Many B2Bs still think of social media as merely an image/awareness-building vehicle.  But an increasing number are starting to aim at least part of their social-media effort straight at lead generation, as we noted in this earlier post …and you can, too.

Any time we embark on a new journey, some guideposts come in handy;  and that’s just what we found in a veritable compendium posted by Debbie Hemley on Social Media Examiner.  As she notes, despite the attractiveness of the movie cliche’ “If you build it, they will come,” that doesn’t really apply here.  Instead, says Debbie, “we need to encourage people to come to our social pages;  and once they’re there, we have to create enough value for them to hang around.”

So herewith, a modest selection of Debbie’s guidelines (many are due to other writers, but you can find those source links in her post)…

Assets. Take a look at your existing inventory of stuff, on social media and elsewhere online, to determine what might be leveraged or re-purposed for greater social media engagement.  Think about assets in these categories:  location, people, stories, images, video, audio and text;  using a mix of those content types will increase your chances of being seen by more people. – Pointers for using social media for lead generation by Bill Gadless

I’m going to show you how to create marketing, which people will LOVE, share with their friends and which will inspire them to hire you or buy from you.

There’s a huge difference, between someone receiving your message and listening to your message.  TV viewers are sent targeted marketing messages (commercials) during TV shows.  What do most of us do?  We fast forward through them or if watching the show in real-time, we go and make a coffee.  Just because they send their messages, doesn’t mean we are paying attention.

For your marketing to work, you need to get a great message in front of the right people.  In order to get this correct, here’s the key question we need to ask ourselves:

If I stopped my email marketing campaign or I stopped publishing my blog posts, newsletter etc, would people really MISS them?

As a quick look at the marketing you receive every day confirms, for most people the honest answer to that question is NO!  We get bombarded with dull, uninspiring sales messages all day and see them as an intrusion, rather than something of value – How to create marketing that people welcome, share and act on! by Jim Connolly

What is asking? It is a simple act of putting together a query in order to obtain the answer. Whether you get an answer or not depends on how a question has been framed and asked.

 Asking has an awesome power, yet it is one of the most unused methods of advancement.

 When you enter the blogging world, there are lots of things which you might want to know. You can get them by just asking. Still, most people avoid doing that: they try to get all the answers by themselves.

Asking in practice

When I started my new blog, I started to look for guest post opportunities and my first guest post What you can take from your Blog’s Worst Day got published on ProBlogger – The Simple Power of Asking by Sanjeev Mohindra

If you’re like most business owners, getting leads online is the main reason you created a website in the first place. Sure, you may have a stellar SEO campaign, a beautiful design and an über low bounce rate, but without a well-planned contact strategy, you can’t turn those pageviews into conversions.

Online conversions aren’t just for ecommerce websites. In fact, most businesses use their websites to initiate one-on-one conversations. By personally engaging a contact, you are more likely to turn that contact into a customer. So, what’s the trick?

First, you need to understand that most people don’t want to give their phone numbers or email addresses to yet another website — the thought of spam is horrifying. And it’s not just privacy hawks who shy away from contact forms; most websites only achieve a 2-3% conversion rate. Furthermore, people don’t want to have to worry about waiting for a return phone call to address their problems or questions. They want to get the answers they need with as little effort as possible. – 9 Ways to Improve Customer Communication on Your Website by Daniel Alves

Here are the top Internet strategy, marketing and technology links for the week of December 3, 2011… [Read more...]

Arnie Kuenn, President of Vertical Measures and author of the new book, Accelearate! Move Your Business Forward through the Convergence of Search, Social & Content Marketing (affiliate link) spoke about search, social and content marketing at the Exploring Social Media webinar (affiliate link) earlier this week. Good stuff, especially some nice techniques for looking for keywords and content for your website (and social networks).

Yesterday and today, I joined social media marketers from around the Baltimore area and the country at Social Fresh Baltimore. I’m posting this blog post halfway through the second day, so if the afternoon talks are left out, my apologies–please help me out and comment with your afternoon takeaways.

Here’s the top five things that stood out for me from this event:

1. Measure the impact of mobile marketing before you dive in. As both @seo_girl and @jeannehopkins spoke to for web, and @meladorri spoke to for email, check your web and email program’s analytics to see which platforms and devices people are using to consume your content. If a lot of your traffic comes from mobile devices–and more importantly, as @seo_girl pointed out, if your mobile bounce rate is high–you’re probably missing opportunities for mobile marketing, or doing something wrong.

2. QR codes can be cool, but they can also be wasteful and ridiculous. Whatever you do, provide multiple options for access. Yes, more and more people are using QR code scanners, but that doesn’t mean you should plaster QR codes everywhere. As @thetimhayden covered, first, think about how people are actually using their phones–do you really think people are going to be able to scan a QR code from a billboard? To get around this, when possible, provide a link, an SMS option, and a QR code so people can access your content in the way that’s best for them. For a laugh on this count, check out @unmarketing’s video ranting (thanks to @cc_chapman for providing). – 5 Social Marketing Lessons from Social Fresh Baltimore by Tracy Gold

Fun infographic from mbaonline.com:

Created by: MBA Online