Episode 265: Unlocking the Power of the Silent Majority in Social Selling

Bob Woods  00:31

Welcome sales and marketing pros and you know if you’re just stopping by to kick the tires and see what’s up to making sales social live coming to you from the social sales link virtual studios. I’m Bob Woods and joining me is the co host of making sales social live. She’s a fellow LinkedIn and social selling strategist, consultant trainer and coach who also knows a thing or two about AI just as we all do here at social sales link, Brynne Tillman. Sup, Brynne?

Brynne Tillman  01:00

What’s up? Bob? Yeah, a thing or two, you know, like seven or eight things about AI, I know a thing or two. So I’m catching up, though.

Bob Woods  01:10

Ya know, we as and we have talked about that plenty of times, we will talk about that more as well. But we’re going to talk about something a little bit different today. So, we’ve all probably been a lurker online at some point in time. And you know, that’s okay, especially when we’re on as general social media users. And we’re, you know, burning screen time and things like that, you know, doesn’t matter. 

But as salespeople and social sellers, we ideally want to engage with the people who consume our content because we’d like to start those all-important sales conversations with the people who can benefit from our products and services. So, let’s talk about converting those lurkers into engagers. So, I think it’s safe to say that you’d want to engage with people online, especially on Linked In brands. So, let’s talk a little bit about the importance of engagement, Overall.

Brynne Tillman  02:10

Well, yeah, so social media, generally, it’s a content game, right? But making sure that we are sharing content number one that our targeted audience wants to engage with, is really important. His content is what you had mentioned, from Lurker to Engager. The right content in the right place will bring out the engagement in someone now.

We can’t start sales conversations with a lurker – we don’t know who they are – once they like, comment, share, ask us to connect, and they’re coming out of the woodwork. And we can see that they’ve been lurking, but now they’re engaging makes all the difference in the world. So I’m gonna say it starts by creating relatable and engaging content is the first thing we need to do.

Bob Woods  03:09

Absolutely. And that’s the very next thing on our agenda. So that’s absolutely perfect. Yeah, I know. So, just like Brynne said, “Tailor content to the interests and needs of your target audience.” So your audience is your prospects, obviously. And definitely, and definitely do not share the stuff that you want to share. Because you may want to share something, but your audience may not be interested in it. 

And interestingly enough, when you do share content that you want to share, the only people who that content is likely going to appeal to our people who are in the same business as you and you know, while talking to them is nice and everything else, don’t get me wrong, you ideally want to engage with the people who you want to sell your products and our services to. So that’s why it’s really important that your content strategy, target your audience, and what they want, and not what you want to say.

Brynne Tillman  04:14

Absolutely. I think that’s huge. perspective, right. Often as salespeople we have so many things we want to tell them, but that doesn’t mean that they’re going to care. So by finding that content, or finding out what those topics are, that essentially leads to your solution, not with your solution will make all the difference in the world.

Bob Woods  04:41

100%. So it’s like it’s and and I bring up my old broadcast television experiences all the time, but as I was telling someone over the weekend, it’s amazing how much of that stuff that I’m using all the time nowadays, because so much of it relates back to what I was and broadcast TV news, but an old producer at my old station always told me it’s not about why should they care, it’s more about make them care. 

Now in our situation, make them care or how you do that is exactly by sharing the content that they want to consume. So you’re not making them care. So you’re forcing them and you know, buying something or whatever. But you do want to hang those nuggets out that they want to have, or want to read so that they can discover more about their situation. 

And you know, depending on the content of potential ways to help them or whatever that is, but through your content that is targeted to them. And again, not what you want to talk about, but what they want to hear and read. And you know, if it’s a video CD or whatever. So the next thing Oh, Brynne we lost your audio. 

Brynne Tillman  06:03

Oh, we’re back. Yeah, we’re back. Sorry. Alright, what’s next? 

Bob Woods  06:12

Next is you have to understand your lurkers. So, you know, why aren’t they engaging? So again, a lot of that I think just goes back to the fact that if they’re not engaging, it’s likely because you are not sharing the type of content that they want to read. I do think that there are probably two other things that are potentially involved here. 

Number one, you’re simply not asking them to engage. So within any post or anything like that, always encourage comments, or, you know, what do you think about this point, share in comments, or, you know, things along those lines. So I do think that that’s important. And then the other thing about lurkers is people who engage and don’t hear back from the original person who posted the OP.

As the kids say, nowadays, that just shows anyone else who is reading the content that you’re just out there spraying and praying basically, when it when it comes to content, and you really don’t care about what people say, that’s why it’s important for you to really engage with the people who are already engaging with you. So that these lurkers can look at this and go and go, “Oh, I want to say this point.” But now that this person is actually engaging with these other people, the chances are pretty high that the OP is going to engage with me as well.

