You might have seen people advertising their small or big businesses through social media channels. Having a profile on these channels seems easy to get started with for attracting the right audience to the business. It is because checking social media feeds every day has become a global norm.
As the saying goes – “Business is where the customer is.”
With so many people staying active on different social media platforms, businesses get the opportunity to showcase their products/services and attract potential customers. It is where the concept of ‘social selling’ originates from.
If you want to benefit from social selling, you might have thought it to be the same as social media marketing or paid advertising on social media (Spoiler Alert: You are close.)
By incorporating social selling into your funnel, you can compete with more social-media-savvy competitors. Before you can do that, you need to understand the fundamentals.
What is social selling?
Social selling, as the name suggests, refers to the practice of using your brand’s profiles/accounts on social media platforms to connect with potential customers. It can help you tap into the space of millions of social media users in your niche to grow sales.
You can also think of social selling as a modern way to engage with your customers and build relationships with them. In the current scenario, selling on social media has replaced age-old sales and relationship-building techniques like cold calling. You can also use it to sell products directly to your customers.
What social selling is not?
With different social media channels, you get the facility to send DMs to individuals or refer them through Tweets. However, this does not mean you get the privilege to bombard strangers with unsolicited DMs or tweets as a part of social selling.
Rather, social selling is about making meaningful connections with your prospects and presenting your brand as a solution to the problem they face. This will help build loyalty and trust amongst your customers.
Advantages of social selling over traditional selling
Still not sold on the idea of social selling? Consider the following advantages:
Social selling can help increase sales opportunities
LinkedIn’s SSI statistics confirm that businesses that utilize the social selling space create 45% more sales opportunities than their peers who do not. Similarly, 81% of shoppers are more likely to engage and buy from brands that have a strong, professionally maintained social media presence.
It all confirms that professional social media usage is more prevalent these days, even in the sales field.
It helps in building real, strong customer relationships
With business events getting canceled or postponed during the pandemic, the sales teams in most industries have shifted their focus to online networking and relationship-building. This has also given a push to social selling and created opportunities for them to connect with potential customers via social media.
Sales reps can now use social listening tools to identify leads related to your industry, competitors, and business. It implies you can outreach to customers who are already showing an interest in your offerings. With real conversations and active listening via social media channels, you can build trust amongst the customers and ultimately build a loyal customer base.
Your customers/prospects are already buying via social media
That’s true, and we have the statistics to prove that.
A recent study has found that the global social commerce industry worth $492 billion is expected to grow to $1.2 trillion by the year 2025. If you consider the sheer volume of people using social media across the globe, this can be expected.
For your business, it means your customers are already there on social media, building a huge potential for social sales. If you want a share of the social selling pie, it’s time to get started.
Statistical data related to the growing importance of social selling
- The total number of social media users has crossed the mark of 4.5 billion in October 2021 – that’s 57.7% of the world’s total population (7.8 billion as of 2021).
- More than 76% of buyers are willing to have sales conversations via social media channels.
- 33% of buyers prefer to get in touch with the brands via social media than through a phone call.
- More than 62% of buyers respond to sales representatives that provide relevant insights about the offerings.
- Generating leads on social media costs 75% less than any other medium.
Common payment challenges related to social selling
When businesses start with social selling, each of them faces its fair share of challenges. Out of the most common hurdles to start selling on social media platforms, there is payment acceptance. At the end of the day, you would also want to get paid for what you sell, irrespective of the medium or channel generating the orders for you.
Business owners who want to benefit from social selling often face the following payment-related challenges:
Payment collection without having a website or integrated payment gateway
For many small businesses, the idea of investing in a business website to sell products/services is not economically viable. In the absence of a website, they are unable to target potential online shoppers who can help grow sales and revenue.
Besides this, the lack of a business website also rules out the possibility of integrating the best payment gateway in India.
Conversion of COD to prepaid orders
As a business owner, you would love the idea of getting paid at the time of receiving an order (not later) via social selling. But in the country where 83% of shoppers once preferred using the Cash On Delivery (COD) model (statistics), getting only prepaid orders is not easy.
This is something that again highlights the importance of having a business website for accepting payments online before you ship the product to your customers.
Offering several payment options
Another aspect related to acquiring new customers is to provide them with maximum payment options to choose from. While some buyers would want to pay you via their credit cards, others may look for the availability of UPI for online payments.
