Need to generate actual leads from your social media?

You know your social media marketing efforts are critical to your overall success.  You know your looking to build your brand awareness and drive traffic. But what about generating actual leads from your social media efforts?

•  Launch your lead generation strategy at your top sites like Twitter and Facebook. You will need to take a different and innovative approach as most companies are not really looking to generate actual warm leads from their social media but it can be done.
• While Facebook will deliver you over one billion users, not all of them, of course, are potential customers. Stick with the tried and true social media marketing strategy of engagement. Only with lead generation, try and engage them in a way in which you can uncover certain demographic information that will end up being a legitimate lead. First, determine what your customer profile is and what type of information you will want from them in order to identify them as a true lead.
• You can have opinion type questions that will garner certain information but be careful. Social media users, especially those at Facebook, tend to wary and distrustful of anything that smacks of demographic research or a direct sales pitch.
• So, to get them to cooperate, pose your info request in the guise of a questionnaire. Let them know that they are helping you with your market research in an effort to bring a more satisfying product to your customers. People like to have their views appreciated. As an additional incentive, offer them a special discount or actual gift or prize for their participation. Make the prize a worthy one, also. No one is going to help you for a pen with your company logo on it.
• Give them some great photos to interact with as well as useful hints and tips regarding the ability of your product or service to make their life better. In addition, the most promising area with which to generate actual leads from your social media is through paid ads. They are highly effective and you can generate promising leads by targeting any demographic you want.

Perhaps it is time to start looking at your social media as not just a viable outlet to build your brand and drive traffic. Perhaps it is time to actually cultivate some actual leads that will actually turn into conversions.