Alternative: LinkedIn Elevate Replacement for Social Selling

Sociabble is an Employee Communication platform specifically designed to handle Social Selling and Employee Advocacy. This makes it a strong alternative for a LinkedIn Elevate replacement.

In this blog post, we’ll explore a LinkedIn Elevate replacement, which is an urgent problem given that LinkedIn is no longer offering Elevate as a separate service. With the effect the ongoing health crisis has had on sales, many companies are looking to adapt their plan to accommodate social media.

New solutions are needed. We’ll explain why Sociabble is an ideal alternative, and why it’s easy for your company to make the transition.

Companies need a LinkedIn Elevate replacement.

Recently, LinkedIn announced that it will no longer offer its popular sales tool, Elevate, as a stand-alone product. Instead, they will offer some of the same features as part of an enhanced version of their current pages.

With that option no longer available, many companies are wondering if it might be worthwhile to invest in an alternative. The goal is to find an easy LinkedIn Elevate replacement. More than ever, social media is the place to get new leads. It’s worth the investment.

Over 76% of buyers feel ready to have a social media conversation. And social media drives 2.2x more non-customer traffic. In the meantime, paid media budgets are likely to be reduced, as the full economic effects of the health crisis become evident. This means less money for conventional advertising, and fewer resources devoted to creating new leads.

Social Selling and Employee Advocacy are therefore important sales tools. They are the most cost-efficient alternatives. In fact, one study found that leads developed through employee social marketing convert 7x more frequently, and that 78% of reps who use social selling outsell their peers. With the right platform and the right training, it can be more effective than any conventional campaign.

What are the LinkedIn company pages’ Employee Advocacy abilities?

LinkedIn company pages come with features built-in that are designed to accommodate Employee Advocacy. So there are some EA aspects included in the design that are geared toward that purpose.

It’s a good start but there are several difficulties that many companies will encounter.

Yes, it’s true that the company pages do have some features companies will find helpful for EA. However, there are shortcomings that will also present problems for companies looking for an all-encompassing EA solution. Challenges that many users will run into include:

Content curation is not automated.

For most companies, the curation process cannot be only manual, they need to have content feeds that are curated automatically as well (YouTube channels, RSS feeds, curation with AI like with Feedly, etc.)

Content is not targeted.

People don’t all need the same type of content. Social sellers may need content related to their prospects or accounts, HR people may need employer branding content to share, etc.

Companies need to manage user segmentation, and target these segment with the right content they need. And it’s not always the same content for all segments.

No translation available.

Employees want to share content in their own language, not just in English. This requires translation features to provide the content in multiple languages.

No targeted editorial lines.

Sometimes employees are just not comfortable with the editorial line. Companies may need to provide several descriptions for important content, so that people are comfortable with one of them.

No engagement framework.

How do you make sure that employees will go back to the “My Company” tab? You need a full engagement framework (push notifications on mobile, targeted newsletters, gamification, rewards, etc.)

Limited integrations with other social media.

LinkedIn and Twitter are great, but many companies need to share on other social networks as well. Job offers on Facebook, inspiring pictures on Instagram, VK in Russia, Wechat, etc.

And then of course companies also have to manage local company pages (i.e. Facebook).

No complete analytics package.

Analytics are needed to understand the ROI. Equivalent paid media, volume of traffic on your assets (websites), leads generated by the program, the performance of the content analyzed across multiple dimensions, the performance of your audience segements (and not only by the “job title”)—all of this matters.

No Single Sign On.

Companies need a seamless and secured environment, backed up by SSO.

Limited customer support or training.

And of course, most companies need much more than a tool. They also need the right level of coaching, methodology, best practices sharing, etc. to make the program successful.

Sociabble is an alternative to LinkedIn Elevate that works. Just ask our clients.

Sociabble is an Employee Communication platform especially well-suited for Employee Advocacy and Social Selling. They’re incorporated into its basic architecture.

Freshworks, one of our clients, may have said it best: “We chose Sociabble over LinkedIn Elevate, because it comes with a lot of features that baked very well into what we as a company believe in and needed.” They’ve used Sociabble to boost sales, build leads, and break into new markets across Europe and the US.