Brynne Tillman  07:40

Yeah, I love that. And I’m going to break that out kind of into two categories, I think, the first one that encourages interaction, I’m just going to kind of bring it in. So I’m repeating and adding a little bit right. So we want to ask direct questions we want to add, let me see you started to say that, but I just want to like define that. Ask, you know, what is your share in comments, your thoughts around X, Y, and Z? Or what is sharing common , the number one challenge you have experienced regarding this? 

The other thing that I’ve seen in this is this is still moving them from Lurker to engager is I have seen the manual poll, where they take all of the reactions, the thumbs up the curious thing, the caring, right, and they they create an image versus a poll that has, if you think this, put a heart, put the heart in comments, if you think this, put a thumbs up in comments, and I have seen some really good engagement, and you’re not getting the deep comments that you’d want necessarily, but in this case, what we’re talking about is just simply moving them from work or to engage her. 

So you can encourage more, like, you can say, in a vote by putting the appropriate reaction on this and feel free to share your thoughts and comments. So I think that’s really important. The other things by the way, on LinkedIn, that are innately gathering insights are polls. So polls are a fabulous way to get people to engage. It’s a one click poll, and LinkedIn does a very good job of they don’t show anyone what the results are until you vote. So it really encourages that. I’m going to back that up with kind of a point to be with if you really want to foster a welcoming community. 

One of the things you said Bob is, you know, when someone engages, engage back, if you have 10 comments, there should be at least 20 comments because you’ve gone and engaged back with each of those comments. And what I think that does is it shows this welcoming community, where we are embracing so I, you know, I’m layering on top of, we’re defining even kind of your thoughts into like these two places, which is you’re encouraging interaction. And you’re fostering this welcoming community. So I kind of wanted to wrap that in a bow. 

Bob Woods  10:22

Yeah, yeah. And then now it’s no, I’m gonna say, so to mix my metaphors, I’m going to put a cherry on top of that bow. Um, the thing is, yeah, that was, I don’t know, anyhow.

Brynne Tillman  10:38

I’ll put a cherry on pretty much anything. 

Bob Woods  10:41

This is very true. I do agree with that. So the other thing and, and this gets away a little bit from lurkers. But to really change that into someone who is who is engaging directly with you, you can take those comments in. And once once you comment back, they will get a ping through their, through their notifications, notifications, thank you notifications, that, that that the that the OP has replied and everything else and you know, maybe you get a conversation going maybe you don’t doesn’t matter, because at that point, you’re going to be much higher in their mind. 

If there is somebody who you want to connect with, whether they’re a potential networking partner, they’re just a good person or a potential prospect, you are going to be much higher in in their minds, because the old reticular activator, if you’ve heard of that, it means it it means that you know, when you see something, you will then kind of lock into it a little bit more. And that’s like a way of overgeneralization. But that’s good enough for purposes right now, you are more likely to be accepted because that person already kind of knows you rather than rather than a over the transom kind of you because you weren’t

Brynne Tillman  12:08

Exactly warmed it up. And I hadn’t. And you know, to add into that a little bit more. That engagement will actually also trigger LinkedIn, the algorithm. So with that back and forth engagement, both on the post, and then even if you get into their inbox, right, so you have these conversations, they’re more likely to see your next content. And I think up to two weeks, although Gunner Hood said three weeks, so maybe it’s up to three weeks. We’re not 100% Sure, but it’s at least two, maybe three.

Bob Woods  12:42

Yeah. So there is a bit of a long tail effect. If you’re, if you are an OG SEO person, you know what that is, you know, basically, a post can live on for longer than that initial day, if you keep getting comments and then and the algorithm I believe likes that kind of thing. So it’s, so it’s more likely to show up. So you know, when you have people engaging, not only is all this stuff good just from an engagement and turning lurkers to engagers. It also helps you get discovered by other people, because the algorithm likes that type of cotton or likes that type of activity.

Brynne Tillman  13:24

So I just want to say we’re saying the OP original poster, but you will see they’re tagged as authors on LinkedIn. 

Bob Woods  13:33

Yeah, they’re tagged as authors, right. Yeah. So yeah, remember Cosmo to you? But yeah, specifically Volpe. Specifically with LinkedIn, it is author, and you’ll have that badge there. And it looks cool. I just quite frankly, I think it looks cool. When people and when the authors engage with other people, because again, it does show that they’re involved. I, there have been times when I’ve engaged in content. 

