This document provides strategies for using social networks to generate business leads. It discusses evaluating a company's existing lead generation process and how social networks can fit into the buying process. Tactical social media approaches are emphasized, including using appropriate content, relevant measurement, and tools that shorten the lead time per sale. Both B2C and B2B examples are provided. Specific social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn are discussed as engagement platforms for lead generation.

1. Use Social Networks to
Attract Traffic and
Generate Leads
WhitePaper
Abstract
Business marketing made tremendous developments in growing
their customer database using social channels. This whitepaper
will detail methods to increase B2B deals and coin strategies that
will help secure and retain those leads.
FOMAX TECHNOLOGIES PVT. LTD
By Anusonia Jose

2. Introduction
Why create Leads?
 To build a database for Email Marketing
 To Discover New Business Clients
 To Find Business Investors and Partners
Today, intensive marketing efforts are implemented for improvising social media Return on
Investment. Unlike the previous goals,revenue generation of social media strategies has been
prioritized.A glance at those marketing procedures, in the B2B software space, companies like
HubSpot, InfusionSoft and HootSuite yield huge traffic numbers within minutes, by providing
valuable content, building leads and thereby converting their target audiences into socially
networked contacts. In the B2C space, passion for brands like Apple,Coca-Cola and Skoda have been
reignited by creative social media campaigns.
Does your company invest in Social Networking?
Create Lead links through your fans and followers?
Monetize your social media campaigns?
Evaluate the existing Lead Generation process in the company, Do social networks fitin the buying
process? Will socially connected leads convert at the same traditional methods?
Tactical approach is emphasized in these times to gain social media attention. Appropriate content
etiquettes need to be applied, proper channels for data distribution, and accurately
relevantmeasurement of social interaction is a definite requisite. Learn about the new social media
tools that shorten lead time per sale. Both business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business
(B2B) brands have benefited from social networking.Seal corporate sales funnel with qualified leads
by implementing the strategies detailed below:
Nurture Leads by being prepared!
1) Embark on a Lead Generation Campaign-Methods
2) Social Networking Need of the Hour- Advantages
3) Influence Buying Decisions-Conversion
4) Perfect 15 B2B Social Strategies for lead Generation- Implementation
5) Social Media Engagement Platforms- Movement
6) Measure and Monitor B2B Leads - Tactics
7) Diversification, Improvisation and Augmentation of Social Networks-
Relationships
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3. Embark on a Lead Generation Campaign- Methods
Analyze the existing marketing channels that currently contribute leads towards the sales funnel,
revisit thefollow-up process and then calculate time taken to close the sale.Social lead behavior, as
per results observed in previous experiments;detail how the potential buyers transact earlier in the
sales process; sometimes unaware about business competitors. Getting potential buyers’ attention
early has tremendous value that can be appreciated only when expectations have been set for social
lead performance. Based on several proven theories, a comparison between social media and
traditional saleshas revealed three levels that extend business target audience potential conversion
into converted prospects. The following diagram clearly details how the process of lead conversion
has flattened due to touch points.
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4. Conversion
Engagement
Action Influence
Opportunity Interest
Attention Desire Interaction
With the social networking transparency leads could directly reach one step ahead where they are already
exposed and informed about the business products and services. They could develop Attention, Desire,
Opportunities, Interest, or even Interact with the product/service through those social channels.
After being expressive in the first stage they scale up to take an action, influence another, or directly
engage with the business representation. At this point clearly, the benefits received are much more than
the traditional sales methodology.
Point of Conversion or Point of Sale is definitely more rewarding, as there have been chances for much
feedback and involvement during the lead generation process.
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5. Social Networking Need of the Hour- Advantages
 Branding & Increased Customer Awareness.
 Contact or Engage with Prospects
 Acquire Quality Traffic
 Reach Lead Generation Targets
 SurgeReturn over Investment or ROI
 Instant Customer reviews and feedback
 Cost Effective Advertising
 Preempt customerspreferences
 Socially Segmented Buzz
 Used on Smartphone Platforms
Traditionally, it was always considered that a certain connection lies between the size of a network
and the effectiveness of that marketing campaign. However, for modern methods like social media,
quality plays bigger role than quantity.
