Don’t forget to see the forest, don’t forget about the leads…
Social media is great for having conversations, engaging new audiences and in general being social. But don’t forget to think about the bottom line that drives your business. It’s easy to get lost amongst the trivial aspects of social media and focus on what matters, like generating leads.
Here are 5 simple things that will help you generate more leads from social media:
1. Get focused: It’s easy to feel the pressure to grow a large following on social networks like Twitter. A smaller but more relevant follower base will do more for you than a large audience not related to your business or industry. At the same time make sure your conversations mix the social and business aspects of your online identity. After all you are in it for networking as well!
2. Answer questions: A great way to build trust and authority without being aggressive with a sales pitch is to answer questions. Listen in on conversations about your industry and answer questions. At times it might be relevant to add a link back to your content to help out the person and generate some qualified traffic for yourself.
3. Add a profile link: Include a link to your company website or your personal blog from your social media profiles. While engaging an audience through relevant conversations, that provides an opportunity for them to learn more about you and your business.
4. Share your own content: A lot of people are happy retweeting content from popular blogs and thought leaders. When you read something share worthy, write an interesting response and share your own links. Not only will it position you are a thought leader, again it will generate new traffic and leads for your business.
5. Use Calls-to-actions: While asking people to sign up for your product or service may not work well, adding a trial or demo call-to-action button on your thought leadership blog post will get your conversions. Make sure that all your content has some call-to-action on it that links to a landing page.
Are you ready to see the forest? How do you plan to use social media for lead generation? Please share your thoughts in the comments!
