Knowledge

There’s no way around it: Social media has drastically changed the way modern companies do business. As a society, our constant need to be connected has expanded our pool of potential customers and made them infinitely more reachable.

But, what do you really know about social selling? The truth is, most sales reps haven’t received any formal training in this area. This means reps at your company could be missing out on interested leads, important sales conversations, and ultimately, revenue.

Today, we provide you with a little more insight into the world of social selling. We put together the following list of social selling statistics in hopes that sales reps everywhere would take this information and apply it to their current social selling practices.  Let’s get started.

48 Social Selling Statistics to Help You Close More Deals

The State of Social Selling

93% of sales executives have not received any formal training on social selling (source)

80% believe their salesforce would be more productive with greater social media presence but, 2/3 of companies have no social media strategy for their sales organisation (source)

50.1% of social salespeople spend 5-10% of their time on social media (source)

53% of salespeople want help in understanding social selling better (source)

Marketers spend an average of 4-6 hours a week on social media (source)

61% of US marketers use social media for lead generation (source)

B2B Social Selling with Twitter

92% of employees’ Twitter followers are new to the brand (source)

74% of B2B marketing companies use Twitter to distribute content (source)

B2B Social Selling with LinkedIn

98% of sales reps with more than 5,000 LinkedIn connections meet or surpass their quota (source)

On LinkedIn, 65% of people wouldn’t find it creepy if a salesperson sent them a message and they had common connections (source)

There are 128 million LinkedIn users in the U.S. alone (source)

B2B Social Selling with Facebook

81% of people find unsolicited Facebook messages from salespeople creepy, and 78% are turned off by friend requests from sales reps (source)

The reach of 135 employees engaged in employer advocacy is larger than that of a company page with one million Facebook followers, likes or fans (source)

How Effective is Social Selling?

78% of salespeople using social media perform better than their peers (source)

IBM increased their sales by 400% thanks to their inbound social selling program (source)

Sales reps who viewed the profiles of at least 10 people at each of their accounts were 69% more likely to exceed quota than those who viewed 4 or fewer (source)

Social sellers generate 38% more new opportunities than traditional sellers (source)

90% of top salespeople use social selling tools, compared with 71% of overall sales professionals (source)

62% of employees at large companies agreed that social selling enables them to build stronger, more authentic relationships with customers and prospects (source)

Social media has a 100% higher lead-to-close rate than outbound marketing (source)

63.4% of Social sellers reported an increase in company sales revenue, compared to 41.2% of non-social sellers (source)

Sales teams who embrace social experience report 18% more pipeline (volume) and 28% velocity increase (source)

The majority of social sellers with long-term training in place (78%) hit their revenue goals in the past 12 months versus those with without formalised training (38%) (source)

Salespeople leveraging social selling experience 31% higher ROI than those who stick to traditional tactics (source)

Content shared by employees receive 8x more engagement than the same content shared by company/brand channels (source)

Brand messages are re-shared 24x more when shared by employees vs. brand/corporate accounts (source)

90% of an employee’s social audience is new to the brand (source)

Messages reach 561% further when shared by employees vs. same messages shared via official corporate social channels (source)

Employees have on average 10 times more social connections than a brand does (source)

54% of salespeople who use social media can track their social media usage back to at least one closed deal (source)

Sales reps who leverage social selling in their sales process are 79% more likely to attain their quota than those who don’t use it (source)

Sales teams that use social selling techniques exceed their quota 31% more than non-users (source)

Social Selling and The Buyer’s Journey

77% of B2B purchasers said that they would not even speak to a salesperson until they had done their own research (source)

55% of all buyers do their research by using social networks (source)

Over 70% of B2B purchase decision makers use social media to help them decide (source)

81% of buyers are more likely to engage with a strong, professional brand (source)

90% of decision makers never answer a cold call, but 75% of B2B buyers use social media to make purchasing decisions (source)

84% of C-level and VP-level buyers use social media for purchasing (source)

75% of B2B buyers consult social media when making purchasing decisions (source)

Over 45% of those who use social media for purchasing either influence or make the final decisions on a companywide level (source)

Nearly 82% of buyers viewed between five to eight pieces of content from a winning vendor (source)

82 percent of B2B prospects are active on social media (source)

65% of buyers agree that vendor’s content has a significant impact on their buying decision (source)

89% of customers begin their buying process with a search engine (source)

90% of C-suite executives say they never respond to cold calls or email blasts (source)

B2B buyers complete 57% of the buying decision before they are willing to talk to a sales rep (source)

82% of B2B decision makers think sales reps are unprepared (source)

50% of identified sales leads are not ready to buy (source)

And there you have it! The latest social selling statistics. We hope you take these statistics and apply them to your daily selling activities. Let us know which social selling statistics surprised you most!