Using Social Media to Generate and Retain Business | Leadtail
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The document emphasizes the importance of social media in generating and retaining business, highlighting its role in influencing B2B purchasing decisions and fostering customer relationships. It provides strategies for effectively using social media to find, connect, and engage with prospects, including setting objectives, understanding target audiences, and utilizing various social media tools. The guidelines encourage meaningful interactions and a long-term investment in social media engagement, rather than solely focusing on direct sales.
Using Social Media to Generate and Retain Business | Leadtail
- 1. Use Social Media to Generate and Retain Business Prepared by Carter Hostelley January 10, 2012
- 2. Why Social Media is Important? • Your prospects and customers are turning to social media when researching and making buying decisions. 60% of B2B decision makers now use social media*. • They are talking about brands and products using social media. You need to know what they re saying to sell more successfully. • Your competitors are also using social media, and talking to your customers and prospects… don’t you want to join the conversation? • Want to find, connect, and engage with prospects and customers? Then start using social media! *Social Strategy for B2B Marketing 2011 from Global Web Index
- 3. Lots of Ways to Use Social Media • Find potential prospects • Research prospects interests and hot buttons • Discover mutual connections and get introductions to prospects and influencers • Get in touch and connect with prospects • Generate interest in your products by engaging your prospects and customers • Deepen relationships with customers, partners, vendors, etc. • Leverage testimonials and referrals
- 4. How to Get Started? 1. Determine your social media objectives 2. Understand the social profile of your prospects 3. Select the social media tools you ll use to find, connect, and engage prospects (and customers and influencers!) 4. Track and measure progress along the way
- 5. 1. Determine Your Social Media Objectives • Build your company and professional brand • Find and research prospects and key influencers • Connect with more prospects and customers • Engage prospects and customers to generate and retain more business Find Connect Engage
- 6. 2. Understand Your Customers and Prospects • What are they saying online about your brand or product? • What social networks do they belong to? (e.g., LinkedIn) • Do they read, share, and/or create social content? (e.g., blogs, Twitter, LinkedIn) • Where are they active on the Social Web?
- 7. 3. Select Your Social Media Tools Tools Sign Up URL Get Started h"ps://www.linkedin.com h"p://learn.linkedin.com/ h"p://www.twi"er.com h"p://support.twi"er.com/groups/31-‐twi"er-‐basics h"p://www.facebook.com h"p://mashable.com/guidebook/facebook/ h"p://wordpress.com h"p://en.support.wordpress.com/ge=ng-‐started h"p://www.youtube.com h"p://www.youtube.com/t/about_ge=ng_started
- 8. 4. Track and Measure Progress (More Tools!) Tools Descrip6on URL Measures Monitors Web for brand and keyword www.google.com/alerts Social Engagement men@ons. Sends email alerts. Social Advocacy Monitors Social Web and blogs for Social Engagement brand men@ons. Sends email alerts. www.socialmen@on.com Social Advocacy Track interac@ons with fans and content within Social Views Insights Facebook. Must be page admin to view. www.facebook.com/insights Social Engagement Social Advocacy Measures an individuals social influence. Want high Klout score folks recommending brand. www.klout.com Social Advocacy Link shortening tool that makes it easy to track www.bitly.com Social Referrals and analyze clicks and referral sources. Monitors Twi"er for brand and keyword Social Engagement www.tweetbeep.com men@ons. Sends email alerts. Social Advocacy Social Audience Website and blog analy@cs that tracks unique visits; and inbound clicks from social referrals. www.google.com/analy@cs Social Views Social Referrals Insights Website and blog analy@cs that tracks unique www.youtube.com/t/ Social Audience visits; and inbound clicks from social referrals. adver@sing_insight Social Views
- 9. Just Remember Before You Dive In Do Don t Do use social media to help people solve Don t use social media to do a hard sales customer and prospect problems. pitch to anyone. Do use social media to develop real Don t think social media means just having rela@onships. a LinkedIn account. Do give people reasons to talk about your Don t just talk about how great your product… and make it easy for them to do so! product is. Do engage like a real person: use everyday Don t engage like a corpora@on: language, give opinions, and ask ques@ons. impersonal, boring, and using jargon. Do invest in social media for the long term… Don t expect instant results (sorry!) just like you do with regular networking.
- 10. The B2B Social Media Process Find Connect Engage
- 11. Find and Research Prospects • Your prospects are on social networks to engage with colleagues, and share information about brands and products. • These same social networks make it easy for you to find and research your prospects by searching profiles, content, groups, etc. • So go ahead and find prospects by searching: ü Job title, industry, company, geography, education, etc. ü Keywords related to your product benefits, the pain it solves, and industry and competitor-related keywords too. ü Industry, competitor, or product related events and content.
