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What are your social goals this year?

No, not who are you taking to the dance on Saturday night. What are your intentions to create more online social involvement that leads to attraction, engagement and sales. Social sales. Oh, that.

UPDATE: Social sales and social selling is the new black.

SET YOUR SALES COMPASS ON ‘SOCIAL’ AND THINK ABOUT THIS:

What are your social value offerings?
What are your social product offerings?
What is attractive about your social offerings?
Where is the perceived value in your social outreach?
Where is the perceived value in your social offerings?

These are painful questions – but I’m just getting started.

My good friend, and IBM’s social evangelist, Sandy Carter, asked me to comment on what’s next in the world of social selling for 2015.

Here are the Social Media and Social Selling Trends for 2015:

Social media and social selling are entering the next phase. It’s the “comfortable with” phase – big companies and previous naysayers in general are branching out and digging in. Everyone is realizing the unlimited power, and has some experience with the process and applications. Comfortable enough to BUY. Social Selling Challenge: Are your customers and prospects buying from your online offerings?
Will your social selling offers only bring sales? The discount offerings bring customers. The value offerings bring customers and PROFIT! Social Selling Challenge: How much profit are your online sales bringing in?
Every social media site is trying to do and be everything to everyone. Photos are now everywhere. Videos are now everywhere. The ‘likers’ are now everywhere.
Social Selling Challenge: How current is your social presence? Are you gaining a following?
Kids will continue to abandon Facebook for Instagram – 300,000 million Instagram users – and don’t be misled by the word ‘kid’ – in 5 years they’re your new customer – and will probably be more social savvy than you are. Social Selling Challenge: What are your kids doing? What are they buying?
Smartphones will continue to be the social involvement device of choice. And the app will continue to dominate Internet use. Social Selling Challenge: Do you have a social selling app? What’s your plan to get one or improve the one you have?
‘Social’ involvement is no longer an option – it’s an imperative. You no longer have a choice – it’s all in or be left out. Social Selling Challenge: Who is in charge of social sales and social selling in your company?
Social selling is becoming more prevalent and more sophisticated. Analytics is the new black. Data-driven selling is the new norm. Social Selling Challenge: do you know who your online customers are?
App developers are thriving to capacity. That should tell you the story all by itself. Social Selling Challenge: Partner with an app developer and make something happen.
Purchases are the final frontier. The more people buy online, the more social interaction becomes and stays relevant. Ratings by customers will outweigh all other forms of advertisements. Social Selling Challenge: What is your social selling volume? And what’s your plan to double it?

My business plan for 2015 has a heavy concentration on social selling. So much so that I am writing (like this), investing in infrastructure (website and apps), and intensifying my social presence with more value messages.

Oh, I am also learning. Social selling is more fluid than mercury. Changes occur by the hour. And game-changers appear daily. I study the marketplace and especially MY marketplace, daily.

Where is the attraction coming from and what’s happening once the attracted actually land someplace? Are they buying or are they flying (okay, clicking) away?

Social selling is on the rapid rise. And unless you’re Amazon or Apple, you’re way behind the eight ball in development and execution.

Hopefully your competition sucks worse than you do. And hopefully you’re doing something about it sooner than they do.

Reprinted with permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer.

About the Author

Jeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more information about training and seminars, or email him personally at [email protected].