How to nurture prospects and close more deals with social selling

Social selling lets you build relationships, trust and familiarity with prospects before they’re ready to buy.

When you do it well, it shortens sales cycles, fills your pipeline with warmer leads and turns cold outreach into welcome introductions.

In this article, you’ll learn how social selling works, why it deserves your time and where to find your target audience. We’ll also explore social selling best practices and show you which social selling tools to add to your tech stack.

What is social selling?

Social selling is a sales tactic that uses social media channels to find, engage and nurture relationships with potential buyers.

By sharing valuable content, starting conversations and offering advice on sites like LinkedIn, you can forge relationships and build trust with global buyers at little to no cost. Done well, it’s a highly effective sales strategy that will help you close more deals.

Use social media selling at every stage of the sales cycle to help you:

• Understand audiences and competitors. Gather insights on target audiences’ preferences, behaviors and pain points. Learn where other businesses excel and fall short.

• Discover and nurture new leads. Initiate meaningful interactions with potential clients and help them along the sales funnel toward conversion.

• Build relationships. Foster trust, rapport and brand loyalty through personalized interactions with new prospects and existing customers.

Rather than replace other sales tactics, social selling complements them to create smoother buying journeys for your customers.

For example, a social seller may use LinkedIn content to solve common buyer problems and encourage potential customers to contact them. The seller can then deliver their sales pitch to anyone who calls via the content’s call to action (CTA).

Social selling vs. social media marketing

Social selling isn’t the same as social media marketing, but both can help you achieve your sales goals.

Social media marketing promotes specific products or services, builds brand awareness and reaches broad audiences through targeted advertising and content strategies. It’s wide-reaching, product-led and brand-focused.

Social selling is more personal and targeted. Social sellers connect with audiences on their preferred platform and nurture them with thoughtful comments and posts. It humanizes your brand, builds authority and earns trust.

The benefits of social selling

Social selling offers several benefits when used alongside traditional selling strategies. Here are the top reasons to make it part of your B2B sales process.

Meet audiences on their level

Social selling lets you connect with potential customers where they already spend time: social media.

As per DataReportal, there are more than 5.6 billion social media user identities worldwide (one person may have multiple identities). That’s equivalent to 68.7% of the global population.

The average social media user spends two hours and 21 minutes on social networks daily, giving social sellers a significant opportunity to attract and influence them.

Engaging with prospects in familiar environments, such as in posts on X, LinkedIn and Facebook groups, helps sales professionals start meaningful conversations about needs, preferences and pain points.

Social engagement leads to more personalized interactions and higher conversion rates because people purchase from other people – even in the B2B buying process.

Spend enough time socializing with the right crowd, and prospects will think of you when they need your product or service.

Humanize your brand to grow trust

Social selling humanizes your corporate brand by putting a face at the center of the conversation – not a faceless logo.

Using your personal brand builds credibility and authenticity with audiences wary of more overt selling tactics like cold calling.

In a Forrester study, 70% of US consumers said authentic brands gave them a “stronger feeling of confidence” (i.e., made them more likely to buy).

Meanwhile, only 8% of respondents to an Edelman survey said they automatically trust advertising messages.

If you spend time building relationships with people online before you mention your product, they’ll see you’re there to help rather than just sell to them. It’s a type of authenticity you don’t get from cold calling someone out of the blue.

Build authority and strengthen your reputation

A successful social selling strategy can help you build a reputation as a go-to resource for industry insights and advice.

Here are some ways to boost your reputation and follower count:

• Share useful pieces of content (not just from your brand)

• Ask questions and engage your audience in meaningful discussion

• Offer genuine opinions on current trends

• Make product recommendations

• Help users overcome their problems

Building authority isn’t just good for lead generation. It also helps you retain existing customers and encourage sales referrals, strengthening your position as an industry thought leader.

Consider what your users value most when sharing content to drum up new business. It’ll help you choose relevant topics that address your ideal customers’ problems.

