Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Flipboard 0 Many businesses have trouble seeing how social media could help generate more leads — and, yes, in fact, qualified leads. After all, posts to various social channels are much more a generalized blast than they are tailored information suited to specific leads. Still, studies have shown time and again that social media has become an important part of the sales process, and the percentage of people who are making decisions based on interactions on social channels is only growing. Maybe it took some time for your business to even get up and running on social media – you didn’t see what all the fuss was about at first, and then once you realized your customers were there and they were paying more attention to your competition, you hurried to catch up. It’s okay – a lot of businesses were in this boat. The important part is that you’re on social now, right? Yes and no. You’ve got the tools and you’re interacting across various channels, but it’s not enough to just maintain. Whereas the last wave was just becoming social, this wave is all about managing your prospects. So how can you make social media work for your lead nurturing? First, keep in mind the important social media lessons that you’ve already learned: social is great for building relationships with your customers and prospects. Now, think about the natural extension of that. If it’s great for building those relationships, it’s also a good way to maintain them. You’re likely already sending emails and other correspondence as part of your lead nurturing. Something you can do that is so simple (and therefore often overlooked) is to include icons linked to your social channels so that prospects can connect with you if they haven’t already. From here, make sure that the content that you’re sharing on your social channels is segmented to some extent. That is, create a strategy in which you share content geared toward top-of-the-funnel, middle-of-the-funnel, and bottom-of-the-funnel with a relatively equal balance. While this method of social lead nurturing isn’t personally tailored to each prospect, it is suited toward a general population that could find the information useful and reach out to you (via social sites) to ask questions or discuss further. Don’t forget to include social share icons so that they can pass the content along! That’s another small but effective way to make your lead nurturing more social. You never know when prospects will share content and introduce more prospects into your funnel. Of course, one of the biggest and best ways to engage in social lead nurturing is through your Social Media Management Platform, which preferably integrates with your CRM system and also offers some lead scoring capability over social channels. Such solutions allow you to monitor key words and phrases that and (and should) trigger some action from your business. It’s wise to set yourself up with more than just one term (your company name, for example). Prospects aren’t necessarily looking for you by name (yet). They have a need that must be satisfied, so you need to set up search terms that will help you locate prospects expressing such a need. And then what? Once you find them (and when your monitoring is set up properly, you will), you need to reach out to them and open the lines of communication. Depending upon the engagement the platform would ideally assign lead scores. Social nurturing is not a one-and-done deal! Reaching out to a potential lead on social media is great, but you have to be willing to interact. If you offer to answer questions and they reply by asking you questions, be prepared to answer – and in a timely fashion. This might mean that you have one social account solely dedicated to these kinds of interactions, or it might mean that you ask a team of your employees to get involved and take turns responding. Whatever you choose to do, keep nurturing in mind: you’re planting the seed and helping it to grow, not putting it in the ground and then depriving it of nourishment. Does social lead nurturing take time? Yes. Is it always easy? Of course not. But the best things rarely are, and when you’ve worked hard to nurture a lead that eventually becomes a sale, the effort is always worth it. What are some of your favorite social lead nurturing techniques? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments. Twitter Tweet Facebook Share Email This article originally appeared on NextPrinciples and has been republished with permission.Find out how to syndicate your content with B2C Join our Telegram channel to stay up to date on breaking news coverage 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