The Art of Social Selling by Shannon Belew, O’Reilly Media

Shannon Belew, a professional in her industry, has well written a book with resourceful information. She explains the importance to incorporate and use social media in your sales field to attract potential customers. “Somewhere along the way, people transitioned from using social media merely as a way to commemorate small milestones….to a medium…building business relationships.” Ms. Belew relays this information straight, no chaser. She immediately offers you to engage with her social media networks on Twitter, Facebook, Linked In and Google+.

She further shares that there are two tiers of social networks. Tier 1: Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Linked In. Tier 2: YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram, Slide Share. She informs that blogs have a narrow focus with an easy identifying target. As you read further, you learn that customer care is still a key process, “everyone in the company must care, every time.” Also, there must be an immediate response to a customer’s inquiry (1-3 days).

You will learn that there are ten rules to online social interaction, a few being Listen, Listen, Listen and maintaining separation of professional and personal. In Chapter 5: Tweets, Like, Comments, and Recommendations, you learn online reviews is Word-of-Mouth Marketing on Steriods. I can relate to this with my experience using Twitter and Facebook. Ms. Belew shares that you must create good visual and text content when engaging on social networks to attract potential clients: Text Content: Linked In – connections to sales, Twitter – 140 characters or less (microblogging site), Facebook – fans to customers, Google+ - circles to opportunites, and for Visual Content: Pinterest – pins to customers, Slide Share – presentations.

She uses case studies and has related notes for every chapter. Included is a free sample chapter from ‘New Sales, Simplified’ by Mike Weinberg. I recommend Ms. Belew’s book to all sales professionals needing a no-nonsense approach using social media to enhance building business relationships.

 (I received this book for free from O’Reilly Media for this review)

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