The Guide to B2B Social Selling: Part one – Let’s get you set up

Plenty of statics online demonstrate the power of effective social media in the B2B space if you’re unsure. This series of articles is instead concerned with getting you set up to be effective online if you operate within the B2B space.

These articles are written from the perspective of our company, whose business revolves around consistently securing the most influential businesspeople in the world to attend and speak with us throughout the calendar year.

Whilst this is by no means a comprehensive list of tips and tricks, we understand that you need to implement the fundamentals quickly now and get right back to what you do best: selling.

To get you the in the strongest position fastest, we’ve split up the process into three vitally important steps based on the three major social platforms. You’ll need to nail these basics if you plan on being taken seriously by executives.

This series focuses on single user’s profiles. Best practises for company-wide accounts deserves its own list.

Let’s begin:

Episode 1: The Phantom Profile

If you aren’t transparent, you’re invisible

Yes, I see the irony. But I’m of course referring to transparency as it relates to you, specifically who you are as a business and (brace yourself) as a brand-of-one. (You’ll be seeing a lot of that last phrase if you start digging deeper into personal branding.)

For all its nuances, personal branding relies on you doing one thing extremely well: expressing why connecting with you is valuable from the viewer’s perspective.

If you feel as though your value should be obvious from your job title: it isn’t.

Professional users of social media have had to endure job title inflation for years and as such are hyper-aware of the trend. Additionally the focus of every company is different, so on its own your job title could mean any number of things that a complete stranger wouldn’t be aware of.

As a result, you need a concise way of communicating your value at a glance and unsurprisingly, this changes slightly with each platform:

What you need to do: LINKEDIN

• Edit your headline:

Don’t underestimate the power of your headline: the fact that a substantial number of users on LinkedIn rely on their job titles, provides you with an instant opportunity to stand out.

• Ensure you have a professional looking photo on your profile:

A crisp, clear headshot of you in smart-casual attire should do the trick, but for those all-important extra points upload a picture of you actively providing value

• Make your job history sound dynamic not plain: include figures

Profiles can demonstrate more than just where you were last year – they can prove in an instant that you understand the value you’ve brought to previous organisations. Similarly, they can also suggest that you don’t have a clue or think it to be excess irrelevant detail. Be in the former category of people

What you need to do: TWITTER

• Edit your profile description

This can and should be less formal than LinkedIn, due to the nature of the platform
Your main objective here is to clearly signal to other users what they can expect from clicking ‘Follow’ against your name
As a general rule, it’s better to restyle your value-orientated mission statement to be much lighter.
Include an extra detail that’s personal to your sense of identity because that’s partly how you’ll win hearts and minds over meaningless follows from bots

• Ensure you have a photo on your profile – this is especially important on Twitter because the platform’s notification settings allow users to silence updates from blank-faced accounts
• Include an appropriate banner image – one that’s not pixelated

What you need to do: FACEBOOK

• Be very cautious about what updates you make public – it’s common knowledge that employers often check the Facebook accounts of prospective employees so assume the same principal goes at an executive level for that sweet, sweet bit of extra safety

Facebook also has some of the best SEO rankings around unsurprisingly, so this is especially important if you don’t want a Google search of your name to come up with anything you’d be uncomfortable sharing with a prospective customer

That’s all from us this time, if you’re looking for an idea of what to do next in terms of building credibility or making valuable connections you can check out the next articles in the mini series when they come online shortly.

GDS Group hosts experts to help experts. We strive to provide an atmosphere for our attendees that enables them to confidently lead their companies through major transformation projects. For information on upcoming events, view our Technology Summits and Executive Events. To remain current on our activities, visit GDS Group on LinkedIn | Facebook | Twitter.