- 12. Connect with Prospects and Customers Your prospects and customers are already connected to their personal networks with social media. Now it s time for you to connect with them too: • Listen for people talking about your brand or product and find ways to connect with them (use alert services such as Google Alerts or Social Mention). • Give your prospects, customers, and partners a reason to connect with you by offering interesting content, relevant ideas, and expert help. • Share the content and ideas of your prospects and customers… They ll appreciate it, and connect with you.
- 13. Engage with Social Media Once you re connecting with prospects and customers, you can now start engage them: • Focus on helping not selling when communicating via social media (show them you re an expert!). Remember: no one likes the hard sell but everyone needs help. • Acknowledge and thank others first, and then ask them to take an action: registering for a webinar, downloading a whitepaper, or getting together for coffee. • Asking and answering questions is a great way to start the engagement process. • Generate interest in your products by engaging your prospects, customers, and key influencers.
- 14. Examples Using LinkedIn and Twitter Largest social network of business professionals • Over 120 million members in 200+ countries • Executives from every Fortune 500 company • Nearly 2 billion people searches in 2010 Real-time information network • 100 million active Twitter users every month • Generate over 200 million tweets per day • 13%+ of online US adults now using Twitter
- 15. Find Stage: LinkedIn and Twitter • Do people search by job title, • Use Twitter search to find out geography, and relevant keywords. who s talking about your brand or • Search for decision makers at target products. companies. • Use Twitter search to find out • Browse your network s connections. who s talking about the pain your product solves or other keywords • Search your updates newsfeed for that your prospects talk about. relevant keywords. • User Twitter search to see who is • See who s asking questions in talking about your competitors’ relevant group discussions. products, events, whitepapers, etc. • See who s asking relevant • Share industry and product-related questions using LinkedIn Answers. content… and see who starts • See who in your network just following you! changed jobs or titles.
- 16. Social Media Examples Using LinkedIn you can do simple and advanced searches for People, Companies, Groups, etc.
- 17. Social Media Examples Search your LinkedIn connections, search LinkedIn by title (CTO), and listen to who s tweeting…
- 18. Connect Stage: LinkedIn and Twitter • Connect with former customers, • Tweet consistently with helpful colleagues, classmates, etc. to content to build up your audience of build your professional network. followers. • Ask your network for intro s to • Follow people you d like to connect connect with prospects. with (just remember they may not • Connect to People You May follow you back.) Know by referencing the • Retweet the relevant content of connections you have in common. people you d like to connect with. • Post content in your “status update” • Send thank you messages to new and in relevant groups. (relevant) followers. • Always thank people for retweets and if relevant then follow them.
- 19. Social Media Examples Connect with people you know, former colleagues, and others that LinkedIn recommends
- 20. Social Media Examples Build followers by consistently tweeting, acknowledging others, and following relevant people
- 21. Engage Stage: LinkedIn and Twitter • Participate in group discussions by • Reply to those that retweet you to asking and answering questions. thank and engage them. • Get testimonials from your customers • Send a direct message to those and partners. (Hint: write that follow you (customers and recommendations for them). prospects) to engage them further. • Comment, like, and share the status • Ask your followers a question and updates of people in your network. engage those that reply. • Send thank you invites after • Acknowledge followers when they events, phone calls, meetings, etc. tweet valuable content by • Get your connections to give retweeting them. Engage those that introductions to prospects. thank you for retweets! • Research people before meeting to discover more ways to engage them.
- 22. Social Media Examples Join discussions, ask for intro s, and get testimonials
- 23. Social Media Examples Engage people by thanking and acknowledging them
- 24. Set Measurable Objectives and Track Progress LinkedIn Examples: • Add 25% more LinkedIn Connections over next 90 Days • Get 5 new LinkedIn recommendations (focus on customers and partners NOT colleagues) • Sign up for 5 LinkedIn Groups and answer at least 1 question every week Twitter Examples: • Do at least 2 tweets a day (every day!) • Add 50 new Twitter followers in next 30 days (focus on customers and prospects… NOT colleagues) • Thank every person that Retweeted your content with a personalized message • Thank customers and prospects for following you and ask them to take an action
- 25. Thank You! Leadtail helps marketers, advertisers, and business owners with their online marketing and social media needs. Let us know how we can help you… http://Marketing.Leadtail.com http://www.Leadtail.com http://www.StartupYourOnlineAdvertising.com http://www.BestOnlineAdvertisingStuff.com @Leadtail www.facebook.com/Leadtail (888) 330-3236