Everyday marketers across the globe waste a lot of time on social media. And everyday, marketers across the globe generate a lot of leads on social media. It’s a paradox between people who have mastered the various online distribution channels and people who are still simply playing around, hoping to strike it big in the vast field of online marketing.
Many marketers fall somewhere in the middle of the paradox. They know they could be generating more leads, but their posts always seem to fall flat. So every now and then they throw out an adorable picture of a kitten or a puppy and their likes and shares skyrocket. But their ROI on time spent remains flat and they’re stuck explaining to the sales team that 500 likes on the puppy picture was a plus.
Here’s an important fact to remember:
Social Media Rule#1:
The Puppy’s Cuteness Doesn’t Matter if the Clicks Don’t Matter.
You have to have a strategy behind your social media posts. Each post should have one main goal, and primarily that goal should be to get someone to visit your website.
Social Media Rule #2:
One Click Away to What is Promised
Whenever you post something on social media, your prospect should never have to click more than once to get to what is promised in your post. Additional clicks will confuse and frustrate your prospects, decreasing your likelihood of optimized post conversions.
Social Media Rule #3:
Create Easily Sharable, No-Obligation Entry Points
Your social media strategy should be just that, social. This means it needs to include a mixture of completely free content you are giving away without a need for someone to enter in any contact information to obtain it. These items should be centered around hot and relevant topics that your audience will want to tell their friends about.
Ideas for easily sharable content include news articles, infographics, blogs, and single customer stories. In simple terms, these marketing content items should be anything you want people to share.
Doing this successfully can help you organically grow the number of people who follow you on social media.
But remember the Golden Rule for Free Marketing Content: It should all be designed to drive traffic to your website, where other offers exist to entice people to opt-in to the growing distribution network of likeminded people you are building.
Social Media Rule #4:
Strategically Utilize Opt-In Offers
In addition to the instant access free stuff we just talked about, your social plan has to have a way for you to generate leads. This means you need to create quality content that is not only useful for your ideal prospect, but that is also helpful in telling your brand story. When created properly, these pieces become lead qualifiers for prospect hot buttons.
Ideas for opt-in offers can be as simple as a free weekly newsletter to more complex things like white papers, buyer’s guides, eBook chapters, and short videos.
Utilizing free offers for the items above helps take you out of the race to win the social media popularity contest and into the marathon of winning in lead generation. After all, you’re not in high school anymore. Popularity is no longer as important as converting interest in your business into leads that turn a profit.
Social Media Rule #5:
You Have to Spend Money to Make Money
Finally, you have to realize that for all the hype that is given to the “free” aspects of social marketing, the real glory in lead generation goes to the people who spend money to target and grow their audience on various channels. This means you need a budget, an ROI tracking plan, and upsell pieces that can support your advertising expenses. These pieces are your premier content marketing gems.
One of the most popular tools in this category is the free webinar designed to get the attendee to make a purchase at the end.
Other successful tools include low cost discounted offers to purchase an entire eBook, hard copy book, or educational training session for very little money. An eBook that typically sells on Amazon may be offered for $1.99 instead of its usual $29.99 pricetag. Once purchased, the pre-planned upsell marketing funnel is than activated.
What’s a Marketer to Do?
Make a Plan. Each of these things takes time to implement. A focused marketer could knock out a complete series of pieces in six to 12 months. The key is to get started.
You’ll need to do this in a precise order. First, develop your strategy and timeline. Second, write the copy to support your campaign. Third, design your pieces. Fourth, implement your plan. Fifth, review results and adjust accordingly.
While some of the above can be done simultaneously, the entire strategy must be thought out well in advance.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tina Bell is the founder of TipsOfWisdom.com. She developed her marketing experience serving a variety of industries, mostly in smaller sized companies, where she was hired to build their marketing programs. These experiences provided her the opportunity to wear many hats and learn multiple facets of marketing. She spent over six years in medical marketing, helping build an urgent care business from two urgent care clinics to over 13 clinics in four states. In addition to being well versed in copywriting, grassroots and community marketing initiatives, Tina is a sought after speaker and regularly presents educational webinars. She was ranked the top speaker at the Urgent Care Association of America Conference and spearheaded the development of an online medical training newsletter before she left that industry to start her own consulting business.