Social media is now not merely a place to contact friends and relatives, post photographs or discuss the weather and current events. It has evolved into a powerful marketing tool, critical for marketers to measure and monitor both the website traffic and leads generated by this fast growing medium.
Marketers can make use of a wide range of techniques to generate leads via social media. These methods vary, like combining content marketing with social media, using Q&A forums to good advantage and Twitter and Facebook metrics to earn the maximum placement in the media, to name a few.
Communication and people is what social media is all about. It’s here that you will get to know what purchases buyers will likely make, a factor that will help you get concrete leads. Let’s see how you can put this potent communication media to good use.
Make Your Company an Authority
To get a good share of the market your business needs to be an online authority. So build your brand image. Potential customers will then view you as an authoritative and trustworthy source for quality information and advice.
Keep track of and evaluate your traffic, and use your visitor’s geographic and demographic information in your marketing endeavours. This will especially work for an e-commerce site.
Content Marketing plus Social Media
Generate leads through content marketing in this way:
Develop diverse content: Produce helpful content which will attract individuals to mechanisms that generate leads on your website. Vary your content so that it has written stuff like white papers, explicit information like info-graphics and photos, videos which people can interact with, podcasts, case studies and webinars.
Use Keywords: Use effective calls-to-action and keywords. Your content must be loaded with keywords to draw prospects initially, and then attract them to your lead generation apparatus via lucid calls-to-action like RFP forms, contact forms or email opt-in catalogues.
Share content: Allocate your content on all the channels you have, be they social media, blogs, marketing, email and so on. Have a platform in place for your content marketing so that social sharing becomes easier.
Twitter is Useful to Track Good Content
Twitter is a great platform for B2B marketers to recognize, qualify and produce leads. They can segregate and comprehend how the media has contributed to lead generation in a better way on Twitter than on other social media platforms.
Twitter gives you the opportunity to get information and resources quickly. Decide on a fixed time every day to read news sources and industry blogs, and tweet news that’s most appropriate all day long.
Use Facebook to Increase Your Audience
On Facebook post what will engage your audience, like videos, photos and unrestricted questions and the things you want to endorse. In other words, what links naturally to your website or content.
You will be able increase your target audience and improve your EdgeRank which is Facebook’s method to determine how broadly your content is seen. In this way you’ll have the biggest audience achievable when you endorse your content. To engage better, focus on shares and comments to better your brand’s contact with your fans’ friends, who are a strong segment of your potential audience.
Apart from leveraging content, use Facebook ads. They can be targeted superbly. Besides, they are a terrific way for B2B businesses to reach out to their prospects.
But remember, social media has to be a part of your bigger strategy. It has to be synchronised with website conversions, public relations, SEO etc.
Utilize Q&A Forums
Be active on Q & A portals like Quora and LinkedIn. This is one more way to show that thought leadership is alive. Go where potential customers are seeking your resources and help with respect to your industry. Offer your expertise and guidance. This approach may find you on Quora or LinkedIn or other, suitable Q&A forums. Go wherever your likely audience is. Spend one hour weekly to answer as many questions about your industry as you can.
However, setting up a dedicated Q&A will depend on the resources that are available to you, user demographics etc. Look out for results from a third party that come in generic searches. Their presence will help you decide whether to set up a dedicated forum.
In Conclusion
Lead generation is unquestionably at the core of succeeding in business. This is true of online as well as conventional techniques of generating potentials who could ultimately be converted into buying customers. There are various ways to generate precious leads online. The key to success is to make use of them. Change the way you use social media. Don’t think of them simply as branding; use them to generate leads.
