Social Selling Statistics for 2024 and Why It Matters

Are you looking to invest more in social media marketing to grow your business this year? Not sure if social selling will work for you?

Social selling can be as effective as email marketing or social media marketing if used correctly. Here are some social media statistics to put things in perspective:

If you’re considering adopting social selling for your business growth, you’re on the right track. In this article, we share a ton of social selling statistics that will help you understand how effective social selling is. We’ll also share relevant stats on why you need a social selling strategy, how social selling is different from social media marketing, and stats about social media marketing.

What Is Social Selling?

Social selling is a digital marketing approach that businesses use to engage with potential customers, build relationships with them, and encourage them to buy.

Selling on social media is not just limited to paid ads or unsolicited DMs. Most successful brands on social media don’t always go in for the sale right away. Instead, they start by nurturing prospects and building relationships.

You can use social selling as a replacement for cold calls, email marketing, or SMS marketing when they fail to work. Or, you can use social selling as part of your integrated marketing strategy to maximize your marketing ROI.

Note that social selling is not social commerce. Social commerce takes place when customers buy from within a social media platform. Social commerce is an extension of eCommerce, one that occurs in the social media realm.

If you see an ad for CRM software while browsing Instagram or LinkedIn and buy it, that’s an example of social commerce.

With social selling, the differentiator is in building relationships instead of closing deals right away. The sale takes place outside of the social network.

social selling statistics

What about social selling and social media marketing? Are they the same thing?

Certainly not. Social media marketing is a subset of social media strategy that uses social media platforms to market a new business.

This could be anything from creating branded videos on TikTok, using Facebook Ads, or creating sponsored posts on LinkedIn.

But social selling and social media marketing go hand in hand in converting prospects into customers.

Let’s look at some important social media selling statistics to learn what social media can do for your business.

Social media marketing is effective, especially when you use it alongside social selling. If you aren’t using social selling yet, you need to get on board.

The good news is that your brand might already be doing social selling. If you are using your company’s Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, or LinkedIn pages to engage with potential buyers, you are essentially doing social selling.

Why Do You Need to Know Social Selling?

The role of social media in business is growing by the day. The following stats highlight social media’s burgeoning influence:

Your business will be at a huge loss if you can’t tap into such a powerful distribution network with hundreds of millions of potential buyers.

And the best part? Social selling works like a charm, and not just for big businesses.

So how effective is social selling really? Let’s take a look.

General Social Selling Statistics

From entry-level executives to C-level suite, and millennials to Gen Z, social selling works on all kinds of buyers.

social selling stats

Statistics: How Top Sales Reps Use Social Selling

The best sales teams use social selling to generate inbound leads, build deeper relationships with prospects, and speed up the sales process.

Findings from social selling research show how top-performing reps leverage social media in their sales strategy.

But what about the buyers? How do they respond to social selling? Let’s go over some recent studies.

Statistics: How Customers Respond to Social Selling

Next, let’s look at social selling stats related to the business-to-business (B2B) industry.

B2B Social Selling Statistics

Generally, we assume that the B2B buyers are buttoned-up and not so social media-savvy. But these B2B social selling statistics tell a different story.

If you operate in the B2B domain, LinkedIn is among the best social selling tools. It’s the #1 social media network for business professionals with 1 billion members across 200 countries. Out of the 1 billion, 16.2% of LinkedIn users are active daily.

LinkedIn has useful social selling tools like Sales Navigator and Sales Insights that help your sales and marketing teams run an effective social selling strategy.

Want a real-life example of how big social selling is for B2B brands? Read this case study from Tribal Impact.

The UK-based B2B social selling and employee branding agency helped Commvault achieve 61% more pipeline and 52% more opportunities through a social selling program.

Invest in Social Selling to Grow Your Business

Now that you have all the social selling statistics, you can allocate a marketing budget this year to invest in improving your social media presence.

Once you’re all set up, devise a social selling strategy. If you are already running other marketing campaigns like webinars or influencer marketing, make sure you build overlaps between them to offer a consistent brand experience.

If you want more resources to help you with social selling, check out these articles:

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Hi, I'm a writer and content marketer with 10+ years of experience. Over the years, I have helped several B2B SaaS brands grow their online presence and get more customers. At OptinMonster, I write about all things marketing — ranging from how-to guides to the best-of tools to help you improve your email marketing, lead generation, and website conversion campaigns.

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