Generating and Converting Quality Leads Through Social Media

There’s a difference between being popular and being profitable. And the difference is money. In other words, if you’re launching a social-media campaign for your business, you’re likely not in it to make new friends. You’re in it to generate leads and convert them into business. Here are some ideas to help increase the effectiveness of your social-media efforts …

Play it Cool: Even though you’re on Facebook for business, it’s still primarily a social tool. That means, you can’t come on too strong. In order to grab attention, you’ll have to create some content and make it interesting. And, more importantly, make it interesting to your target audience. If you hope to generate quality leads through social media, whether you’re using a blog, Facebook, or Twitter, you have to first build trust – and an audience – and the only way to do that is to offer something for nothing. If you’re posting quality information about your region or industry, you’re establishing yourself as a knowledgeable source and forming positive associations among visitors to your pages and profiles.

Be Discreet: You don’t want to fill up your blog or social-media profiles with solicitations and blatant advertisements for your services. You can, however, use areas around the margins to create an ad for your business. For example, if you’re keeping a blog, take an area typically reserved for ads and widgets to create a call to action. It doesn’t need to be sophisticated. At first, just having something on the page is better than nothing. Experiment. Write up a short description of your specialties with a link to your website. Having a few well-placed reminders of who you are and what you do will give visitors an opportunity to further explore your business online and raise the possibility of converting them into clients.

Be Available: Social media is about creating dialogue. So, in addition to keeping your page updated regularly and offering content that will interest and attract visitors, use your social-media presence to find and contact potential business in your area. If you have a Twitter page, for example, search for keywords related to your industry, then limit the search to your region and answer anyone in your area who’s posted questions related to your line of work or expertise.