Social Selling: What It Is and How It Works
Social selling uses social media to find potential customers, share useful information, and develop relationships that can lead to sales. In Salesforce’s definition, the central activity is direct interaction between sellers and prospects on social platforms.
Social selling, social media marketing, and social commerce
The three terms describe related work with different objectives. Salesforce distinguishes social selling from social media marketing by its focus on individual relationships. Social media marketing generally addresses a broader audience through brand accounts and campaigns. Social selling uses personal interactions to develop a relationship with a potential or existing customer. A company post can support both activities, but publishing it and discussing it with an interested person are separate tasks.
Social commerce concerns the purchase itself. Shopify defines social commerce as promoting and selling through social platforms, with transactions completed either inside an app or on a retailer’s website. Social selling focuses on the relationship and conversation that can precede a purchase. It does not require an in-app checkout.
How to build a social selling strategy
LinkedIn’s social-selling framework groups the work into four areas: establishing a professional brand, finding relevant prospects, engaging through insights, and developing relationships. Use these areas to organize the work, then connect each interaction to an appropriate next step.
1. Make the profile clear
Start with a profile that explains who is speaking, what the business offers, and how to make contact. Salesforce’s starting guidance recommends an honest professional profile with restrained sales language.
For a practical profile review, check that:
- The role and business affiliation are current.
- The description names the product, service, or area of expertise.
- Links lead to relevant information about the offering.
- Claims can be checked against the material linked from the profile.
Write for someone assessing relevance. Describe the work plainly and make the next contact step easy to find.
2. Find relevant people and read before reaching out
Research should establish a reason for contact. LinkedIn’s guidance on trust before connecting recommends researching the person and company, then explaining why the connection request is relevant.
Follow public discussions related to the offering. Read the original post and its replies before contributing. Identify the question being asked, the information already provided, and the part that falls within the seller’s expertise.
Keep research notes brief: the public source, the stated topic, and a question worth clarifying. Treat the topic as context for a conversation. Confirm purchasing interest, requirements, and timing through direct discussion rather than assigning them from a profile or post.
3. Share content that helps answer a question
Content does not have to be written from scratch. Salesforce’s content training identifies three sources: material curated from elsewhere, content produced by the business, and original content created by the seller. It includes formats such as articles, videos, research, and event pages.
Choose the format around the question being addressed:
- Product information for questions about capabilities or limitations.
- A clear explanation for questions about a process or decision.
- Relevant research for questions that need evidence.
- A demonstration for questions about how something works.
Add a short explanation of why the material is relevant. Include the answer directly when a link is unnecessary. Following Salesforce’s advice to read material fully before sharing, check its claims and context rather than relying on a headline.
4. Turn engagement into a conversation
Public participation and private contact need a clear purpose. Salesforce’s relationship-building guidance recommends explaining the reason for reaching out, keeping the message brief, and inviting an exchange of knowledge or views before asking for calendar time.
Build the first message around four pieces of information:
- Who is making contact.
- The specific discussion or question behind the message.
- The relevant information or expertise being offered.
- A small next step the recipient can choose.
Continue around the response received. Answer questions, clarify the need, and propose a sales discussion when there is a reason for one. Agree on the purpose of a call or meeting before sending the invitation. Base follow-up on the conversation and any agreed timing; avoid treating every new connection as an immediate sales opportunity.
Which platforms and tools should be used?
Choose a platform by checking where potential customers participate and whether relevant conversations are accessible there. Salesforce’s overview covers channels including LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, X, YouTube, and TikTok, and recommends researching the audience before choosing where to focus.
Begin with one platform where that research provides a clear reason to participate. Assess the discussions, the available information, and the contact options. Use LinkedIn’s professional context when it fits the audience; consider other networks on the same basis. The platform decision should come from customer activity and the work required to engage with it.
Tools support different parts of that work. Salesforce’s tools training covers customer records, scheduled publishing, and monitoring social channels. Organize tool requirements by task:
| Task | What to look for |
|---|---|
| Research and listening | Search, relevant feeds, and alerts for topics worth following |
| Publishing | A way to prepare and review scheduled content |
| Relationship tracking | A record of the conversation, its source, and the agreed next step |
| Review | Activity data that can be compared with recorded sales outcomes |
The same training recommends automating content rather than interactions. Review scheduled posts and handle replies in the context of the actual exchange. Add specialized tools to solve an identified research, publishing, or recordkeeping need.
Does social selling improve sales?
Research provides a qualified answer. A study of social-media use in sales reports links through competitive-information collection and adapting the selling approach to customers. Its authors also state that social-media use alone does not guarantee better sales performance.
That study concerns business-to-business sales. Its findings should not be turned into a promised result across every product, audience, or platform. Evaluate the practice through the conversations and sales outcomes recorded in the business using it.
How to measure social selling
LinkedIn’s Social Selling Index, or SSI, scores platform use on a scale from 0 to 100 across its four social-selling categories. LinkedIn also cautions that a high score does not always reflect selling effectiveness or correlate with measurable sales outcomes. Use the score as information about LinkedIn activity, alongside records of what those interactions produced.
For practical tracking, separate activity, commercial progress, and effort:
| Layer | What to record |
|---|---|
| Activity | Relevant posts, comments, contact attempts, and responses |
| Commercial progress | Substantive conversations, agreed next steps, qualified opportunities, and completed sales |
| Effort | Time spent researching, preparing content, interacting, and following up |
Define a qualified conversation before counting one. Record whether the person has described a relevant need, whether the offering merits further discussion, and whether a next step was agreed. Keep an accepted connection and a sales opportunity as separate entries.
Record the role social contact played in an opportunity. Distinguish relationships that began on social media from existing relationships supported by a later interaction. Compare results over a consistent review period, using the same definitions and including the time spent.