Best software for social selling in 2024

Your social selling strategy efforts is as good as your tech stack. Using the right software can significantly enhance your social selling efforts, making it easier to find prospects, engage with them, and ultimately drive sales. Lead generation and social media management are two very different fields but both are needed for businesses looking to connect with their audience, build relationships, and drive sales. Social selling leverages social media platforms to find, connect with, understand, and nurture sales prospects. Proving that choosing the right software for social selling can significantly enhance your efforts, streamline your processes, and amplify your results. In this blog post, we'll be exploring the best software for social selling, including the features you should pay attention to and some recommendations.

What is social selling?

Social selling is the process of using social media platforms to identify, connect with, and build relationships with potential customers. Unlike traditional sales methods that rely heavily on direct selling and cold calling, social selling focuses on engaging with prospects through meaningful content, interactions, and personalized communication. This approach helps build trust and positions you as a knowledgeable resource in your field, making it easier to convert leads into loyal customers.

8 features that can help boost your social selling strategies

Below are some features of popular social selling tools that your tech stack should have, to boost your social selling program.

1. CRM integration: Ensures all customer interactions are tracked and managed effectively within a central system.
2. Social listening: Monitors social media for brand mentions, competitor activities, and relevant conversations.
3. Content scheduling: Allows you to plan and automate your social media posts for consistent engagement.
4. Analytics and reporting: Provides detailed insights into the performance of your social selling activities.
5. Audience research: Delivers deep understanding of your target audience's behaviors, preferences, and demographics.
6. Automation: Streamlines repetitive tasks like follow-ups and content posting to save time and maintain consistency.
7. Collaboration tools: Enhances teamwork and coordination among sales and marketing teams.

8 best social selling tech stack for 2024

8 best social selling tech stack for 2024

Your social selling software is more of a tech stack as opposed to one single tool. We've put together a list of eight of the best social selling software you should have in your tech stack in 2024 that can help your marketing team and sales teams increase their inbound leads. They all play a crucial part in building an effective social selling strategy for both sales and marketing teams looking to build their social sales strategy collaboratively.

1. folk

Best for: an all-in-one CRM to support multiple business functions including sales and marketing.

folk is an all-in-one CRM solution designed to optimize your social selling process. It seamlessly integrates with various social media platforms, allowing you to track and manage interactions with prospects effortlessly. And can support both your marketing and sales teams. folk’s powerful features include customizable pipelines, contact management, and automated follow-ups, which help you stay organized and efficient.

Key features:

• Customizable sales pipelines and sales cycle,
• Contact management with detailed profiles and collaborative notes,
• Automated follow-up reminders,
• Integration with social media platforms including LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram,
• Comprehensive analytics for your email outbound campaigns,
• LinkedIn automation including a comment exporter and LinkedIn search list exporter optimizing your LinkedIn Sales Navigator plan.

2. Sprout Social

Best social media management software

Sprout Social is a popular social media management tool for SMM's who are after powerful analytics and reporting features that provide insight into your performance. It can connect across multiple channels including LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Threads and TikTok.

Key features:

• Multi-platform social media scheduling and publishing,
• Unified social media inbox for managing interactions,
• Social listening capabilities to monitor brand mentions and trends,
• In-depth analytics and reporting,
• Team collaboration tools.
  

3. SparkToro

Best for: Audience research insight

SparkToro is an audience research platform designed to provide you insight into your audience. Which is perfect if you're at that stage of exploring or honing in on your ideal customer profile (ICP). SparkToro helps you understand where your audience spends their time online, what they read, and who influences them. This information is crucial for tailoring your social selling strategies to resonate more effectively with your audience.

4. Kleo

Best for: Consuming LinkedIn content and scaling on LinkedIn

Kleo is a Chrome extension designed specifically for LinkedIn creators. If you want to build a library of all the posts that have inspired you, or of all the posts that have some insight you want to save for later Kleo can help. It helps you consume and engage with LinkedIn content more efficiently and scale your activities on the platform. Kleo's features are designed to streamline your interactions on LinkedIn, making it easier to connect with prospects and build meaningful relationships.

Key features:

• Efficient LinkedIn content consumption,
• Tools for scaling LinkedIn interactions,
• Automated connection requests and follow-ups,
• Study your favourite creator's content and get to understand their analytics.
  

5. BuzzSumo

Best for: Content discovery and influencer marketing

BuzzSumo helps you find trending content and key influencers in your industry. This tool is great for identifying the type of content that resonates with your audience and discovering influential voices to amplify your message.

Key features:

• Content discovery and trend analysis,
• Influencer identification and outreach,
• Competitor content analysis,
• Social media engagement metrics,
• Connecting with and pitching to journalists,
• Alerts for brand mentions and keywords.

6. Buffer

Best for: Simplified social media tool

If you're just getting started as social sellers and don't have the budget for Sprout Social, Buffer is a great alternative as a lightweight social media management tool that still makes for a powerful social media tool. It's a user-friendly tool that focuses on simplifying the process of scheduling social media posts and helps maintain a consistent posting schedule while providing basic analytics to track engagement.

Key features:

• Easy-to-use content scheduler,
• Multi-platform posting across Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok and more,
• Basic social media analytics,
• Content calendar view,
• Browser extension for quick content sharing.

7. LinkedIn Sales Navigator

Best for: LinkedIn prospecting and engagement

LinkedIn Sales Navigator is a classic for both marketing, recruitment and sales teams as a tool for finding and engaging with prospects on LinkedIn. It offers advanced search capabilities, personalized recommendations, and detailed insights into potential leads, making it indispensable for B2B social selling. They even have specific resources built for B2B sellers and social sellers through their social selling index.

Key features:

• Advanced lead and company search filters,
• Personalized lead recommendations,
• In-depth prospect insights,
• CRM integration via folk to import LinkedIn search lists,
• Real-time updates on prospects and accounts.

8. Dux-Soup

Best for: LinkedIn automation tool

Dux-Soup is a automation tool built for LinkedIn that helps you get new leads for your sales pipeline. It helps you engage with potential leads by automating repetitive tasks like profile visits, connection requests, and messaging.

Key Features:

• Automated profile visits,
• LinkedIn outreach campaigns,
• Bulk connection requests,
• Personalized message sequences,
• Activity tracking,
• CRM integration.

Conclusion

Using the right tech stack is key to maximizing your social selling programs. Each tool in your social selling tech stack plays a vital role, from managing and scheduling social media content to gaining deep audience insights and automating routine tasks. These are crucial especially if you're an early stage startup still trying to understand your ideal customer profile and refining your sales process through a Founder-led sales strategy. Among these, a CRM like folk is crucial to help capture your leads and streamline your sales and marketing efforts. You can use it as a solopreneur or with your team to build collaborative contact lists as you scale. Try folk today, free.

More resources

Looking for more resources such as the best social selling platform, social selling tools and how to build the right social media strategy? Check out these resources below. Your social selling programs will be optimized in no time.

• How to leverage social selling on LinkedIn to drive new business
• 20 social selling statistics for 2024
• B2B social selling trends in 2024
• How to make the most out of your LinkedIn people directory
• Top 10 LinkedIn messaging templates for sales and business development teams

‍