The power of social media marketing may still be slightly underused, but the potential remains to create a thoroughly stable business with social networking and media as your primary source of lead generation tools.
In fact, the design of sites like Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter makes it simple to integrate a plan for generating leads, spreading the word about your business and growing your customer base.
An example of this integration is Facebook and Twitter.
Facebook contains an app that allows businesses and individuals to automatically link Twitter accounts.
This means that your Facebook fans and friends can turn into your followers on Twitter.
Of course, linking each of your social media accounts should be the first step you take in setting everything up, anyway.
Creating the Content Aside from the viral nature of social media, the issue at stake--which you can control every aspect--is the content you create and post to your social media accounts.
You can control how much content you create, the quality of the content and how often you post and update regular followers.
In essence, your reputation and authority hang in the balance with each and every post you make or status you update on your social networking accounts.
If social media marketing is going to be your primary lead generation method, your content needs to stand on its own legs.
In other words, the videos you share on Facebook should be short, to the point and well-designed.
You should design a YouTube channel that shows your business specifically, answers frequently asked questions and gives real value to potential leads and customers.
Blogs need to be updated daily and content that involves important issues to your target market should be discussed.
Relationship Marketing For lead generation, social media accounts can be used for relationship marketing and connecting with the prospect or customer.
Not only is it important to update your accounts on a regular basis to maintain activity and continuity with leads, but it's also important to listen to what people are saying.
Pay attention to your leads' comments on your Facebook or Twitter accounts about your business or product.
Create polls and surveys that ask customers and leads for insight on what to improve or what they want.
Making the customer your focus of your social media efforts can only help your long-term goals and strategies; social media marketing makes this pretty easy to do.
Promoting your Content In addition to creating the content for your social media accounts and websites, you also need to share the content.
Promoting your content is as crucial as creating it in the first place.
For example, you need to submit your blog posts to Digg, StumbleUpon and BlogCatalog.
You need to create RSS feeds so that other people can follow and read what you write or blog about on a regular basis.
All in all, social media marketing can be huge lead generation tools if you take the time to develop the content, set up your accounts and maintain them on a regular basis.
Whether you need to outsource some of the work to freelancers or do it all yourself, it's important to concentrate not only on developing your following through social media promotions as well as authority in your niche, but also on maintaining the relationships you have with leads and customers.