50 Social Selling Statistics You Need to Know in 2023

Social selling is a unique opportunity to naturally and non-intrusively engage prospective buyers through social media. In this post, you’ll explore 50 social selling statistics to help you get started.

Whether you’re wondering if social selling is a good investment or what platforms you should leverage to maximize your ROI, this post will provide actionable insights for your business.

Social Selling Statistics

1. Of organizations engaged in social selling, 61% report revenue growth.

2. Sales professionals who use social selling close 40-50% more new business than those who don’t.

3. Social media ranks third among the most effective sales channels, as per HubSpot’s 2023 Sales Strategy & Trends Report.

4. According to LinkedIn, 78% of businesses that use social selling outperform those that don’t.

5. Plus, businesses that prioritize social selling are 51% more likely to reach their sales quota, according to LinkedIn data.

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6. Sales professionals with a strong social selling index on LinkedIn have 45% more sales opportunities than those who don’t.

7. Audiences exposed to brand messages on LinkedIn are six times more likely to convert, according to data from the social company.

8. In one LinkedIn study, 31% of sales reps using social selling reported closing deals worth over $500,000 without a single in-person meeting with the buyer.

Customer Engagement Statistics

9. Social media users numbered 4.8 billion globally as of April 2023.

10. Of B2B buyers, 75% use social media to make buying decisions, according to research from LinkedIn.

11. Of buyers in the U.S. and Canada, 42% research sellers who contact them by looking at their LinkedIn profile.

12. Social media > search engines? For some people, yes. HubSpot x Brandwatch’s Global Social Media Trends Report provides a breakdown of consumers across different generations who search for brands on social media more often than on search engines:

• GenZ (18-24 years): 36%
• Millennials (25-34 years): 22%
• GenX (35-54 years): 21%
• Boomers (55+): 6%

13. Of buyers in Asia Pacific (specifically Australia, India, and Singapore), 34% want sellers to get in touch via social networking sites, according to 2022 data from LinkedIn.

14. Of consumers, 68% made at least one purchase directly from social media in 2021, according to data from Sprout Social.

15. Of shoppers surveyed by Sprout Social, 98% said they plan to make at least one purchase through social shopping or influencer commerce in 2022.

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16. Social media is especially influential for the Gen Z buyer’s journey. Of Gen Z consumers, 97% use social media as their top source of shopping inspiration, according to a 2022 report from the Influencer Marketing Factory.

17. The older generations are not to be left behind. A survey of 600+ U.S. adults in January 2023 revealed that 46% of Gen Xers discovered a new product via social media over the last three months.

18. Of TikTok users, 55% research new brands and products on the platform, according to 2022 findings from TikTok.

19. Of TikTok users, 38% interacted with content posted by a brand while conducting product research.

20. Social media is projected to generate $1.2 trillion in transactions by 2025, according to research from Accenture.

Social Selling Adoption Statistics

21. Businesses need a steady influx of leads to market and sell to, and convert. Social media can help with that. Of sales professionals, 56% leverage social media to discover new prospects.

22. Of salespeople, 31% say they use social media content as sales enablement content, according to HubSpot’s 2023 Sales Strategy & Trends Report.

23. Additionally, social media content ranks in the top five kinds of sales enablement content most effective at aiding salespeople to win deals.

24. Of salespeople, 47% say that social media offers the highest quality leads, coming second after referrals from existing customers.

25. Of sales professionals, 55% harness social media to research prospects and/or their businesses, with LinkedIn being the most effective platform for this purpose.

26. Buyers in the U.S. and Canada identified social networking sites as one of their top three favored outreach methods by sellers, according to LinkedIn’s 2022 State of Sales Report.

27. Over 40% of sellers in the U.S. and Canada are “very active for business purposes” on LinkedIn, Whatsapp, and Twitter.

28. Of B2B marketers, 89% are already using LinkedIn to generate leads.

29. The State of Social Listening in 2022 by Social Media Today and Meltwater surveyed over 650 professionals from various industries, with results showing that nearly 61% of organizations have a social listening system.

Social Selling Best Practice Statistics

What social media platforms should you be leveraging?

