Business to Business Lead Generation

Generating leads from your social media pages can be a difficult proposition for any company. It can seem like an inexact science at times, which frustrates many marketers. That frustration is doubled for business to business marketers. Business to consumer companies have the advantage of a much broader customer base. The trick with B2B is finding the right people, which can be hard with social media sites that have well over a hundred million users. 

So, what has worked in the past for B2B marketers? LinkedIn remains the champion of B2B. The main reason for this is pretty simple, everyone on LinkedIn is in a business. You can also find specific people within a company that you need to talk to. LindedIn has recently made it more difficult to connect with people that you haven't met, but it can still be a good search tool. 

While LinkedIn is the heavy weight in the B2B category, Facebook and Twitter are starting to climb the ranks. However, the tactics are going to be different. Simply interacting and engaging with other businesses posts can be an effective strategy. It shows support to their company and it also keeps yourself top of mind with them. The goal of the content you post should be to position yourself as an expert in your field. This isn't a short process, but it can be very valuable down the road. 

Another good social networking site for B2B is Google+. It seems to be getting overlooked by many marketers, but it has a lot of benefits. First and foremost, it's the social networking site built by the most important search engine on the internet. That should be enough of a reason to get started with Google+. It is also easy to connect with other businesses by adding them your Circles. Another nice part of Google+ is the Communities feature. Communities are groups of people with similar interests or goals. Joining local community groups as well as industry specific communities is a good idea. 

There may not be one easy way to generate leads on social media for B2B, but there are several different ways to go about trying. At the very least, these options help raise brand awareness and can be used as research tools. 

Don't Have an Unfinished Business Page

Social networking sites are littered with unfinished and abandoned business pages. In a lot of ways having no page at all, is better than having something that hasn't been touched in over a year. If you create a page for your business then it is important to keep it relevant or else just delete it all together. It is also important to keep all of the information accurate on your pages. You don't want people clicking on your sites and get misguided by outdated information.

On the flip side, if you have a regularly updated page with good information on it then it gives your business credibility with the customer. This can be especially important in the restaurant industry. Putting your menu and specials on your Facebook page is a very good idea for any restaurant. People want to see what you have to offer before they make their buying decision.

Using websites such as Hootsuite to schedule posts is an easy way to make sure your social network sites stay active. You can schedule generic posts well in advance and mix in urgent posts as they happen. Scheduling in advance is also a big time saver. Another thing to keep in mind is that every post you make doesn't have to be earth-shattering. Keeping your posts simple and fun will make it easier to come up with content, and it can also show a lighter side to your business.

Just remember, if you can't keep one of your social media pages updated, hit delete. 

Managing Expectations for Social Media

A person's attitude on an experience largely has to do with the expectations they have for it. If you are getting on a roller coaster and expecting it to be the best thing you've ever done, then there is a good chance you will end up being disappointed. You might end up having more fun on the smaller ride that had an unexpected twist in it because you came away from it pleasantly surprised.

Managing expectations is so important not only in life, but in business. One problem that a lot of business owners have is they expect their social media marketing to be the best roller coaster ever. That's not a fair expectation for a new marketing program.

You need to set out what you want to accomplish through your social media marketing. Don't be mad if the phone isn't ringing off the hook if your goal is to increase traffic to the website. One of the most common goals of social media marketing is to increase awareness. Building awareness of a brand or company is not a quick fix. It is a process that involves getting in front of potential customers multiple times. It can take time before it starts to effect the bottom line.

Another common goal of social media marketing is to increase sales leads. This goal can be accomplished by using an aggressive style of online marketing. Setting up a Facebook page and posting everyone once in awhile isn't going to net a lot of leads. Lead generation goals require actively searching for potential customers.

Social media marketing is a proven viable option for all kinds of companies. Just make sure you create clear expectations before you get started or else you might give up on something without ever giving it a real chance.

Social Media Marketing: Take Baby Steps

The biggest problem most people have when they get started with social media is spreading themselves too thin. They see all of the different platforms and want to master all of them immediately. This is a strategy that usually ends with giving up on social media. The more sensible approach is to take baby steps when getting started with social media. It doesn't matter if you feel like you are 10 steps behind, slow and steady will win the race.

The first thing you want to do is pick one platform (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) and create your presence on there. The easiest to get started with is probably Facebook. Once you feel like you have a good grip on Facebook you can introduce a new platform.

It is also important to think about your company when deciding which social media platforms you want to get started on. Not every type of business needs to be on every platform. If your business is heavy into graphics or visual stimulation, then it might be a good idea to start with Instagram or Pinterest. Retail stores should head to Facebook or Twitter and business-to-business companies should try Google+ or Linkedin.

Another thing to keep in mind is that social media trends change all the time. It is important to stay updated on the new facets of social media. This allows you to learn along with everyone else rather than playing catch up. It can be overwhelming at times, but incorporating social media in your marketing plan is no longer something you can afford not to do.

Facebook Ads: A Cost Effective Way to Reach Customers

Every business owners favorite thing about social media is that a lot of it is free. No one ever has a problem with free. However, only using the free material will limit how much success you can have.  Most business owners don't bother to look into the paid areas of social media, expecting them to be too expensive. The truth is that advertising on Facebook is actually very cost efficient.

The amount of money you want to spend on an advertisement is completely up to you. If you only want to reach a few hundred people then you only need to spend a few dollars. This flexibility allows you to test multiple different ads at once to see which one works best. Then you can go in and add more money to the successful one and stop the others.

Facebook advertising has many benefits besides just being low-cost. Facebook provides very easy to follow reports that track how your advertisement is doing. It gives you information such as ad reach, total impressions and website clicks. Facebook also allows you to alter the ad if you aren't getting sufficient results.

The best part about Facebook advertising is how specific you can get with the demographics.You have the ability to narrow in on only the people you want to reach. It allows you to manipulate categories such as education, job title, income and relationship status. Facebook also lets you narrow down your search by selecting different kinds of behaviors and interests of the people that you want to reach. All of these different options all you to advertise directly to your ideal customers. That is something that very few advertising platforms offer.

So, now you know why most of the Facebook ads you see match up with one of your interests. And now that you know how it works, you can start doing it for your business.

Joining The Conversation On Twitter

Twitter can be an intimidating place for a lot of small business owners. Most of them get overwhelmed with the constant scroll of information and feel like it will be impossible to break through all of the noise. That fear is very understandable. The good news is that you don’t have to sit back and hope your potential customers see your message. Twitter allows you to go and find people interested in your service and join their conversation. 

The easiest way to do this is by simply using the Twitter search bar. All you have to do is type in a keyword that relates to your business and then every tweet that contains that keyword will show up. For example, if you are in the restaurant business you might type in the words hungry and lunch. There will be dozens of tweets with people saying how they are hungry and looking for a place to eat. This is where that restaurant owner can go in and reply with an invite to their business. That’s turning a tweet into a potential customer.


The best part is that you can decide what geographic areas you want to see tweets from. This will eliminate the clutter, and will let you focus on the people that you want to reach. You can do this in two different ways. First, you can just hit the “Near You” button on the left hand side of the screen. This will automatically narrow the tweets down to your geographic area. 

The other way to narrow down your search is by clicking the "Advanced Search" button. This option gives you a list of parameters that you can manipulate until you get the best possible search. 

These two tips will allow you to use Twitter as a lead generating tool and gain more customers.