How to Incorporate Social Psychology Into Social Selling?

By thought-horizon | Jun 12, 2019

Incorporating a dose of social psychology can help your content reach new heights, and can be a “conversation starter.” Let’s face it – no one wants to be sold to. Clients and prospects know how to avoid sales pitches. In this era of artificial intelligence and sophisticated social media, targeted prospects are also figuring out how to avoid being Marketed to! Marketers need to change the way they think or risk becoming outdated and outmoded by the very people they wish to reach. How can they do this? Psychology! Sales and marketing services have been using a simple set of psychological tactics for a very long time to convince buyers. The trick to getting through to clients is to avoid these tired ways of selling. These are some rules that will ensure you don’t get pulled into that.

1. Be Authentic

As the internet gets overcrowded with content, brands need to work harder than ever to break through the clutter and connect with people online. You may have great resources to appear in the newsfeed of potential buyers through targeting, paid campaigns, boosted posts, and working with influencers, but influencers and brands are often caught trying too hard online. Followers can smell insincerity from a mile away. Don’t fall prey to it. Give your audience the real you, not the over-inflated version of your brand. People want to hear from real people who know they are not really superhuman – just human.

2. Be Honest

This may sound obvious, but honesty has many shades to it. False comparisons or forward-looking statements on the state of your products are two examples of this.  While loading up your content, people have already made their way through a lot of pretty phony stuff: fake news, photoshopped images, stories that just seem too good to be true. That might fill up your content funnel, but if you think it’ll help reach your audience, think again.

3. Get Closer to the Potential Clients

Why do you do what you do? Well, simply because you’ve found that solution to a buyer’s problem that he or she always has been unable to find. Isn’t that correct?

But do you know the art of conveying this very fact to the buyers? If not, you really need to gear up on that knowledge. Once you are able to convey the inspiration behind your products and services, buyers are able to connect with your brand better.

4. Establish Similarities

What’s that thing that connects your buyers to you? Your products, right?

Well, not exactly. It’s that common element between your product and the buyer. For instance, if you offer authentic athleisure, you might want to connect with millennials who want to showcase themselves as fashionistas 24/7. And so, you would want to get your ads centered around this very fact.

Establishing similarities like this enable people to get the impression that brands are similar to them in other aspects as well.

5. Get Emotional

Two decades back, there was competition between the marketers who strongly supported rational appeals and the marketers who favored emotional appeals. That said, the winner is pretty clear today: the emotional appeals.

Everyone, from big industries to mid-sized and small companies, popularly apply emotional storytelling appeals to convince their buyers to opt for their products and services. Science suggests that buyers make decisions based on the emotions that drive them, followed by using logic to justify those emotions.

6. Build a Perception of Authority

Buyers arguably prefer collaborating and buying from the ones who are masters of their own oceans. And the easiest way to do the same is to get your intellect to be demonstrated by the words of existing buyers. Get your creative side on, and find out ways to illustrate your expertise in the form of certifications, years of experience, client features, and testimonials. Keep your social profiles geared up with the most amazing social proof of your grip, and buyers will be attracted to your product or services.

7. The “They Did It, Too!” Approach

“One of the colleges won the soccer match because they used your products.”

That’s great. Make it your greatest achievement by using it to reach out to more colleges.

The world has gotten so competitive that we justify our actions based on the fact that others have been doing it, too.

“I bought handbags of a particular brand because one of my friends has confirmed its durability and strength.” Sound familiar? It probably does, especially if your bank account has been lower than normal! Buying things just because others do is not an effective strategy, just like being competitive is not always a great social selling strategy.

8. Social Proofing

“Share your picture at our restaurant, and you can eat for free!”

If you feel this is just another way to market your brand, there’s more to it.

Social proof is a superb extension to the above-mentioned point. It posits that in the instances of unclear information, people are going to follow the actions of others to gauge the appropriate response. Find out the specific group of people you can tag on social, and let them share their opinions about the post. Reach out to the people who can refer you to other customers in a similar niche. Encourage your team to like/comment on/share your social content. In addition to distributing your content to a wider audience, it will establish you as an influencer in the market. Prospects rely on heuristics, so they don’t necessarily dig through the likes to check specifically who is engaging with your posts. And that’s why someone whose post has more than 50 likes might rightfully or mistakenly be thought of as more influential than someone with over 2-3 likes.

Happy Social Selling

Practice these psychological moves and be the “breath of fresh air” your prospects are waiting for. Taking care of your buyers this way is not just going to establish you a great brand, but also ensure that you don’t get carried away with the dazzles of the fake world. For everything, reach out to social selling experts at Thought Horizon, and leverage our years of experience to fill your sales funnel.