For example, you could check a website analytics tool to see which articles on your website generate the most traffic. Knowing what gets the most hits will give you a great indication of what people want to read more about.

Deepen your knowledge of your target audience with social listening

Social listening is the practice of monitoring conversations to understand what your audience, market and competitors are saying without actively engaging.

Monitoring social media conversations improves your decision-making and sales strategies by helping you better understand buyer sentiment and trends.

Here’s an example of the kind of insight sales reps can gain from social listening:

Say you spot a growing trend for one product type.

You could build this into your marketing strategy by posting about it on LinkedIn or writing topical blog posts, putting relevant content in front of your audience and getting more attention as a result.

Social listening tools make it easy to monitor multiple platforms simultaneously. Top providers include:

• Hootsuite

• Meltwater

• Sleek Flow

Sprout Social

Rather than repeatedly searching for your brand, product and other relevant terms, use these tools to get real-time alerts and analysis.

Selling social: Which channels are suitable?

The best channels to build into your social selling strategy depend on where your customers spend their time.

For example, B2B buyers and decision-makers use LinkedIn most, while TikTok and Instagram are better for engaging younger consumers.

Here are the top platforms to consider, with typical user summaries (age and gender data sourced from Pew Research Center; LinkedIn data sourced from a previous study).

(*Gender splits based only on data from users who identify as male or female.)

The table above offers a general idea of where user groups spend time online, but it’s not exhaustive. First-hand research via customer surveys and website analytics will create the clearest picture of your audience’s social preferences.

How to engage with buyers on social media

There are four main ways to interact with buyers on social media:

1. Sharing

2. Commenting

3. Reacting

4. Connecting

Use a mix of them to keep your social activity authentic (i.e., natural like a regular social media user) and engaging.

Sharing

Share content relevant to your ideal customers, such as market trends, company updates and how-to guides.

You’ll engage users and build authority if your content speaks to your target audience’s interests and challenges.

For example, Asana posted this update on X about its partnership with AI platform Anthropic:

The content is relevant to Asana’s audience because it improves the tool’s functionality and user-friendliness, providing more value.

As another example, Pipedrive’s Medium engineering blog shared a post on how improving your website performance lowers your carbon footprint.

The post taps into current environmental concerns, shows our company values and builds the personal brands of the post’s authors.

Share a mix of original and third-party content.

• Only sharing your own content will make it seem like you only care about your brand and aren’t aware of what’s happening in your industry. It will ultimately hinder your brand authority.

• Sharing only third-party content could make it seem as though you have nothing interesting to say. Followers may lose interest, and your personal brand might not grow.

When sharing other publishers’ content, don’t be afraid to add your thoughts to the post or comment. It’s a simple and efficient way to express your views and demonstrate thought leadership.

Commenting

Contributing to popular social media threads and conversations can drive traffic to your profile and attract new followers.

Avoid sales pitches and instead offer original, thought-provoking responses. Like business development representative (BDR) Arjun Singh did on this Pipedrive post:

If someone replies to your comment, even better. Be sure to respond promptly to keep the conversation going and maximize engagement on your posts.

LinkedIn (like other social platforms) loves posts with high engagement.

Comments on your post are shared on the commenter’s timeline too, expanding its reach.

Reacting or “liking”

Clicking “like” or “favorite” is the fastest way to put your name or brand on someone else’s radar.

It works well for acknowledging posts when you’re short on time or have nothing substantial to add in a comment.

While you can quickly react to posts on most platforms, Facebook and LinkedIn let you choose from various reactions when you hover over the “Like” button:

On LinkedIn, for example, the options are:

• Like

• Celebrate

• Support

• Love

• Insightful

• Funny

Choosing one of these reactions is perfect for showing some extra character when you’re short on time.

Connecting

Becoming someone’s friend, follower or connection on social media is an easy way to start a relationship.

Connecting shows you value their content and want to see more. It suggests you share interests and may benefit each other.

Here are some tips for connecting successfully with potential buyers:

• Target new connections carefully. Don’t spam everyone at once.