30. The leading social platforms used by salespeople to discover new prospects (as per HubSpot’s 2023 Sales Strategy & Trends Report) are:

• 75% use Facebook
• 51% use Instagram
• 43% use LinkedIn
• 41% use YouTube
• 38% use Twitter
• 27% use TikTok

31. If your team wants to reach a younger demographic, consider TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat. Of 18- to 29-year-olds, 71% say they use Instagram, 65% use Snapchat, and over 30% use TikTok, according to a 2021 Pew Research Center survey in the U.S.

32. If you want to reach high spenders, consider TikTok. According to findings from a 2022 TikTok study, buyers that visit TikTok as part of their purchase journey claim to spend 1.6x more on their purchases than those who don’t.

33. If you’re a B2B salesperson, consider LinkedIn and Facebook. According to HubSpot’s 2023 Sales Strategy & Trends Report, these are the top two most effective social media platforms for B2B salespeople to find new prospects.

34. LinkedIn will also be useful if you’re a B2B salesperson targeting people in charge, as there are 65+ million business decision-makers on the platform.

35. B2C sales professionals discover new prospects most effectively through Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and TikTok (in this order), as per HubSpot’s 2023 Sales Strategy & Trends Report.

36. If you’re targeting customers in the U.S. and Asia, consider TikTok. The United States and Indonesia make up the platform’s largest audiences.

37. If you want to sell to millennial professionals, consider LinkedIn. Across the globe, 6 out of 10 LinkedIn users were between 25 and 34 years old as of the first month of 2023

38. If video is a part of your strategy, consider Instagram. The HubSpot Blog’s 2023 Video Marketing Report found that Instagram presents the highest ROI when sharing marketing videos.

39. YouTube is another lucrative option for selling via video. The platform produces the second-highest ROI and lead generation results for video marketing.

40. Here are the leading social selling features used by social media marketers:

• 22% use Instagram Shops
• 22% use Facebook Shops
• 19% use Instagram Live Shopping
• 17% use Facebook Marketplace
• 14% use Facebook Live Shopping
• 11% use TikTok Shop

How to Leverage Social Media Platforms for Maximum ROI

41. For LinkedIn social selling, begin by growing your network. According to LinkedIn’s 2022 State of Sales report, sellers in the U.K. who surpassed their quota by over 50% were around 2.8 times as likely to say they’re making a “significantly larger effort” to expand their network on the platform compared to sellers who only met quota.

42. If you’re active on LinkedIn, focus on InMails. Of InMail responses, 65% arrive within 24 hours, and 90% arrive within one week.

43. However, avoid sending InMails over the weekend. According to LinkedIn, InMails sent on Saturday get 8% fewer responses than average. On Friday, the response rate is 4% below average.

44. Keep your LinkedIn messages short. Messages with 400 words or less have a 22% higher than the average response rate for all InMails.

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45. One final InMail tip: Avoid bulk messages. InMails sent one at a time see around 15% greater response rates than those sent in bulk.

46. The adage goes, “a picture is worth a thousand words.” So, a video must likely be worth much more. But which format should you use?

You might be better off starting with short-form videos, such as TikToks, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts. According to the HubSpot Blog’s 2023 Video Marketing Report, short-form video has the biggest ROI and is also most likely to go viral. It’s also at the top for lead generation.

47. If long-form video is more your style, 36% of video marketers say that the optimal length for a long-form marketing video is 3-6 minutes.

48. Additionally, 89% of people say that they’ve been convinced to buy a product or service by watching a video, according to a survey from Wyzowl.

49. Of sales professionals, 16% use generative AI tools for prospect outreach, such as writing emails, social media messages, and call scripts.

50. When should you publish on social media? According to the 2023 Global Social Media Trends Report by HubSpot and Brandwatch, here’s what social media marketers in the U.S. feel are the best timings:

• Facebook: 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.
• TikTok: 3 p.m. to 9 p.m.
• Instagram: 12 p.m. to 6 p.m.
• LinkedIn: 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
• YouTube: 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.
• Twitter: 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Did any of these statistics surprise you? As the business landscape changes, so will best practices for connecting with potential customers virtually. Keep up-to-date with social selling best practices to stay ahead.