Forbes reports: 78% Of Salespeople Using Social Media Outsell Their Peers

Great article on social selling by @MarkFidelman

Key Takeaways

• The most interesting finding was that in 2012, 78.6% of sales people using social media to sell out performed those who weren’t using social media.
• When it came to exceeding sales quota (exceeding quota by more than 10%), social media users were 23% more successful than their non-social media peers. 
• Over half of the respondents (54%) who used social media tracked their social media usage back to at least one closed deal. 
• Over 40% said they’ve closed between two and five deals as a result of social media 
• More than 10% of the respondents said; “Yes, It directly contributes to my closes.” 
• 50.1% of sales people who report using social media state that they spend less than 10% of their selling time using social media. That’s decent ROI.
• The top social selling sites were, in order, Linkedin, Twitter,Facebook , Blogging, Google +, other.

“Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, Google Plus, a blog, etc. are no longer nice to haves, they are salesperson must haves.”