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Use Social Media to Generate and Retain Business Prepared by Carter Hostelley January 10, 2012
Use Social Media to Generate and Retain Business
Prepared by Carter Hostelley January 10, 2012
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
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
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
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
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?
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
4. Track and Measure Progress (More Tools!)
Tools Descrip6on
www.google.com/alerts
URL
www.klout.com
www.bitly.com
www.facebook.com/insights
Monitors Web for brand and keyword men@ons. Sends email alerts.
Monitors Social Web and blogs for brand men@ons. Sends email alerts.
Track interac@ons with fans and content within Facebook. Must be page admin to view. Insights
Measures an individuals social influence. Want high Klout score folks recommending brand.
Measures
Social Engagement Social Advocacy
Social Engagement Social Advocacy
Social Views Social Engagement Social Advocacy
Social Advocacy
Link shortening tool that makes it easy to track and analyze clicks and referral sources. Social Referrals
Monitors Twi"er for brand and keyword men@ons. Sends email alerts.
Social Engagement Social Advocacy
www.tweetbeep.com
Website and blog analy@cs that tracks unique visits; and inbound clicks from social referrals. www.google.com/analy@cs
Social Audience Social Views Social Referrals
Insights Website and blog analy@cs that tracks unique visits; and inbound clicks from social referrals.
www.youtube.com/t/adver@sing_insight
Social Audience Social Views
Just Remember Before You Dive In
Do Don’t
Do use social media to help people solve customer and prospect problems.
Don’t use social media to do a hard sales pitch to anyone.
Do use social media to develop real rela@onships.
Don’t think social media means just having a LinkedIn account.
Do give people reasons to talk about your product… and make it easy for them to do so!
Don’t just talk about how great your product is.
Do engage like a real person: use everyday language, give opinions, and ask ques@ons.
Don’t engage like a corpora@on: impersonal, boring, and using jargon.
Do invest in social media for the long term… just like you do with regular networking.
Don’t expect instant results (sorry!)
The B2B Social Media Process
Find Connect Engage
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.
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.
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.
Examples Using LinkedIn and Twitter
• Over 120 million members in 200+ countries
• Executives from every Fortune 500 company
• Nearly 2 billion people searches in 2010
Largest social network of business professionals
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
Find Stage: LinkedIn and Twitter
• Do people search by job title, geography, and relevant keywords.
• Search for decision makers at target companies.
• Browse your network’s connections.
• Search your “updates” newsfeed for relevant keywords.
• See who’s asking questions in relevant group discussions.
• See who’s asking relevant questions using LinkedIn Answers.
• See who in your network just changed jobs or titles.
• Use Twitter search to find out who’s talking about your brand or products.
• Use Twitter search to find out who’s talking about the “pain” your product solves or other keywords that your prospects talk about.
• User Twitter search to see who is talking about your competitors’ products, events, whitepapers, etc.
• Share industry and product-related content… and see who starts following you!
Social Media Examples
Using LinkedIn you can do simple and advanced searches for People, Companies, Groups, etc.
Social Media Examples Search your LinkedIn connections, search LinkedIn by title (CTO), and listen to who’s tweeting…
• Connect with former customers, colleagues, classmates, etc. to build your professional network.
• Ask your network for intro’s to connect with prospects.
• Connect to “People You May Know” by referencing the connections you have in common.
• Post content in your “status update” and in relevant groups.
• Tweet consistently with helpful content to build up your audience of followers.
• Follow people you’d like to connect with (just remember they may not follow you back.)
• Retweet the relevant content of people you’d like to connect with.
• Send thank you messages to new (relevant) followers.
• Always thank people for retweets and if relevant then follow them.
Connect Stage: LinkedIn and Twitter
Social Media Examples
Connect with people you know, former colleagues, and others that LinkedIn recommends
Social Media Examples Build followers by consistently tweeting, acknowledging others, and following relevant people
• Participate in group discussions by asking and answering questions.
• Get testimonials from your customers and partners. (Hint: write recommendations for them).
• Comment, like, and share the status updates of people in your network.
• Send “thank you” invites after events, phone calls, meetings, etc.
• Get your connections to give introductions to prospects.
• Research people before meeting to discover more ways to engage them.
• Reply to those that retweet you to thank and engage them.
• Send a direct message to those that follow you (customers and prospects) to engage them further.
• Ask your followers a question and engage those that reply.
• Acknowledge followers when they tweet valuable content by retweeting them. Engage those that thank you for retweets!
Engage Stage: LinkedIn and Twitter
Social Media Examples
Join discussions, ask for intro’s, and get testimonials
Social Media Examples
Engage people by thanking and acknowledging them
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
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
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