Offering a wide range of payment options to your customers then becomes a challenge.
Recommended Read: A Business’s Essential Guide to Payment Options
Ensuring trust and security of payments
Amidst the rise in payment scams all over the world, customers’ preference for safe and reliable payment solutions is quite obvious. However, as a business owner, it can be difficult for you to ensure the security of payments you process online while selling on social media.
Payment Links for social selling – an ideal way to grow your business
Not having a business website might have created hurdles in accepting payments online while you sell on social media. As a solution, there are payment links – a modern way to accept contactless payments.
By definition, payment links are URLs/links that you can use to collect payments from your customers remotely. You do not need a website or app to start using this payment solution. They are easy to generate and can be shared with the customers via SMS, chatbot, or email.
While you adopt social selling as a part of your business, you can avail of the following benefits of using payment links:
- Easy to accept payments from customers remotely
- Benefit from best-in-class payment security
- Easy to offer a wide range of payment options – credit cards, debit cards, UPI, etc.
- Highly suitable for businesses involving home deliveries
- Automatic reminder facility for customers
- Easy to payment links in bulk
- Suitable for both offline and online payments
- Best suited for SMBs involved in social selling
Accept payments like a pro with Paytm Payment Links
If you feel convinced about using payment links for social selling, the next big decision is to select the right payment solution provider. While you can get payment links facility from several different providers, you want to opt for the best solution available.
Consider this example –
After you started selling products via a social media channel, you received a Direct Message from a potential customer. In such a situation, you would do your best to interact with him and convert him to maintain the average order value. After you have convinced him about the utility of your product for his specific needs, you can simply ask for the payment in the message itself via a Paytm Payment Link.
Paytm Payment Links is known to enable small or big businesses to start accepting payments online from any social media channel. The links can have your business needs covered by providing all the benefits listed above and even more.
Here’s why you should look no further than Paytm Payment Links to sell on social media:
- Industry high success rate
- Trust of 330 million+ Paytm users
- Best-in-class payment security
- 100+ payment options available, including Paytm Wallet, Paytm Postpaid, and Fixed Deposits
- No setup fees
- Competitive pricing (including 0% charge on UPI and RuPay transactions)
- T+1 settlements even on bank holidays
Also Read: Paytm Payment Links – A Faster Way to Collect Online Payments
Is it easy to create Paytm Payment Links?
Creating Paytm Payment Links is quite easy and does not require any specialized skills. Given below are the basic steps you need to follow:
- Log in to your Paytm for Business dashboard.
- Select ‘Payment Links‘.
- Enter the required details and generate a link.
- Copy the link and share it with your customer to accept payments online.
Social Selling FAQs
What is Social Selling Index?
Social Selling Index, also known as SSI, is a popular metric that measures how effective you/your brand is at social selling. It was launched by LinkedIn in 2014 with the thought in mind that it is not easy for brands to quantify their social selling approach.
LinkedIn uses four components to calculate your brand’s SSI. These include:
- Establishing a brand professionally with a well-managed LinkedIn profile
- Finding the right people on this platform
- Engaging with the prospects via relevant content that inspires conversation
- Building and strengthening relationships
Having a high SSI can also result in getting more connection requests and more people following your brand page. You can easily check this index by signing into your LinkedIn account and navigating to the SSI dashboard. Along with the current value of the SSI, you will also get to know how to improve it further.
Is social selling right for your business?
After knowing what social selling is, the first question you might have in mind is –
‘Is selling products via social media suitable for your business too?’
The simplest answer – if you already have an online business through which you sell different types of products or want to start one, then social selling can help it grow. It presents you with a significant opportunity to reach more customers via social media channels.
For example, if yours is a B2B business, then you can showcase your existing work and client testimonials to build your brand personality via social selling. This will help drive inbound sales and conversions.
Are you already benefiting from social selling?
It depends.
If you have already created the business accounts or pages, like Facebook Page for your brand, Linkedin page, or Twitter profile, you have started with the basics of social selling. But to benefit from it, you must understand how it works.
Conclusion
Social selling is in for the masses amidst the current shopping trends. To make the most of these trends, benefit from utilizing Paytm Payment Links and get paid timely for the orders you receive.