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6. Exhaustive List of Social Media Tools resourced by Sally falkow:
• News Feeds (RSS9
• syndicate buttons
• Blogs – platforms and plug-ins
• Microblogging (Twitter)
• Podcasts
• Images – and image sharing networks
• Video – and video sharing sites
• Social Networks – Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Plus, niche networks
• Social Media News Sites – Reddit, StumbleUpon, Digg
• Social Media News Releases, with multimedia and social bookmarks
• Search optimized articles, with feeds and commenting
• Widgets and Apps
• Social Media News Room – create a social media content hub on your website
Social Media Coordinated with Effective Email Marketing will capture all truly engaged prospects.
“It’s the approach whereby customers and prospects are communicated with on a regular basis, so
that when they are ready to commit to a sale, you are their first point of contact. This can be
extremely difficult if you were to try and establish this relationship through dialogue, but through the
use of social media and email marketing, the connection is maintained, and effectively nurtured into
a sale.” remarks GCL Direct.
Influence Buying Decision
Persistent Efforts are needed to ensure that the prospect, till point of sale is convinced about the
business profile, product and after sales services.Facilitatinguser convenience at all levels will be one
of the most important factors that help potential customers to actual make their first purchase.
Content is one of the crucial deciding factors that drive decision-making process. Strategies like
relevant and personalized ‘call to action’ phrase is another deciding factor. Strategicallydesigned
content display will answer Frequently AskedQuestions (FAQ) while purchasing theproduct;solve
hurdles in the sales process and provide more opportunities to capture all leads.
Provide a tab that allows followers to convert within the social networking website and then observe
the revenue generation projection periodically.
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7. Influence and connect with the potential buyers through the corporate blog. Today prospects are
more informed before they make a decision. Ensureconversion pointsto turn every post into a
landing page. A well connected network of content, business profile and product information could
be the desired package by most consumers.
Soft to Hard Lead Conversion
Businesses have an opportunity to convert interested social media fans and followers into email
subscribers. These are called soft leads at the moment as they do not have an interest in purchasing
the product. They will be happy to provide their email address in exchange for highly valuable and
relevant content and would love to recommend the business profile to third party.
Nurture the Social Media Lead
Don’t kill the sale by sending pamphlets, email campaigns related to the traditional mode of sale.
There is dire need to adjust value proposition for the social media leads differently. A hard lead is
that potential buyer who indicates by action that they are now interested in business offering. Here,
they belong to the consideration phase, an opportunity to convert the lead into a buyer.
Nurture the lead to develop trust with products and the company, continue to show thought
leadership while they make their decision. Combine influencing strategies and relevant content
while staying in touch with prospects so that it helps one identify when the lead makes the jump to
product interest. Indication for product interest could be signing up for a product feature list,
product demonstration, and webinar or downloading any other decision-making content for
example the price list.
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8. Analyze the group of influential domains and dynamic forces on social networking websites;Stay
connected with the thought leaders around the industry. Identify conversation drivers, influencers
and commentators who look like an informed conversationalist.
Perfect 14 B2B Social Strategies for lead Generation
1. Social Guidelines and Etiquettes
Written content guidelines for social media contributions, that ensures engagement with prospects,
frictionless and also helps the thinkers, influencers to thrive and lead product based discussions.Gebauer
felt“An info graphic on Pinterest can link to an article. A guest post on a blog can link to a video on
YouTube”. Staying top of every socially networked contact online and generating regular, recent and
relevant content helps build both brand and customers. Don’t lose out because of content mix, not all
users will attend webinar, browse case studies or watch videos.Appropriate mix of content like
Product based webinar, interviews, discussions, press releases, and blogs for current clients and
prospects are an excellent lead generating and referral source.
2. Push and Pull Approach
It is imperative to keep others informed about the product or service initiatives that are mostly pushing out
information to the social networks. At the same time, delicately balance pulling in participants as a key
contributor to aid brand resourcefulness. Word of mouth references are difficult yet through social media,
even this might take a minimum time and effort to effectively draw customers and thereby validate core
business ideals and success stories.
3. Develop a Resource Agent
Contribution is crucial, so always look for opportunities to motivate business marketers to discuss and
participate in the online social dialog. Remain a resource for your product, business profile and stay aware
always with the latest in the industry.Social channels will spread the resource messages only based on the
merits. Influence and Negotiation is a skill, which needs a lot of effort in the social media. Blog comments,
Digital chat sessions, utilize every opportunity to know the SME’s personally and professionally. Only skilled
experts can shape a brand out of ideas, relationships, people, and commoditize that information as a
valueproposition and thought leadership.
