This post is about how social media marketing can help your business generate targeted, high quality leads.
Here’s what we know about the more traditional approach to lead generation:
Somewhere close to you this morning, a group of small business owners will be attending an early morning networking breakfast, each hoping that someone gives them a lead.- At another location, a small business owner is wondering what will happen, when her radio commercial is played today.
- Another business owner, will be standing by the phone, waiting for the response to his latest mail shot.
- Then there will be the business owner, waiting to see what happens when the magazine she advertised in gets published today.
- Finally, one business owner will be summoning up the courage to start making cold calls.
Those are some common ways for small business owners to try and get business leads.
Another approach – Social media marketing
Social media marketing allows us to network on a local, national or global scale. It allows us to build targeted networks of great contacts, based on our specific area of commercial interest. The cost is extremely low and there’s no cost barrier to building as big and successful a network as you can. For those of us who add blogging to our social media marketing mix, we can also showcase our expertise and knowledge to these amazing people, so they can get a real handle on who we are and the value we bring.
This blog and my other social media marketing accounts, generate sales and business leads for my business all day, every day. This means I have the freedom to run a successful small business, whilst living in a beautiful, rural location, with clients and customers worldwide, and never need to attend networking events, pay for advertisements or pay for any other type of marketing.
Online and offline – It’s all about people
If you’re thinking that social media marketing only works for businesses that are mainly based online, consider this. I was prompted to write this post after receiving 2 messages on the same day, from 2 totally unconnected people. They give a perfect example of the way online and offline have fused together.
- Irene Koehler wanted to know if my ears were burning, because at a meeting in California, Kelly Kim, the co-founder of Twylah, mentioned me to her. These professionals had never met before and I had nothing to do with their meeting, yet they both knew me because of my social media marketing. A great example of online merging with offline.
- Later that day, Shona Easton asked me if my ears were burning, because she was talking about me to a guy at an exhibition in London. Shona knew me initially via social media, but her conversation with that person at the exhibition, took my reach offline.
In short: Before you tell yourself, ‘I’m too busy to find out how to correctly use social media marketing’, it’s important you know the possible upside, when you discover how to do the right things, correctly.
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Photo: George Johnson
Excellent points, Jim. So much of business is rooted in relationships. Social media has allowed many of us to build and cultivate important relationships, many leading to friendships, business clients or partners, and referrals. These relationships don’t end when we step away from the computer.
When I unexpectedly saw Kelly, she recognized me instantly and immediately remembered that she knew me through you. Not only did this lead to both of us sharing our positive experiences in knowing you, but it was also a wonderful seed of a connection for the two of us.
Hi Irene. You make a great point there, about how Kelly and yourself had a shared experience via me, for your conversation.
This really emphasises the ‘social’ element of social media and social media marketing.
Thanks for the feedback.
Jim, your two examples remind me of my own experience with social media. I write about a very specific niche and I use social media to get the word out. I often receive emails and phone calls from people who know me only through social media. Even the media contacts me for interviews based on what I say in social media. It is a very powerful platform indeed.
Isn’t that wonderful, Suzanne – that people can ‘know’ us and our work, before ever meeting with us or speaking with us.
Thanks for the comment.
Oooh, am I pushing my luck by trying a second comment this week?
I have had several experiences where I have met people at networking events and they already know who I am – “because I recognise your photo from Twitter/Facebook.”
I was even in a cafe when someone came up to me to say hello and introduce themselves.
And yet I meet many business owners who insist that it is a waste of time, preferring to rely solely on expensive traditional advertising methods through the salesman who has visited them every few months for the last two decades.
I think this is completely short-sighted and not particularly cost effective. I’m not saying they should not use those forms of getting their message out but they shouldn’t restrict themselves through fear of the unknown.
As I explained to a regular networker recently, she should not be frightened of Twitter. It’s just networking through her keyboard and pretty much the same rules apply. Instead of 30 seconds, you get 140 characters so you adapt accordingly.
Social Media is another strand of the great web of communication and people should ignore it at their peril.
I thinks social media marketing is one of the latest buzz in the business world today. Almost every company, small or big, are creating accounts in different social networks to stay connected with their clients, prospects, investors and well-wishers. With proper social media marketing strategy, you can win huge business contracts online. No need to visit here and there. Share all your business information through Facebook, Twitter, MySpace or LinkedIn and see what is the outcome of your investment on social media marketing.
Jim I’m living testament of what social media marketing can do for one’s business. I currently work as a digital journalist with an Abuja based content marketing company and the response in that part of the world has been poor owing to the relatively new concept, people here are more conventional and conservative and slow to experiment more over content marketing is seen as another unnecessary expense by many small businesses.
Anyway recently some of our clients have been getting back to us on what our online marketing campaign is already achieving for them with some of them actually commending our efforts even when we haven’t done up to 5 months with them. Conclusion on my part is that social media marketing is an evolving platform for leads generation for businesses and like you noted, it’s on a global scale.