• Explain the reason for your requests on platforms that allow you to.

• Personalize direct messages by mentioning something about the buyer or their job history.

• Don’t sell on the first message.

Personalizing connection requests shows you’ve put some effort into it and haven’t just randomly hit the “Connect” button. It’ll help you start your relationships on the right foot, especially on LinkedIn, where the focus is on business and professional development.

11 social selling best practices to bolster your sales pipeline

Not sure where to start with social selling? Here are 11 best practices to help you hit the ground running and outperform your competitors.

1. Target relevant channels

Focus your social selling efforts on the platforms your target customers use most.

Targeting will help you reach the right people at the right time, rather than trying to engage people with little interest in your brand.

Refer to our earlier table for a broad idea, but you’ll be much more effective if you collect detailed information on preferences. Do that by:

• Interviewing or surveying customers

• Checking website analytics data

• Monitoring competitors’ social activity

Ask other salespeople in your company for their social selling success stories, too. If your sales team’s top performer is highly active on LinkedIn, it’s likely because they’re busy nurturing deals there.

2. Optimize your social profiles

An optimized social media profile builds instant credibility and gives prospects every reason to trust you before the first message.

Make a great first impression by including accurate and up-to-date information like:

• A professional profile picture

• Your job title

• A clear and compelling bio

• Relevant contact details (e.g., other social handles, email, phone)

Here’s how you can set up your LinkedIn profile to support your sales process:

Here’s what a fully finished profile should look like:

Use industry-relevant keywords and hashtags in your profile to improve visibility and attract your buyers.

For example, if you want to achieve social selling success for a tech firm, a hashtag relevant to software businesses (like “#SaaS”) will increase visibility among users with similar interests.

3. Personalize your outreach

Personalized messages get replies while generic mass-market tactics get ignored.

A personalized interaction shows you value the relationship and increases the chances of a positive response.

Reference details from users’ profiles, posts or previous interactions to prove you’ve done your homework and care about their interests.

For example, if you notice a prospect attended a recent industry event, ask them how it went. Simple ice-breakers like this can open the door to more valuable conversations.

4. Join relevant groups and communities

Join relevant social media communities to connect with prospects who share interests and challenges.

Look for active groups related to your industry, niche or target audience. Here’s one for small business IT professionals interested in cloud computing:

Beware of dormant groups, even if they have lots of members. An admin may accept your join request if they use the platform regularly, but you’ll struggle to participate in useful conversations.

When you click the profile of an active group, you should see an “Active Group” indicator that shows consistent monthly conversational activity.

Here’s what it looks like on LinkedIn:

Participate in social media groups by:

• Sharing experience-backed insights

• Answering questions

• Contributing to discussions

Establishing yourself as a helpful and knowledgeable community member builds trust, credibility and relationships that may eventually lead to sales opportunities.

5. Engage authentically and be patient

Engaging authentically over time turns casual followers into warm leads before serious sales conversations begin.

Take time to:

• Listen to your audience

• Understand their needs

• Help without expecting immediate returns

Building rapport compounds, so be patient and consistent in your efforts. Authentically engaging with your audience over time lays the foundation for long-term relationships and, hopefully, sustainable sales success.

6. Share relevant, helpful content

Sharing relevant, insightful content is a powerful way to position yourself as a thought leader in your industry.

It demonstrates that you know your subject area well, giving people confidence that their buying decisions are correct. After all, your buyers need to know they’re interacting with a legitimate seller who understands their problems and can solve them.

Here are some ways you can be genuinely helpful:

• Create and curate content that addresses common pain points

• Answer frequently asked questions

• Offer insights into industry trends and best practices

• Share customer stories in the form of case studies to reassure apprehensive buyers

• Use support tickets, sales conversations and online research to learn your audience’s interests.

You could start by typing your industry or product category into AlsoAsked, a free research tool that shows you what questions people are asking on relevant topics:

Our “book publishing” example shows that people interested in this topic want information on Amazon’s self-publishing costs. They also want to know about authors’ typical earnings and copyright procedures.