4. Promotion and Campaign
Focus is critical when products or services need to be promoted through social media. It is to interoperate
both the product promotion and lead nurturing campaign (scheduled series of targeted emails and flow steps
takes the campaign participant on a journey to Marketing Qualified Lead) together by linking them and
leveraging each with their strength to accomplish desired goals. Businesses cannot impose limits on
participation, instead could look for possibilities and learn how to engage in a dialog that is free-form and fluid
on the social networks. Campaigning again needs to be cost effective, timed, and incorporate every aspect of
online ethics.
5. Build Relationships
Maintain a relationship is more imperative to entrepreneursthan selling their products or services. It is critical
to build relationships with your employees, followers… aah, even competitors. "Without strong relationships,
it is impossible to have success as a business owner," says Michael Denisoff. Long-term customers and good
vendor relationships must be mutually beneficial always, as these then will be most valuable when business
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9. faces crisis. Don’t wait to reach out to your vendors, business peers and clients. Create contact database
where all information is neatly organized, stored with reminders for occasions.
6. Audience Segmentation
In order to fully utilize the social networks, a proper database could be created based on the social
profiles of the prospects generated. Identification and monetization of the target audience can
happen at a faster pace, if the details are collected and each prospect is divided into a group, based
on the demographics.
7. Control Content and Freebies
Brand marketers want outstanding results for their campaigns and rely on data to drive their media-
buying decisions. Social media content could include e-newsletters, blogs, white papers, article
marketing, guides, industry and business case studies and online videos. Companies tend to stay
updated about the current trends and write a lot after equally good amount of research. Such
content investment yields heavy returns in terms of followers on social media. Once in a while
promotion of such content related freebies is an excellent strategy.
8. Movement Marketing
Loads of articles have been published on the web about this strategy. Monitor conversations about
the business brand and competitors. After much research all that data could be used to create a
buzz about how which all social channels will carry the same headline for a period of time. A
research paper that draws inferences on industry and your product could be marketed from all the
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10. social platforms using relevant content modules. This will help the business reach the industry target
audience at all levels of social marketing.
9. Regular News Headlines
When you have a news tip, business success story, or a research document on a topic, offer the
piece of work to a reporter. HARO is one good way to spread information and get high-quality, free
publicity for your business. Keep your eyes open for other ways to distribute information about
your business. You could even get product or business reviews published at Squidoo.com.
10. Optimize Social Activity
All search engines tend to display these social updates for search queries or keywords. It is
important that these social websites carry content optimized for search engine front page. Search
engines are responsible for bringing the user to product pages thereby generating potential
customers.
11. Brand Differentiation
The World Wide Web is a cluster of websites; it is very difficult to choose from the list of products
and services available. Business Networking helps distinguish products and services from that of the
competitor. It creates a niche with a particular set of followers who have probably generated an
interest for the product. Suggestions and Improvisations about the product made with the help of
these clients, influencers etcetera gives the service credibility and the required positioning on the
web.
12. Social Media Advertising
Knowing the latest social media trends can help advertisers scrutinize best the game plans and
budgets of advertising on the social network. To make the most of dollars and euros invested in
social advertising, the deciding factors are; whom are they trying to reach, at what scale, and at what
level of engagement?Engagement needs to have its own rules and regulations distinct from group to
individual. Reports reveal a lot of these efforts have been to generate word of mouth buzz and
communicate brand stories.
13. Establish Company Online
Michelle deHaaff suggests that companies examine social media and online assets to see what they
can leverage for full social media engagement. She opines seven key assets are needed: location,
people, stories, images, video, audio and words to ensure effective engagement with the business
entity. This will help build a lot more trust as a factor for the successful localized online existence.
14. Measure and Monitor
Social Media has evolved to record easy data inferences; it even helps measure and monitor
database. This 3W platform has now incorporated built-in intelligence and analytical capabilities.
Sharp details and relevant content elicits a networked response and instant feedback from audience.
The freedom to express both positive and negative messages with substantial facts and figures has
made the social domain a very powerful platform. One needs to act on reinforcement techniques
quickly before the negative comments produce viral effects.
Some of analytical tools that can do a lot of the researching and reporting brunt of Social Media
marketing collated by Sally Falkow:
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11. • Radian6
• Sysomos
• Nielsen BuzzMetrics
• Visible Technologies
• Trackur
• Attensity
• Alterian SM2
• Scout Labs
• Jive Software
• eCairn Conversation
A comparison of several tools – http://www.pr2020.com/files/PR_SM-Monitoring-Comparison.pdf
Social Media Engagement Platforms
Social Media stands two steps ahead of other lead generating processes, because of the convenience and
customer engagement effectiveness that has been observed. Marketers today technicallyembed monitoring
tool codes directly into a social app, which in turn connects to a landing page on that social website; whereby
every lead generated falls directly into marketing automation software. Four major Social Engagement
Platforms that are a must for all businesses networking are- Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Twitter
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12. 1.
