How to sell on social media without turning your customers off.

Social Selling: Good or Bad?

Social Selling. Is it good or bad? Experts in the field agree that soft selling on social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter can actually be a good thing. As the opportunity to make a sale on social becomes more and more acceptable- businesses are jumping at the chance. While this new method of selling is exciting, it’s also a process that should be done carefully with a well-though-out social strategy or plan.

Last week on Trend Talk Radio we discussed different ways to utilize social media as a selling tool. Guest speaker, Dan Pacheco, a sales expert from Orlando Florida spoke about different steps you should take before and during the sales process. When speaking about the components of selling, Dan compared the best practices to animals, naming off a chameleon, wolf, and angler fish. Who knew that wildlife and marketing went together? Here’s a quick breakdown of the animals and their similarities to marketing and advertising on social networks.

Three types of social selling
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1. Chameleon- The sales pitch or advertisement has the ability to adapt to different audiences.
2. Wolf- The sales pitch or advertisement stems from a social strategy. 
3. Angler Fish- The sales pitch or advertisement is usually “click bait.”

​The Chameleon
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We all know that chameleons are a special type of lizard. They’re known for their ability to change colors and adapt to their surroundings. So it’s not a surprise that a chameleon-type sales pitch is just that. It's a sales pitch that is able to adapt to different types of demographics and customers. Whether you know it or not, companies such as Coca-Cola and Apple use multiple types of ads when they target their audiences. They tailor their ads to attract different types of customers. For example, since both older demographics and younger demographics drink coke, Coca-Cola will advertise different types of campaigns depending on who their trying to reach. So for the younger demographic, they may do an ad campaign of college students sipping an ice cold drink during a football game. For the older crowd, the ad could be something along the lines of a father opening up a can of cola after getting the kids to sleep. The chameleon approach is all about adaptation. Isn’t advertising so sneaky?
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The Wolf
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Selling as a wolf  not only takes planning but also a well-thought-out strategy. Think about a helpless lone sheep lying on the ground from a broken leg. At first glance, one wolf goes out ahead of the pack to check out the crippled animal and make sure it's safe to attack. Then gradually, the rest of the pack follows after. This is how social selling goes when you’re the wolf. You strategically plan out how your going to “attack” the customer and then you slowly start advertising to them with one post, followed by another, and another. Once you find out what works, you utilize that successful practice to attract more engagement such as likes, shares, and comments. 


The Angler Fish​

Last but not least, the angler fish. For those of you who don’t know what an angler fish is, think Finding Nemo. Remember the fish that lived down in the darkness and had a shining light attached to its forehead. Remember how that fish attracted Dory and Nemo’s dad by making them think it was a light? (Something that they so desperately needed because they couldn’t see a thing in that dark cave?) That’s typically how the sales process of the angler fish works. It’s click bait. It’s the approach where you tease your customers into thinking that they need your product. Examples of this type of sales approach are those articles and blogs you see on Facebook that say something along the lines of “You’ll never know what happened to this man when he opened his car door- CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT.” Those types of post are annoying yes, but they actually attract a ton of website traffic by doing the handy bait and switch practice. Although the angler fish approach isn’t for everyone, some companies use this trick to attract customers and page views more quickly, as a temporary fix. 

As your team works together to figure out what type of approach you will take when selling online, bring up this article. Figure out a sales goal and then decide which animal would help to carry out that goal the best? Whether it’s a short-term fix like the angler fish or a well-though-out plan like the wolf, either way, let your inner animal roar. 

To here the full interview with Dan Pacheco on #SocialSelling listen here:

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