And this is like all over not just LinkedIn, like other places, and, and when and when the author slash original poster doesn’t comment back, it’s like it. It doesn’t give me personally a good feeling. And they don’t have to, you know, because I’m in this business. I don’t necessarily need my ego fed by the author replying back directly, but when you don’t see the author of replying back to anyone, I do think that that’s a red flag.

Brynne Tillman  14:26

So Sarah actually said she didn’t understand where the author came from. So that was good.

Bob Woods  14:32

Good, good. Yeah. Good. I’m right. The person who started the whole thing out basically is good way to look at it. So yeah, absolutely. So I’m looking through the rest of.

Brynne Tillman  14:51

I have a couple more.

Bob Woods  14:51

You have a couple more. Yes, please, because we actually, just we covered them. I know we covered everything. But keep going, let’s keep this. Let’s keep this party going.

Brynne Tillman  15:03

Awesome. So I think one of them is used visual and I like really good graphics to bring them in. Now will that convert them to lurker? I mean, from Lurker to engager? I don’t know. But I think having a good graphic will actually get people more excited about the content. And when you have those videos, I think videos, videos are another one. We’ll get to that afterwards, when you have that graphic. Yeah, that’s my next one. But when you have that graphic, I think it will pull people in and they’re more interested in engaging. The next one is a video. 

So yep. And video creates an enormous amount of engagement. But one thing you’ll find with video is and we’re working on this internally, but one thing you’ll find with video is that you get an enormous amount of views and not as many engagements. So you want to when you post those videos, you want to have that call to action in the text, you want to say, you know, we’d love to hear your perspective on this topic, or what might you do share in comments.

What you might do differently, make sure even with video, while you’ll get a lot of views, and that does help the algorithm. It’s the comments and the reactions that you want, because that’s what gets other eyes on that. And going back to the topic of this, we’re moving them from Lurker to engage or we’re, we’re moving the silent majority into maybe a minority someday I don’t know.

Bob Woods  16:41

Into Yeah, now that’s a that’s, that’s another that’s another really, really good way to look at it. So yeah, so converting lurkers to engagers you definitely want to do that, because we are all about starting those all important sales conversations. And if you’ve got people who are, you know, you know, think of it as like a store, you don’t want people just looking at your, you know, beautiful Lee crafted store window and everything else. 

But not walking in, you got to get them to walk in so that you can start a conversation with them the way that they long walk in on LinkedIn, and quite frankly, other platforms too, but especially on LinkedIn, is by getting them to start engaging with you. That’s why That’s why I’m talking about

Brynne Tillman  17:34

Yeah, is move them from window shopper to walking into your door. And there you go. I just took your thoughts and tried to.

Bob Woods  17:48

And framed it. Yeah, exactly. Anyway.

Brynne Tillman  17:53

Move all of those window shoppers walking into your store, your context store, right. And again, we don’t we can’t start conversations with people unless we know who they are. So that content that you’re sharing is really important, I’m going to throw one more bonus in, that’s moving the silent majority to engage. 

And I’m going to bring it back to not just content, but your profile. If your profiles positioned, right, if your profile is positioned to be a resource, and they have calls to action and links to schedule with you, and you make it really easy for them to engage, you are much more likely to convert them from a profile visitor to an opportunity.

Bob Woods  18:42

And I’m going to do the proverbial Yes. And to that as well. Do not sleep on your featured section a lot. If you’ve got really really good content, especially content that’s getting a lot of engagement because you definitely want to include that in your feature section and the freshest stuff possible as well. Because one of the things about the featured section is when you bring in one of your own posts it will show up how many comments and and how many you know likes and and all that stuff that a post has received.

So you know, if you’ve got something that has got a lot in there, when when people scroll down and they and they get to the scroll stopper that is the the featured section, they’ll be able to tell that you are who you’re saying you are because you’re getting all of this engagement that means that other people are caring enough to converse with you about it. 

And when they click through and they actually see the post they’ll also see that you’re engaging back with them and they’ll think oh my god, this person really, you know, really engages really cares about his or her or their community. So, you know, why don’t I reach out to them or if they reach out to me and I’ll know who they are. That’s what this is all about.

Brynne Tillman  19:58

Love it. All right, I think We’re ready to bring this in for a landing.

Bob Woods  20:02

I think we are going to take this home. So thanks again for joining us on making sales social live. If you’re with us live on LinkedIn, YouTube or X slash Twitter right now, we do this every week. So keep an eye out for our live sessions. If you’re listening to us on our podcast and you haven’t subscribed already, why not go ahead and hit that subscribe or follow button. You’ll not only access all of our previous shows, but you’ll be alerted when the new ones drop, especially if you click the bell or whatever your favorite podcasting platform has. 

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Brynne Tillman  21:01

Social.

Bob Woods  20:02

Thanks everybody and have a great day.