Shortlist best use of social media: ‘Social Selling’ IBM has broken new ground proving that socially identified leads (SILs) can make a tangible contribution to the sales pipeline.It began with detailed analysis of social media activity amongst the professional IT community. This revealed that conversations regularly involve language that can be aligned with traditional BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, Timescale) criteria for sales lead qualification.This entry looks at how ‘intelligent listening’ can enable SILs to be melded with BANT. It means SILs can enter the sales funnel on an equal footing with other marketing qualified leads.The outcome is a breakthrough programmatic approach to harvesting quantifiable, quality inbound leads via social. Customer insights have been used to deliver finely-tuned strategic and creative direction that takes B2B social marketing to new level.Results to date include: 11% click through rate to IBM commercial sites following social engagement 19 per cent of all Public Cloud Inside Sales Rep Page traffic attributed to social media activity 95 fully qualified social scored leads with BANT-type criteriaThis pioneering, scalable approach to handling and routing SILs provides a blueprint that could revolutionise demand generation for B2B organisations.