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Looking For Leads
...in all the wrong places?
If you’re humming a tune right now, you’re showing your age!
And regardless of your age, or the age of your business, you need a Social Media strategy. I’ve heard the argument, ‘but I’m selling feed to 78 year old farmers, they don’t even send text messages, much less use other social media’.
Keep in mind these 78 year old farmers have sons, daughters, grandsons and granddaughters that may take over the business, and they do use social media. You can’t ignore the ‘soon to be’ customer.
Social media allows you the opportunity to build trust, showcase expertise, and engage with potential customers.
Where to start
1) Start your Social Media Strategy by defining clear goals that are consistent with your core business strategy. These goals will drive content development.
2) Further define goals based on traffic, leads, and sales. ‘SMART’ goals are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time based.
3) Determine which social media channels are most beneficial based on your product/service and target audience. (Invite customers to complete a short survey to understand their demographic, preferred content and social media channels.)
Word of mouth will always be one of the best ways to generate leads. Buyers trust peer referrals more than any other source of information and since social media allows people to share experiences, this can help increase trust in your company’s products and services.
Content creation is key
Position yourself as an expert in your industry. When you position yourself as an expert, the incentive for people to follow you and engage will increase.
Content development
Content development is the most important part of developing and managing your social media. If you don’t have the time or expertise to develop content, finding someone that can create on-going fresh content will be a worthwhile investment.
Mix it up and include links
Because a simple social media update usually isn’t enough to tell a story, you’ll want to include links that expand on key ideas. Increase your odds of being seen by more people by including links to case studies, photos infographics, videos, podcasts and webinars.
Use keywords and strong calls-to-action
Make sure content contains keywords to attract prospects, and then draw them in by using a clear call-to-action such as contact forms, RFP forms or an email opt-in.
Modifying content for different channels
Think about what content you can share across various channels that will support your business objectives. Your content strategy will include creating specific posts based on the channel.
Use a program such as Hootsuite to pre-schedule posts to your various social channels.
Get personal
Social media marketing is about engagement and dialogue. Your content can be useful, inspiring, entertaining, provide personal insights, observations, advice or assistance.
Promote others
It’s good etiquette; helps engage the reader and will make your posts feel less like ‘advertising’.
Monitor Conversations
Social Media ‘listening tools’ such as Google Alerts and TweetDeck will help you keep a pulse on what’s being discussed. The more you know, the more responsive you can be.
Prepare a Posting Schedule
Here’s an example of a schedule
(Hubspot requires login. For a simpler template, email me at terrie@sunbelt-advertising.com with ‘Media Schedule’ in subject line.)
Measure!
Every social channel has analytics to measure success. Measure, adjust and continue to work toward your Social Media goals.
Analytic examples:
- Analytics.pinterest.com
- Analytics.twitter.com
- Facebook analytics visible to page owner on Facebook page
- Help.LinkedIn.com (search analytics)
- Iconosquare.com (Instagram)