Three years ago, against all the lathered excitement, I brazenly wrote a mini-white paper saying that Social media does not deliver B2B leads.
Today, I feel just as strongly and vindicated by a recent article in Forbes deceptively titled,Twitter Generates Leads 9 Times More Than Facebook And LinkedIn.
Quantity, not Quality
While there may be more activity cultivated by social media, the quality and conversion rates of that social media activity simply isn't there. So while getting "Liked" and shared might seem all warm and fuzzy, if you are expecting ROI from these efforts, put them under the same metric microscope you use on other sales and marketing efforts and see how they stack up.
Don't take my word, Measure It
Today's marketing automation programs provide you with "real world" win/loss/convert information, so there is no need to guess as to whether a campaign or marketing channel is successful (this subject I covered 2 years ago in Why Traditional Lead Generation is Failing).
Finally, like so many things, lead generation today can't skip steps and demands doing good, solid work and having full-cycle processes in place.
"Why Should I Care?"
Prospects are, first and foremost, looking for insightful information that they can use in making important business decisions.
If you aren't creating this type of content and offering it up in the spirit of starting a meaningful conversation, you and your company will never be able to move to that optimal position of "trusted business adviser" and you certainly won't be considered for the short list.
-- Document the knowledge you have and/or subjects of immediate value for your audience.
-- Invest in having it professionally copy written and/or formatted into digitally digestible "chunks".
-- Communicate the information with a call(s)-to-action that leads to further engagement and next steps.
-- Measure results for ROI and "course correct" the marketing efforts where necessary.
I wish it was easier, but with the internet it is never going back to the old days, so get over it. You may as well become proficient, because sooner or later your competition is going to raise the bar to include these types of strategies and tactics.
If you would like to better understand the concepts behind content marketing, marketing automation or lead-to-revenue cycles, simply give me a call at 616-634-3498616-634-3498 or drop me a line at michael@thebyersgroupllc.com and we'll set up an informal chat.
Copyright © 2013 The Byers Group, LLC. All rights reserved.
Social Media STILL Does not Deliver B2B leads
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