For a book publisher, creating and sharing content that addresses these topics is an easy way to deliver value to (and impress) prospects.

7. Split your time between customers and competitors

While potential customers are the focus of social selling, you can also optimize the sales process by monitoring your competitors’ activities.

Observing conversations and interactions in your competitors’ networks will give you insights into their strategies. It may even uncover potential leads or referral sources.

Here’s a step-by-step process you can follow:

• Start by following other companies in your industry

• Watch how their sales reps and marketers interact with your shared target audience

• See which products and features they cover most and how they address common challenges.

For example, you might see other reps successfully overcoming buyers’ objections by offering extended free trials. You could use the same tactic to increase trial sign-ups with a manager’s approval.

8. Set up social monitoring alerts

Social monitoring alerts inform you about relevant conversations or activities online, such as mentions of your brand or a specific product.

Real-time notifications for relevant keywords let you join conversations faster, so you can demonstrate your helpfulness and knowledge to people who need it.

Terms to consider adding to your social monitoring software include:

• Your company name

• A product type, name or model

• A competitor’s name

For example, you could set up alerts for a competitor’s name to identify users who are frustrated with their product. Stepping in to offer advice, even if it’s not immediately linked to your solution, could open up a sales conversation.

9. Check for referral opportunities

A good social selling program can leverage your network to generate referrals and introductions.

Look for mutual connections who can refer you to potential customers or partners. Customers who publicly praise your product have the best referral potential, so be sure to respond to their posts and comments.

Forge valuable relationships with industry peers and influencers who share your ideal customer profile, as their advocacy will help expand your reach.

Build rapport with these people by helping them overcome their own challenges, offering deals to get them to use your product or simply praising some of their work that you admire.

10. Measure and refine your social selling strategy

Track and analyze key sales metrics in your customer relationship management (CRM) system to measure the effectiveness of your social selling strategy.

If it’s bolstering your pipeline, increasing sign-ups or helping you achieve other goals, do more of the same while still looking for improvement opportunities.

If you’re not getting the desired results, refine your tactics and go again.

Here’s what a sales dashboard looks like in Pipedrive:

There are lots of metrics to use as social selling key performance indicators (KPIs).

Your strategy and priorities should inform the ones you measure, but three of the most telling are:

• Engagement rates. Likes, comments, shares and clicks indicate that your content encourages meaningful interactions. These lead to more awareness, trust and sales opportunities.

• Lead velocity. The rate at which new leads enter your sales pipeline as a result of your social selling activities is a strong indicator of your future revenue from social sales.

• Conversion rate. The percentage of social interactions that result in a desired action, like a webinar registration, lead magnet download or purchase.

Knowing your KPIs from the start will help keep your social selling plan on track.

11. Embrace social selling technology

Use technology to streamline your processes, increase efficiency and boost your effectiveness. It’ll help you get more done in less time while making better-informed decisions.

There are various types of social selling platforms, as we’ll discuss shortly. The best ones can:

• Automate routine tasks, freeing time to spend with customers

• Organize your lead and performance data

• Provide templates for more effective customer interactions

A tool with reports and dashboard features will also help you measure your social selling efforts. Look out for intuitive data visualizations and customizable fields.

5 social selling tools you need right now

Whether you’re starting from scratch or filling gaps in an existing sales tech stack, ensure you have the following tools supporting your social selling efforts.

1. A customer relationship management (CRM) system

A CRM system centralizes customer data and interactions, allowing you to track and manage relationships with prospects and customers across various touch points, including social media.
For example, Pipedrive can help you convert social engagement into leads by populating customer profiles through integrations (LinkedIn, X, YouTube), web forms and chatbots.

It allows you to capture data on social touchpoints throughout the customer journey.

Keeping social media data in your CRM means you and your sales force can gain valuable insights into prospect engagement, preferences and behaviors on social platforms.

The results are more personalized and targeted interactions, improved customer experiences and ultimately more sales.

