics and testimonials to illustrate the impact of your team’s efforts.
Furthermore, you can showcase the expertise of your sales team by sharing content that demonstrates their knowledge of your industry and the challenges your clients face.
Best Tools for Inbound Social Selling
These tools help sales teams become more efficient, productive, and effective in managing their sales activities. These tools are advantageous because according to 2020 Lead Forensics data, more than 30% of sales-related activities can be automated with technology.
AuthoredUp
AuthoredUp is a content and analytics tool for LinkedIn social selling. It offers a platform that you can use to create content. There’s also a Google Chrome extension to make it easily accessible.
SocialPilot
SocialPilot is a social media automation tool that provides your team with various features to help you grow your brand. The application offers content creation, scheduling, and team management tools.
Kleo
Kleo is a Google Chrome extension that helps you create the best LinkedIn content. You can analyze other people’s content, filter popular posts, and personalize your content.
