Social Selling for Account Executives: How to Warm Up Deals Before the Demo
Account Executives can use social selling to warm up prospects before demos, stay top of mind during evaluations, and accelerate deals through the pipeline.
Social selling is often positioned as an SDR tool for top-of-funnel prospecting. But Account Executives who use social selling techniques throughout the sales cycle close deals faster and at higher rates.
The AE’s social selling playbook is different from the SDR’s. It is not about finding new leads. It is about building relationships, staying top of mind, and accelerating deals that are already in the pipeline.
Pre-meeting intelligence
Before every discovery call or demo, check the prospect’s recent social activity:
- What have they posted about? Reference their recent content in the conversation to show you have done your homework.
- What have they engaged with? The posts they like and comment on reveal their priorities and interests.
- Who else are they talking to? Social activity can reveal which competitors they are also evaluating.
This preparation takes 5 minutes and dramatically improves the quality of the first meeting.
During the evaluation: Stay visible
Between meetings, most AEs go silent until the next scheduled touchpoint. Social selling provides a non-intrusive way to stay visible:
- Engage with the prospect’s posts. Like and comment thoughtfully on their content. This keeps you in their notifications without sending another sales email.
- Share relevant content. Post insights that are directly relevant to the challenge they are evaluating solutions for. Tag them if appropriate.
- Monitor for urgency signals. If the prospect posts about a related challenge or a pressing deadline, reach out with a timely message.
Multi-threading through social
Enterprise deals require engagement with multiple stakeholders. Social media makes it possible to identify and engage with the broader buying committee:
- Find other stakeholders. Use LinkedIn to identify others in the prospect’s company with relevant roles.
- Engage with their content. Build familiarity before requesting a formal introduction.
- Monitor their signals. Other stakeholders may post about the same challenges, giving you additional context for the deal.
Post-demo follow-up
After a demo, social engagement keeps momentum:
- Share a relevant case study as a LinkedIn post and tag the prospect (if they are comfortable).
- Comment on their company news to show ongoing interest.
- Send a social DM in addition to email follow-up. Some prospects are more responsive on social than email.
Automating the intelligence layer
Typpout can monitor the social activity of specific prospects in your pipeline, alerting you when they post about relevant topics, engage with competitor content, or signal urgency. This turns social selling from a manual habit into an automated intelligence layer.
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