Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Flipboard 3 Is social media stressing you out? It doesn’t have to. Close your eyes and hold your breath because if you really want to generate more leads for less, you’ll have to dive into the deep end of social media marketing. But there’s no need to worry, once you’ve dipped your toes in you’ll be swimming across the digital channel in no time. However, social media is big and it’s growing – take Twitter, it has over 200 million active users and over 130,000 people sign up for an account each day. With numbers like that swimming around, it can be difficult to know where or even how to start using social media to generate leads. Step 1: Let’s Go Back to the Beginning The first thing to understand is that to get social media working for you, all you really need is time. However sending out a daily Lolcat won’t win your IT solutions company many (if any) new leads, so go back to the drawing board and think about your customers, who they are and what they want and use that information to build your marketing personas. These personas represent your ideal clients, and should include information such as: Age group Role in the company Specific job frustrations Specific business goals Specific business pains Your personas will give your social media edge, they’ll keep you focused on what your customers need and want. Knowledge is power, and by doing your research you’ll be able to provide the right content to the right person, in the right place and at the right time. Now that you have this in mind, don’t do anything without applying this detailed insight. Step 2: Sign-up for Social Media Accounts You understand your prospects and you know where they hang out, so your next step is to create accounts / profiles for yourself and your business on the social media sites your prospects frequent. These could include Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. If you don’t have the time to manage numerous social profiles, focus on a select few – you can always expand later. Step 3: Start Listening and Stop Selling Find out what other people in your industry are doing and talking about. If you can, find out what the experts are doing – the ‘thought-leaders’ – and see what topics are popular amongst them. Listening is a key part of any social marketing campaign – it’ll help you refine your personas, make sure you’ve really fine tuned their business needs and frustrations, and understood how you can provide a solution. Step 4: Talk the Talk If you’ve done your research and understand just what your prospects are looking for, then start talking. There are a number of ways to start, you could engage in Twitter conversations, start a discussion in a LinkedIn group, or even participate in Q & A sessions. However the most important thing to remember is that we’re moving away from push marketing, cold calling doesn’t work and talking about your products and services will not attract potential clients. Sounds crazy right? Instead focus on pull marketing, make your clients want to visit your website. How do you do that? Well that’s where step 5 comes in. Step 5: Pull Them Closer, Don’t Push Them Away Content, the love child of marketers and copywriters across the land. Content marketing is the creation, promotion and sharing of high quality content for the purpose of driving website visitors, developing business leads and increasing brand awareness. To really crack social marketing, you must distribute lots of content, and not just any old content. Only high quality, fresh and relevant content will do. Content can exist as any of the following things: Tweets using Twitter Blog posts using Blogger or WordPress Infographics shared on LinkedIn White papers and resources ready to download from your website So is it worth it? Simply put, yes. Diving into the deep end of social media marketing takes time and a little thought, but that’s it. For new and established businesses the digital landscape opens up a whole new world of possibilities. By developing and implementing a smart and flexible social media strategy you will transform your business and prove that social networks can deliver lead generation. To find out more about how to use social networks to grow your business and develop business leads, read How to Generate Lead From Social Media eGuide. Twitter Tweet Facebook Share Email This article was written for Business 2 Community by Connor Brooke.Learn how to publish your content on B2C Author: Connor Brooke Connor is a Scottish financial expert, specialising in wealth management and equity investing. Based in Glasgow, Connor writes full-time for a wide selection of financial websites, whilst also providing startup consulting to small businesses. Holding a Bachelor’s degree in Finance, and a Master’s degree in Investment Fund Management, Connor has … View full profile ›More by this author:ACH Crypto Price Prediction 2022 – Is it a Buy?Lucky Block Partners with Dillian Whyte ahead of Heavyweight Showdown with Tyson FuryNFT Pixel Art – The Best NFT Collections for 2022