Are you one of these businesses that say we need to be doing social media but you’re not sure why and how?
This is a common challenge many businesses have and the same can be said for digital marketing, SEO and PPC. The problem is you need to have your sales engine working on your website before you spend more time on these things.
Did you know that Social media generates almost double the marketing leads of tradeshows, telemarketing, daily mail and PPC so it is no wonder a lot of businesses are turning to social media to generate leads but social media has many more benefits to your business than just leads.
Social media as part of an inbound marketing strategy can really help your business grow, let me explain.
Create content that is shareable
It all comes back to creating awesome content. If you don’t create content that resonates with and is helpful to your buyer personas then social media will not help you spread your content. The reason social media is so effective at reaching new audiences is that when you create great content something special happens. People start to share your content on social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
You need to make sure your content is easily shareable and you can do this by adding share buttons to all your emails, blog posts and premium offer content. This makes it easy for people who enjoyed your content to share it with their friends and colleagues.
You should also be sharing your content yourself on social on a regular basic to increase the size of your audience and gain extra traffic. No spammy sales content, top of the funnel content usually does the best here. Content that is helpful and answers your buyer personas questions.
Communicate with prospects and customers
One of the best ways to use social media for your business is to communicate with your customers and prospects as this is really what social media is designed for.
To speak to people and build relationships and keep up to date with friends. If you try to shoehorn your business message onto the social media networks then you will have little success.
Social media gives you the opportunity to speak to prospects on a personal level. You can answer their questions and share the personal side of your business by sharing photos and stories.
You first must identify which social media site your buyer personas frequent. I would say FaceBook, Twitter, LinkedIn and more recently Google+ are the ones you would want to have presence on.
This will give your audience a chance to communicate with you and share your content. Generally Facebook works better for B2C companies than it does for B2B and LinkedIn works really well for B2B companies.
You need to test to see which ones are driving ROI for your business. I would say don’t spend any more than 30-60 minutes a day on social media.
Conclusion
Social media has a 100% higher lead-to-close rate than outbound marketing and if used correctly can generate your business more leads but this all starts with you creating great content that helps answers your prospects questions that help them make a buying decisions.
Share your great content on the social media sites that your buyer personas hang out on.
Get personal with your prospects and communicate with then on social, open a dialogue and be helpful. Test which social media sites send you the best traffic that converts into leads and don’t spend more than 30-60 minutes a day on social.
Just because you have made a sale that is not the end of the relationship it is just the beginning.
Now it’s your turn
What results have you had with usually social media? I would love to know your thoughts below.
I look forward to answering your questions.