A Foolproof Approach to Social Media Selling by Joe Pulizzi

Yes, you can leverage social media to sell more. Better yet, you can develop a social media process that positions you as the "go-to" expert in your industry, so that prospects and customers actively call you instead of you having to call them.

What if customers sought out your expertise on a consistent basis, leading to better relationships and more sales?

It’s possible…but not easy. It means not positioning yourself not as a sales rep, but as a true industry consultant.

Here is the social selling action plan.

How to Transform into an Expert Consultant

1. Make sure you have a clear focus whether it be product-based or industry-based. Once that’s established, it makes the rest of this easier to execute. A sales generalist will have an impossible time leveraging social media for sales, so pick a niche area in which you can truly excel.
2. Make a list of the top blogs and websites specific to your target audience (your customer). 10-15 is a good number. These are blogs and media sites where your customers are hanging out on a regular basis. Using tools like Google Alerts, Twitter and customer surveys will help you do this (talking to customers works best).
3. Start commenting on those blogs. Nothing sales-related. Add to the conversation in a helpful way that will work to position you as an expert.
4. Start the content process. After you get a good feel for helpful commenting, you need to launch your thought leadership platform. That most likely means creating a blog for yourself. Set a schedule. Posting at least twice a week is a good start. Add the time spent on this into your normal sales process. After a while and when ready, start telling your customers about your blog.
5. Start distributing the helpful content through your Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts on a defined schedule. Develop a simple email newsletter where customers can sign up to receive your expert insights.
6. Continue for six months, then review the results. Who's signed up to get your enewsletter? How did they find your blog post? Are people in your "new" sales database reaching out to you?

In my experience, most salespeople who start this program stop after a month or two. The majority of sales leaders don't understand that this type of selling is core to their success. Consistency is key. Yes, developing valuable and compelling content for your customers is critical, but most social selling programs fail because of lack of execution.

For those of you that "work" the program, this is what you will begin to see.

1. Social Sharing: As you begin to position yourself as a true industry resource, more customers, prospects and industry influencers will begin to share your content on the web. They will begin to do your marketing for you.
2. Exclusive Invitations: If the content is relevant, valuable and consistent (which it should be – you are content expert), you will begin to get invited to present on webinars and in-person industry events.
3. Expert Consultant: Customers will start to rely on you as a source of expertise by calling/emailing for advice on a regular basis. These calls will lead to a number of sales opportunities that would have never been possible.

No, this is not Fantasy land…it can actually happen.

For example, Marcus Sheridan(pictured right at Content Marketing World) has been consistently blogging about fiberglass pools for years now. And yes, he's a sales guy, not a writer. By giving away amazing information in a defined niche (fiberglass pools in the Virginia area), he helped take his company from fifth in his market to the #1 seller of fiberglass pools in the entire United States (during the Great Recession).

Now companies from all over the world call Marcus to have him present on his sales methods.

If you stick to the above process, like Marcus did, it WILL happen.

Once it does, just think of how your sales process (and your life) will change.

Joe Pulizzi is founder of the Content Marketing Institute, which runs the industry's largest content marketing event, Content Marketing World. He is also overly passionate about the color orange.