Optimize Your Lead Generation Efforts With A Solid Social Strategy

LinkedIn is quickly becoming the place to generate leads. Today, social media produces almost double the marketing leads of trade shows, telemarketing, direct mail or PPC. So why aren't you utilizing this tool to its full potential? Most likely, you don't have the right strategy in place. In 2013, 43% of all marketers found a customer via LinkedIn; and this year, the numbers are even higher.

By now you should already have a kick-ass profile for your business that showcases who you are and, more importantly, your specialties. This is often the first place your prospects will look to get a feel for who you are, so posting educational content is a must.

But that's not enough.

You can't just post a blog on your LinkedIn company page and expect the leads to just roll in. You have to look at this as a living, breathing community that needs attention - constant attention. That's why having a solid strategy on the front end allows you to actually communicate with your prospects, allowing you to actually hear what your prospects' problems are so you can position yourself as the obvious choice to do business with.

Showcase Pages LinkedIn recently rolled out Showcase Pages, which allow you to specifically target an audience. It's a great way to segment your business by either your target market or by the services or products you offer. If you're a sports brand, you could split your Showcase Pages between golf, baseball and swim gear. Now when a prospect comes to your brand, they can open the door to the specific area that applies to them and bam, they're in their own room with people just like them that want to learn about and discuss the same things. They're not bothered by the "clutter" of other topics that don't apply to them.