For example, Pipedrive’s AI Email Writer can reference your recent LinkedIn activity with prospects when drafting emails.

The result is personalized outreach at scale, without the time cost of writing every message from scratch.

2. An employee advocacy tool

An employee advocacy solution organizes and centralizes your team’s social selling efforts.

When employees share high-quality brand-related content with their social networks, it can boost your company’s profile, attract leads and foster trust from prospects.

You’ll keep messaging consistent and find more opportunities for staff to promote products naturally to their peers.

For example, Haiilo’s employee advocacy platform allows employees to track communications across channels as well as internal messages and insights in one location.

Tools like Sociabble, Haiilo and EveryoneSocial allow you to:

• Publish company updates for promotion on social channels

• Craft and distribute expert content for employees to share

• Gamify online advocacy by assigning reward points to various types of social activity

• Build a library of existing sales enablement content, competitor posts and social proof

• Track the impact of your employees’ social activity

These tools can also benefit collaboration as team members can discuss social selling ideas, wins and opportunities within the employee advocacy tool rather than in siloed communication channels.

3. Third-party social media integrations

Not all sales and marketing software is social selling-ready. The best tools let you connect your favorite social networking and analytics apps so social data flows seamlessly across your business.

The Pipedrive Marketplace houses hundreds of third-party apps and integrations, allowing you to connect and share data with social platforms like:

• Facebook Messenger

• LinkedIn

• WhatsApp

• Instagram and Telegram

For example, the Surfe integration with Pipedrive bridges the gap between Pipedrive and LinkedIn.

It enables you to quickly add and validate a prospect’s LinkedIn profile to their contact details in Pipedrive. Surfe scans Pipedrive every day to keep this data fresh.

When researching social selling platforms, check what integrations are available to ensure you can continue using your favorite software without any disruption.

4. Zapier

Zapier is an automation app that connects different tools and automates workflows between them without coding.

You can use Zapier to create automated social selling workflows (called “Zaps”) that trigger actions based on social media activities or CRM events.

For example, you could set one up to automatically create new leads in your CRM when someone engages with specific social posts, or to send personalized follow-up emails to prospects who interact with your content.

By integrating data between your CRM (or other software) and social media platforms, Zapier helps streamline your social selling process and increase productivity.

If you want to share information between Pipedrive and other apps you use, you can use our Zapier App integration to connect Zapier to Pipedrive.

5. LinkedIn Sales Navigator

LinkedIn Sales Navigator is an AI-powered sales tool that helps sales professionals identify and engage with leads on LinkedIn.

It can help you find the right decision-makers and shorten your sales cycle with:

• Advanced search filters that let you sift through LinkedIn’s member base using 50+ filters

• Real-time alerts that notify you when saved leads change roles, accounts post relevant updates or decision-makers engage with your content

• AI-driven insights with Account IQ and Lead IQ that generate instant summaries of target accounts

• Generative AI that can draft personalized outreach messages informed by a prospect’s LinkedIn activity

• CRM integrations that connect Sales Navigator with popular CRMs like Pipedrive

Is social selling worth your effort?

Absolutely. Social selling leverages social media platforms to build meaningful relationships with potential customers.

Unlike traditional sales tactics, social selling lets you engage with prospects where they spend significant time, making your outreach more effective and less intrusive.

While social selling offers immense potential, it’s not without its pitfalls. With the rise of social media, it’s become easier to connect with and convert your target audience.

Final thoughts

Social selling is a laser-targeted way to build profitable relationships and grow your customer base. Use the tips and tools in this guide to stand out from other reps and excel in social sales.

If you apply the basics and keep tweaking your approach, you’ll soon understand your market in more detail, shorten your sales cycle and see revenue rise.

The right CRM makes all of this easier. Pipedrive helps you capture every social interaction, turn signals into personalized outreach and spot the patterns that close deals. Try Pipedrive free for 14 days to start turning your social activity into a pipeline.

Social selling FAQs