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Alright, so Miss. Eloqueen may be a firm supporter of so-called social selling, but let me tell you, not everyone gets warm fuzzy feelings when thinking of it.
Enter Eric Savitz, former blogger for Barron’s Financial Magazine and currently blogging for Forbes. This dude has nothing good to say about SS.
The title of his article reads, “Social Selling Is Neither; Try Having Actual Conversations”. Ouch. He sees two problems with SS.
1. Social selling doesn’t reliably inform the buyer or build trust. Only 16% of people trust corporate blogs according to a Forrester Research survey. And supposedly on 12% trust tweets from their friends according to an eMarketer survey and that number drops lower for tweets from strangers. And after that there’s email which is riddled with spam and scams.
2. It’s also delay ridden. The second problem that Savitz identifies with SS is that it just doesn’t get you into direct contact with the client as quickly as a phone call. His view is that “in a competitive world, he who moves second finishes last.” If your competitor just makes one call, while your marketing expert is sitting around spitting out hundreds of posts, blog entries, and tweets, the likelihood is that the competitor is going to seal that deal years before you ever do.
I’m honestly on the fence here. When it comes to researching who I buy from, it’s all about Yelp, Google Reviews and any internet info I can get my hands on. But, a tweet or Facebook post from the company itself has never once made an impact on my purchases. So, I see what Mr. Savitz is saying about this social selling business.
Then again I trust a phone call from someone trying to sell me something just as much as I trust their tweets. Maybe I have trust issues.
No final word here from me. I’ll let you guys draw your own conclusions this week.
Source: Social Selling is Neither; Try Having a Real Conversation
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