This article originally appeared on Memeburn. Copyright Memeburn.com 2015.
Social media is a great medium to generate sales leads. People that are searching online for a specific service or product will often ask their social circles for advice. This happens in real life, but most definitely online as well. There are thousands of social networking channels available online and we are not only looking for recommendations from our peers, but what others are generally talking about the product or service we are interested in. I love reading and before I purchase a new book, I often look at what others are saying about the book and the author on Amazon. Amazon is open for anyone to submit reviews and recommendations on all their products – including books.
This goes far beyond recommendations on trusted well-known websites. Who hasn’t seen tweets or social updates on Facebook where people are asking for help when they want to buy a new smartphone, tablet, car, TV or even a house? How can you use this to your advantage and start using social media to generate leads?
Monitor
This is the first step in this process and you have to monitor what is being said online relevant to your industry. Monitoring what your target audience is talking about consists of a combination of Google search results, Twitter, Facebook and other social media channels. You can do this manually, but there are many monitoring tools that can integrate all these channels, which makes it easier to manage this process.
Start the monitoring process by doing some keyword research based on the queries your target audience will be asking online. What are they going to say when they are looking for any help from their social circles?
Pickup the most relevant messages
Not all the mentions you will receive will be relevant to what you want to achieve. As you are busy monitoring the online conversation over time, you will start to get a better idea of what people are talking about when they want to buy a product or service. Research and analyse what these people are saying so that you can better optimise your queries to get better and more relevant results.
Create an action plan
Once you have all the relevant conversations, it’s time that you start putting an action plan together of getting hold of these people. Replying to the conversation with specific sales words such as “Buy now…” won’t do the trick. People are usually looking for advice and what other people’s experiences are with the product or service. They are looking for information so that they can make the right decision and depart with their money.
Reply to these people by giving them all the information that they require in regards to your products or services. Offer them a demo or coupon so that they can test it out themselves. If you are selling physical products, direct them towards your website where can view the product and all the information regarding it.
Once you have sent all the information to the person, give them some time to review the information and after a few days, get back to them ask them if you can help them with anything else or
if they would like more information.
Generating leads and sales via social media can sometimes take days so don’t expect instant results. It’s important that you keep record of all the steps you have already taken with a certain lead. Have you already sent them links and all the information they required? Did they respond to your messages? Did you follow up on the lead?
Flickr photo via Creative Commons license
