Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, LinkedIn… Chances are, your employees use these social networks every day.

You may think that employees using social media on your time would make them unproductive or worse, they could defame your business’s reputation with what and how they post. We completely understand. However, instead of resisting the now regular media channel you should harness the power of social media that your employees possess.

With some quick processes, rules, and regulations created, you will have a sales force with the ability to reach more people that are in your CRM. What is even more important, is that you didn’t have to pay a cent for each of those contacts. Sure, you may have duplicates of customers that are in your CRM with customers in your employee’s networks but what you don’t have in your CRM is the “Degrees of Separation” factor.

Six Degrees of Separation (some may be familiar with the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game) is the concept that all people are six or fewer steps away from each other. This idea was initially set out in 1929. Fast forward to today and think about how this can be applied to social media. Facebook announced that using this concept people are now on average, 3.5 steps away from each other. This becomes a tremendous opportunity for you to be able to reach numerous people in your local area.

So how does one harness the power of social media the correct way with social selling? Remember that social selling is the process of developing relationships as a part of the sales process. Since your employees already have personal relationships with their social networks, this becomes easy, just include and share posts of your work life with your personal life.

The key is not to alienate or to have your employee’s network disconnect their social network relationship. Here are some tips and tricks to help your employees out:

• Always be yourself. Never post sell, sell, sell content or try to jam every single incentive, rebate or low payment down your newsfeeds throat.
• Post images of your employees having fun at work (their co-workers too), happy customer’s photos with your employee included, or even new models that come into your dealership
• Video and Live video are great tools to share your work life as well. Video walkarounds on new models or even unique trades/pre-owned vehicles that just got traded in.
• Sometimes ask prospecting questions. Example: “Who would love a $300 car payment?” Just remember to not continually post these types of open-ended questions but occasionally is alright. Always include an image as well.
• Use tools such as Canva, Instagram apps, etc. to help you create professional and engaging content.

We actively encourage our employees at the Preston Automotive Group to use social media and these are some of the best tips that we have seen work the best. Currently, 4 out of 5 top sellers within the group embrace social media and social selling. To date, we have experienced increased sales growth coming from our employee’s social networks.

For more information on Social Selling or tips and tricks, contact iFrog Digital Marketing at LetsChat@iFrog.com or give us a call at 410-673-8278