Social Signals - How You Can Use Social Signals

The result? Thousands of likes, hundreds of in-depth comments, and countless shares under almost every one of their posts. This massive wave of positive social signals has made the software company Gong one of the most well-known and trustworthy brands in the B2B tech world. Their customers are fans even before they've booked a demo. This endorsement through social signals not only strengthens the brand but also has a huge indirect influence on the visibility of the company website in search engines like Google.

The impressive part? This strategy isn't based on a huge advertising budget, but on authenticity and expertise. We're revealing the secret of how these interactions on social media can become your most powerful tool for marketing and sales. In this guide, you will learn:

• Concrete, practical strategies to generate valuable signals for your brand.
• How to turn social signals into measurable success: more traffic to your website and qualified leads.
• How to optimize your activities to deploy your resources exactly where they will have the greatest impact on your ranking.

What are Social Signals?

Social signals are the sum of all measurable interactions that users have with content on social media platforms. These include likes, shares, comments, retweets, and many other activities. These signals are interpreted by algorithms and other users as indicators of popularity and quality. However, the true power of these signals lies in psychology, in the phenomenon of "social proof." People tend to imitate the actions of others. A post with thousands of interactions is perceived as more trustworthy. A "like" or "share" is more than just a passive reaction; it is an active act of self-expression, a signal to one's own social group that says something about one's identity. This positive perception is a decisive factor for success on the internet.

What Types of Social Signals Are There?

A like is not the same as a share, and follower growth has a different strategic meaning than a click to your website. Not all social signals are created equal. To use social signals effectively for your marketing and sales, we divide them into different types. Each category serves a different purpose for your brand. An overview of the most important categories:

• Engagement Signals: These are the classics. They include likes, comments, shares, and saves. They show that a user is actively engaging with and values your content.
• Authority Signals: This is about the size and growth of your community. The number of your followers signals trust and your expert status, which strengthens your presence.
• Distribution Signals: These signals show how far your message travels. They include mentions of your brand and the use of your brand hashtags.
• Validation Signals: The ultimate proof of trust. These are positive ratings, reviews, or recommendations that users leave directly on social media platforms like Facebook, Google, or LinkedIn.
• Traffic Signals: They form the bridge to your website. Every click on a link in your posts that leads users to your site is a valuable traffic signal that also influences your SEO.

Social Signals on the Most Important Social Media Platforms

The following overview shows you which signals play a special role on the most important social media platforms and their strategic value for you. A strong presence across these channels is crucial for building authority that is also recognized by Google.

Why Social Signals Are a Gamechanger in Marketing & Sales

Forget cold emails for a moment. In modern sales, the most important phase of the buying decision takes place on social networks. Your potential customers inform themselves today. They read posts on LinkedIn, follow discussions, and evaluate the expertise of providers based on the social signals they send out. A convincing profile, helpful comments, and relevant content are the new currency for trust. When you learn to interpret these social signals and actively use them to your advantage, you not only improve your relationships but also your ranking in the minds of customers.

Social Signals as the Foundation for Social Selling

The decisive moment in social selling is not the message you send, but the signal you receive. Imagine a potential customer leaves a critical comment under a competitor's post. This is not random noise but a relevant social signal. It's the perfect enabler to start a relevant conversation based on a real need.

Instead of acquiring blindly, you react to concrete events. The following figures show how this signal-based approach directly impacts your sales success:

How to Correctly Identify and Evaluate Social Signals

Forget the pure "vanity metrics" of your own profile for a moment. You'll find the real gold nuggets when you analyze the social signals of your potential customers within the context of their environment:

Third-Party Engagement Analysis

Analyze the engagement rate not only on your own content but especially on the posts of competitors and industry influencers. Which topics generate the most comments and discussions? In the comment sections, you will often find unvarnished feedback, pain points, and direct buying signals from your target audience. A dissatisfied comment under a competitor's post is a highly qualified signal.

Analysis of Shared Content

Observe which external links to blogs, studies, or websites are shared and positively commented on by your target audience or by opinion leaders. This gives you valuable information about which topics are currently relevant and which sources are considered credible. If a potential customer shares an article about a problem you can solve, that's a perfect conversation starter.

Identification of Purchase Intent Signals

This is the master discipline of measurement in social selling. It's about recognizing signals that immediately precede a purchase. Instead of a classic conversion rate on your website, you measure concrete events here, such as personnel changes, job postings, or company news.

Key Takeaways for Marketing & Sales

From the definition of social signals to concrete, signal-based strategies for sales. If you can only take away four central insights from this guide, let them be these:

• Social Signals as a Trend Radar. The most valuable signals are not just the likes on your posts, but the questions, problems, and interactions of your target customers across the entire internet. They are direct invitations for a relevant sales conversation.
• SEO and Social Media Remain Inseparable. A strong presence and positive social signals are also the engine for your SEO. They generate visibility and traffic, which leads to valuable backlinks. These are the hard factors that sustainably improve a website's Google ranking.
• Relevance Beats Clumsy Acquisition. Real success in social selling doesn't come from mass, impersonal messages. It comes from using a recognized signal to start a highly relevant and personal conversation.
• Systematic Listening as the Key to Success. Instead of just measuring your own performance, the focus is on systematically observing the market. The crucial KPIs are the purchase intent signals on competitors, influencers, and your target audience.

Optimize Your Sales with Social Signals

Don't view social signals as an isolated task, but as a central, strategic asset of your company. But how can social signals be easily integrated into the sales process? Manually monitoring hundreds of potential customers for purchase-relevant signals is extremely time-consuming. Instead of searching manually, devsub allows you to define your ideal target market and monitor it for relevant purchase intentions.

• Real-Time Signal Monitoring: devsub monitors thousands of data sources, from job portals and blogs to social media channels. A management change or a relevant LinkedIn post is immediately recognized as a signal.
• Intelligent Evaluation & Conversation Starters: An algorithm evaluates the relevance of each signal. You get the necessary context and a suggestion for the perfect conversation starter for all found social signals.
• Automated, Personal Outreach: As soon as a relevant signal is detected, an automated but personalized initial contact can be initiated. This closes the gap between recognizing a signal and starting a valuable conversation.

The strategic use of social signals is no longer a thing of the future. With the right strategy and the right tools like devsub, you can build a sales system based on relevance and timing.