Five ways to engage with social media to build influence and generate leads
Developing a modern business is about far more than turning those who walk past your office into customers. The advent of corporate social media brings many pros and cons - it may take a lot of new skills to find new customers through digital channels, but it can also be a lot cheaper than old school advertising if you do it right.
Here's some key steps you can take to turn social media into a powerful new channel for business development and to catch the eye of prospective new clients.
Cultivate effective profiles
Before you can start winning over prospects with smartly produced social content, you need to ensure your corporate social media profiles are polished and professional. Review the history of your profiles across all platforms you’re using to ensure there is no embarrassing old content to be found (but don't remove all signs of personality - social media should feel less formal than traditional advertising). Then update all your profile biographies (eg: the “About us”) to clearly project your current brand and show the expertise you want people to engage with.
Build your reputation for expertise
Social media posts shouldn’t just be a sales pitch. Instead, aim to share value via your social media networks and demonstrate your expertise in your chosen field. This could mean you focus on a niche speciality, or you may want to bounce off topical discussions to show you have knowledge to share in close to real-time. It is not necessarily about producing new content but also sharing and promoting the right content and often adding pertinent commentary. Just remember it is a journey of confidence and faith, not an effort to win new clients overnight.
“Great brokers definitely find a way to stand out from the rest, particularly by knowing who their targets are and focusing on building expertise within their local market,” says Anthony Pagano, Head of Commercial Intermediaries, at Suncorp. “It’s definitely a long-term strategy but that’s what it means to build something that lasts.”
Don't just use hashtags, participate in communities
Hashtags are used to spread a message beyond your immediate social network contacts to a wider community of people interested in any given topic. However, to truly understand what that community is after, you should also click and read those hashtags yourself. Participate by replying to others who are using these key hashtags, and by joining other communities related to your niche areas, which you will find through groups and channels on your favourite social networks.
Be consistent
It's a marathon, not a sprint, so the most important lesson is to create social media content on a regular basis. This ensures you stay visible and engaged in the areas of expertise you're trying to own. Post by post, you build the foundations of a great social media reputation. Be aware that this takes time and be prepared to invest in the staff and hours it will require.
Provide leads and calls to action
Make sure your profile information and bio contain links back to your corporate site and/or your company contact details. Some if not all your social media content should also contain a call to action (CTA) for people to get in touch and/or provide links to where they can find out more about your business offerings. This way, when any given prospect decides they want to reach out, they become a quality lead.
Contact methods should be based on what’s most appropriate for your business model: it may mean opening Direct Messages for public access or creating a web form that’s easy to access and use. Don’t force people to give too much information before they can reach you - they have come through a conversational social platform, so help them to move that engagement into your business environment as easily as possible.
Want more insights into using social media in your business? Here’s just some of the courses you’ll find at the Suncorp Learning Campus.
- Social Media Marketing & Digital Marketing Course 2018
Get to grips with the social media revolution and what it means for your business. Do's and Don'ts for the most popular platforms as well as how to optimise for success.
- Social Selling
This course talks about the specifics of how social media can give you an advantage as a sales professional, from how to build quality networks to developing content that suits your target market.
- Building Your Personal Brand – Insights and Strategies Series
A course showing you how to build a positive personal brand through new approaches to social networks, with particular insights on the importance of giving back.
