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For some consumers, social networking sites have taken on personality traits that reflect who they may log in as and communicate with. Facebook might be a boyfriend. LinkedIn is a boss. Twitter is filled with acquaintances to say "hi" to in the hall.
So how can businesses relate well to their target audiences and generate leads in this virtual land of projected personalities? Answering that question are: Chris Koch, director of research and thought leadership at Lexington, Mass.-based Information Technology Services Marketing Association (ITSMA) and Andrew Chang, marketing manager for Mountain View, Calif.-based LinkedIn. Chang is the marketing lead for the social networking site's advertising offering called LinkedIn DirectAds.
1. Drive customers to the company website. "If you look at ... Twitter, you'll see that most good tweets have a shortened link in them," Koch says. Driving consumers from an unquantifiable marketing channel to one where companies can start measuring and tracking more effectively will enable businesses to turn engagement into leads.
2. Give away as much content as possible. "I find that people assume that 99.9 percent of the time when you put a short link in one of your tweets that they're going to be able to get through [to] content that is available to them without having to do anything," Koch says. "Of course, this makes it difficult for lead generation. So what a lot of people are doing is ... stepping the offer. In other words, making something that's an excerpt of a white paper available ... without any kind of registration." That brings Koch to tip No. three.
3. Embed registration options in free content. Once visitors become intrigued by the free content, they'll be more willing to provide data for lead generation, Koch says. "For example, let them ... click right through to the excerpt from the white paper," he says. "But inside the white paper is a link to a landing page where they can go and they get the full white paper. In that case, you do have to pay for it ... with your name and your e-mail."
4. Understand the relationships people may have with different social networks, which then may guide how to relate to them. "Take advantage of the viral nature of Twitter," Koch advises. "I make a distinction between what I call a permission-based social media, like Facebook and LinkedIn that mimic the way we make relationships in real life—which is that I have to know you, I have to understand why you're relevant to me, I've hopefully had some kind of experience with you before, I will let you into my space. And Twitter really changes that, and there are other tools like Twitter that are changing this model and what I call the viral relationship model; meaning, I don't have to know you, I don't have to have a relationship with you, I can just search for you based on the content that you're producing and the interests that you're displaying through Twitter. ... Once you can examine what's going on in this viral network, your possibilities for expanding your relationships are greatly increased. And I think that's really relevant for lead generation."
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Social Media ROI
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