Generating leads using social media channels

Social media & lead generation – 6
steps to complete a sales funnel

Abhishek ANAND Drop me a mail: mail@abyshake.com
http://www.abyshake.com

Step #1 – An active blog

Maintain an active blog to start and join real-time conversations online. If
real-
you don’t have a blog, start one NOW!


• Start today. Don’t wait till you finalize a
blogging strategy

• Change your blogging approach with time.
Evolve! Observe and analyze the conversations
on your blog and adapt to sentiments

• Set up a monitoring system to keep abreast of
conversations happening among your audience

̶ Maintain a consolidated or separate feeds
for the results of the monitoring system

̶ Include twitter for real-time conversations

• Put to use Google Alerts for specific keywords to
Blogging is the new public speaking, if not more get notified about any new development in your
1. Build good content; make people aware of it
targeted niche market
2. If the content is good, people will come to you
3. Following is loyal, since they are interested in
what you write about • Write on most searched-for terms in industry


• Engage in conversations:
– Irrespective of the source where the conversation is
happening – other blogs or a forum – the people
participating in the conversation there are part of
your target group. Engage with them; make them
aware of your products, services and expertise

• Keep yourself aware of latest trends in industry; write
Encourage discussions between
and with the audience
about them. If its something new, people want to know
about it. The more you are able to attract people to your
website, the better chances you have at generating a lead

• Result:
– Improved audience perception and visibility

– Better brand recall – People tend to remember if
they have interacted with you in past. And a
Engagement is about people; more
than establishing your expertise, it meaningful interaction/conversation builds trust
is about building trust


Step #2 – The power of twitter

Twitter is the best mode of having a real-time crisp and precise
real-
conversation. People follow others with mutual interests and that gives
you an important leverage


• Tweet important news-items related to your
company with the active online community, e.g.
blog-posts, webinars, seminars, developments

• Think of ways to prompt people from audience
to respond, e.g. quizzes, trivia, opinions

• In case your company is organizing an event,
symposium, seminar of some nature, get
feedback and thoughts on the same – both
during as well as after the event

• People tweet to vent out, search for solutions,
looking for quick responses – Stay connected
with your audience; be it rave or rant

No useless jibber jabber. Tweet things relevant
• Re-tweet industry related information – helps
and interesting to your target audience. you stay in front of your followers and stimulate
Remember, Quality >> Quantity relevant conversations

Strategic approach on using Twitter as an effective marketing tool

Market Strategy Follow Create Engage

Answer questions, respond
Customers – both existing Relevant content – tips,
Customer Relations to comments, inform of your
as well as potential trends, company info etc.
existence

Direct to additional Raise issues in the industry,
Related reputed brands,
Crisis Management resources, information, provide information and
products, relevant issues
insights insights

Critical insights and Get involved in the
Industry leaders, groups of
Reputation Management expertise – get established conversation (but only if
similar interests, media
as a thought leader you can add value to it)

People interested in or Event information, updates, Talk to attendees, set-up
Event Coverage
attending the event follow-up discussions virtual meet-ups and Q&A

Customers – existing and Links to promo and demo Encourage questions,
Product Promotion & Sales potential – interested in videos, information on answer them. Provide
similar products upcoming sales, discounts additional info if needed


Step #3 – LinkedIn Groups

As compared to groups created over any social network, LinkedIn groups
have been most successful on account of the capability to attract the
right professional backgrounds – leading to highly efficient engagement


• Create the group as an open forum to discuss
issues related to the industry, not the company
or its products and services

• Having the group and the issues being
discussed not limited to the company makes it
easier to attract engagement from a much larger
Initiate the discussions on issues relevant to
your industry. Initiate and keep it alive, but
audience-base related to the industry
encourage participation from audience
• Take initiative in the group to kick-off
conversations, and to keep it alive – but using
highly relevant and good-quality data

• Representatives of company should act as
catalysts to keep conversations going, and help
more people participate. But the effective
dialogue between two separate individuals
People tend to be influenced more by those who
have knowledge of the industry, and who can should be as promoted and encouraged
give critical insights while answering queries


Step #4 – Optimized PRs

With a lot of customers researching all products and services online in
purchase decisions, optimized press release strategy to ensure quality
blog-
blog-coverage and SEO would get the company higher web-footprint
web-


• Be regular – have a systemized Press Release
distribution strategy. Release at least one press
release each week

• Encourage inbound traffic by having just the
crisp summary in press releases, with links to
sections of company website/blog wherever
relevant – Pique their interest, rope them in

• Optimize the dissemination time to late
morning/early afternoon of the time-zone
where your target audience is located

• Make use of press release distributing agencies –
free or paid

• Post your press releases on LinkedIn and Twitter
to get maximum visibility in front of the exact
target audience – potential customers

Step #5 – Social signature

Just promoting your company/yourself on social media channels isn’t
enough; you need to promote the social media channels as well. If
nobody knows of them, promotions on these channel wouldn’t help


• Keep your audience – known or unknown –
aware of your social media presence

• Include the links to your social media channels as
well as blog into

̶ Email signatures

̶ Presentations

̶ Events, seminars and webinars

̶ Promotions and blog

• Do cross promotion

̶ Include update from your social channels
into your blog

̶ Include important news, announcements
Link to the latest post on the blog inserted in the signature –
Now everytime a mail is sent, you are circulating your blog
and coverage into your email signatures
post. You can use it to publicize blog, events etc. and on the blog

Step #6 – Analyze

Analyze the amount and nature of impact Step#1 – Step#5 are making
on your traffic, and constantly optimize your strategy and efforts being
put in the same


• Track a variety of social metrics:

• Unique blog post views

• Twitter followers and retweets

• LinkedIn group members and their
interaction with the group

• Track a variety of marketing metrics:

• Unique visitors to the website and their
inbound source

• Traffic generated by SEO

• Leads generated by various sources – Blog,
Break your overall online marketing presence into Social media posts, Seminars and Webinars
granular levels and see the impact each level has been
making on the final conversion funnel
• Identify a correlation between activity on the
Optimize you online marketing, presence and social media channels and increase in leads and
engagement accordingly
sales pipeline activity

# Abhishek ANAND

@abyshake

http://in.linkedin.com/in/abyshake

http://abyshake.com

http://blog.abyshake.com

mail@abyshake.com


Generating leads using social media channels

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