Facebook
The best way to leverage Facebook is to build brand awareness and get your audience to subscribe or “like”
your page as a way to promote your brand. Once you have identified fans from those that “liked” your page,
you can use Facebook to promote your content. Several companies like Marketotoday have created software
that could customize Facebook application and directly get leads in their automated marketing database. By
matching demographic information like industry, company size, and job title helps identify hot prospects. An
added benefit is that it helps provide content more appropriate for capturing them as leads. These could later
even share thecampaign with their Facebook buddies.
Twitter
One of the most popular micro blogging website, Twitter connects through business networks by building a
base of “followers”. These followers are united with the effective and useful “hash-tagging” and “re-tweeting”,
Headline messages, pictures and videoscould be shared with the followers, to promote new updates,
capabilities, practices, and testimonials. Build a business related ecosystem in line with social strategy and also
communicate meaningfully in those 140 characters. Use Twitter scheduled updates, URL shortened, in order to
communicate contemporary events or something that provides a future view.
YouTube
Second largest search engine, YouTube allowsvideo content that is indexed on other search engines,
searchable within the website and also allows user subscriptions that details new or updated content. It is a
great platform for product demonstrations, event promotion,panel discussions, and knowledge sharing such as
education content, etc... Create an exclusive YouTube channel for business services as related content
develops, so that audience could be informed and return for more.
LinkedIn
Launched on May 5, 2003, LinkedIn proved to be a powerful platform that serves as a diversified business
model; with revenues coming from hiring solutions, marketing solutions and premium standpoints. Solicits and
trace connections, profile views, syndicates content from other social networking websites and blogs, etc. and
several other applications on LinkedIn have enhanced user experience online. One of the most reputed
companies will have a professionallymanaged company page on LinkedIn, again linked to its market
competitors or industry groups. According to Comscore; LinkedIn ranked as the 31st most-visited website
worldwide. ComScore measured 9.4 billion page views in the first quarter of 2012.
Measure Social Media Lead Generation Results
2. It is now possible to measure the marketing ROI of our social efforts.Social channels improvised and
facilitated canalization, identification and relate a specific campaign to the leads generated that had later
turned to revenue.Formerly, identify where leads generate in the sales process was to measure
efforts.Without the proper understanding of long sales cycles and lead nurturing stages,it was a slow yet
steady move to the current campaignsuccess measurement.The quickest and most cost-effective way
wasto monitor social media conversions that apply Google analytics campaign tracking code to the
links you shorten and post on social networks. Now there have been tools like Marketo, Hubspot,
HootSuite etcetera which made marketing ROI measurement another convenient, easy to
understand and implement strategy.
Use these metrics to demonstrate success through the sales funnel:
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13. Cost per
impression
Cost per Cost per
soft Lead Hard Lead
Cost per
engagement
Cost Per
Cost per
Impression Social
Network
Cost per
Sale
Monitor B2B Leads
Monitor the entire social web! More than just the social networking clients, the Engagement will take
effect when there is word to word monitoring of the complete web in real time. Many platforms have now
started making this job easy by capturing hundreds of millions of posts each day, including Facebook, blogs,
news sites, discussion boards, video and image sharing sites.
As a secondary step, traditional methods to monitor buzz could be UsingTwitter advanced search (or Twitter
clients such as Hootsuite, TweetDeck or CoTweet) to monitor keywords around your business, including your
brand names, trademarks, product types and competitors. Use Google Alerts to keep up with the latest news
about your company and product techniques. And search mentions of product brand in blogs via Google Blog
Search or Technorati.
Ability to work collaboratively across all the social needs of networked customers can be possible only when
there is full time team trained to digitally analyze the inbound and outbound conversations. Team will have to
monitor and then be empowered to coordinate responses, share information, and stay connected. Each time
launch searches within feeds, filter by keyword, and focus on relevant discussions on the social media
websites. Discover conversations that are happening in a date range, or in real-time and respond accordingly.
Maintain theconversation thread history, notes and also add identifying source tags to give context to the
ongoing interactions.This collection of utilities, third party integrations and macros need to be designed to
allow users to customize the Engagement techniques to meet specific social media monitoring and
engagement needs.Social media monitoring has opened up limitless possibilities; personally think it’s time to
join the conversation.
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14. Why monitoring? With an end goal in mind there will be a direction for social networking,
monitoring will help realize, where corporate networking needs effort and what works on the web.
Instant results always will keep the organization competent and reach desired benchmarks in real
time.
Diversification, Improvisation and Augmentation of Social
Networks
B2B sales are moreabout relationships built over time. A lot of products/ services/ brand might need to be
diversified, improvised or even augmented on the Social Networks. Voluminous body of links and multimedia
content make matters even more complicated.
 Need a Social Media Team
Handling thousands of queries, reading on the web commenting and then analyzing current trends is
definitely not a single source effort. There is a dire need for a complete team on board. Social media
information is bigger and faster than any other information channel launched before.
 Engagement Advertising
Social Media recommends Engagement Advertising as a current trend. Engagement Ads encourage members
to interact with the ads without being diverted away from what they’re doing. They are encouraged to leave
comments, share virtual gifts or become fans. The ads are designed to increase interaction, social spread and
brand engagement.
 Develop a Backup Plan
A crisis management plan is quintessential. Don’t repeatNestle’s Facebook Page mistakes again, these will hit
you harder than any other big brand. Backup plan for engagement in more routine situations is a compulsory
exercise. All kinds of negative frill and raves about the product should be foreseen and prepared for. Some
questions that should always be at the back of your mind-
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15. How do you turn this goodwill into collaboration into a mutually beneficial deal?
How do you create Customer Grievance or Redressal program?
How do you internalize and execute on product feedback?
How do you deal with irate customers/ Bloggers?
Constantly check all these scenarios and figure out could one activate the right resources within the
organization.
 Match your ROI Tools
Ask vendors the tough questions like “For which websites does this social media marketing ROI tool track
results?” Never lose sight of your objective-How do you monitor using their tools and engage in brand building
over the social networks? What are some best practices you’ve developed?
Having data available in real-time simply makes it worthwhile. The ability to set up and start tracking
immediately, gives contentment in knowing that everything is working smoothly. And, if something does end
up being wrong, no time will have been wasted in being seen as penalized for it or a golden chance to rectify
the mistake through a comment or suggestion.
 Business Leads in Real-Time
Taking advantage of real-time analytics requires commitment and being able to analyze your data in real-time
has the potential to add a lot of value to your business, whether you run a hugely popular website like The
Hubspot or if it is a small business initiative. It really helps keep a lean organization. And, frankly, it’s why
companies who work manually are no more sustained on Social networks. It’s possible to automate some of the
work, but you usually need a human decision maker. This can be difficult to get correct but it can make your
advantage even bigger once you succeed.Using social media to drive conversation with potential leads is a
hefty process with a few steps that just need to be automated so that work is done well within time to ensure real
time engagement with business entities.
Conclusion
The keyword in social media is “social”, and the World Wide Web has exponentially expanded the social factor
at large for lead generation. People were social long before the advent of Internet and social media, then what
has changed since then? Try implementing the offline skills as an example that worked over time and put them
to use online. Meet people, communicate and build relationships over the web itself. Develop and foster
complex relationships via Skype and other such online resources. As always, make sure that customers are
aware of your product, understand its benefits, and have a way to purchase. Sound like the perfect
conversationalist with consumers, and provide insightful resources and answer any questions that arise. Yeah,
that’s pretty much it… for some of the traditional organizations. Ignorant of the sea of opportunities that lay
before them, these business marketers will soon be exhausted once they go live online.
About the Author - Anusonia Jose
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16. “With a goal to continually add tons of value to the all products and services that I promote.”
Anusonia has studied Business Management in Marketing, Sales, and Advertising & holds a degree in
English Literature from Delhi relocated to Mumbai and currently resides at Bangalore. She has previous
experience in Online Marketing, Email marketing, and Web Content Writing.
Useful Resources
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Content
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/5-tips-for-moving-social-media-leads-into-the-sales-funnel/
http://mashable.com/2010/06/24/social-media-lead-generation/
http://infoanalytica.com/social_media_solutions.php
http://mashable.com/2010/08/02/successful-social-media-monitoring/
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=32179#
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/26-ways-to-use-social-media-for-lead-generation/
http://www.business2community.com/social-media/how-to-measure-social-media-lead-generation-0184310
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