A good approach to social prospecting

Social media, love it or hate it, is a valuable tool for finding new customers. But, in a digital marketplace that is incredibly competitive, how do you find new customers without spending a copious amount of time searching through failed prospects? The answer is simple — you implement the following three tactics.

3 Steps To Social Media Prospecting

The key to developing a good approach to social media prospecting is consistency. You must take the time needed to develop and implement a strategy that is tailored to your specific needs.

#1: Research Your Prospects

As with anything sales related, researching prospects is a critical component. However, social media prospecting means that you must develop research tactics for each platform. Keep the following tips in mind to sort through potential customers.

• Twitter — To find B2B or B2C leads, you must first discover what type of content the lead is interested in. Secondly, you must determine if the aforementioned content has a direct correlation with the services or products that your company provides. Finally, you need to research their communication preferences. Do they sign into Twitter each day? Do they respond to every tweet? Are they more interested in following than producing content? This type of data will help you to categorize your prospects into clearly defined audience personas, which are a critical component for completing Step #3.

• LinkedIn — LinkedIn is a wealth of information on companies and individuals. In order to effectively research on the network you need to first determine a) your search parameters and b) what you will do with the information gathered. Knowing the answers to these questions will help you to create targeted searches that deliver the results you need to find a specific set of prospects.

• Facebook — The key to social media prospecting on Facebook is to first understand that Facebook is the place where people are most likely to reveal their personal interests. These interests are the backbone of changing your cold lead into a warm lead by establishing a conversation starter and immediate connection when you begin Step #2.

#2: Connect and Engage With Your Prospects

Once the research phase is completed, you should have sorted your list of prospects into audience personas for each social media network. Now, you will need to establish a connection that is based in the information that you have gathered in Step #1. Focus on providing consumer-focused, valuable information that serve as conversation starters. This information could be delivered in meaningful posts, interesting infographics, and / or following, engaging, commenting, or otherwise directly interacting with your prospects on an individual basis. Remember, in Step #2 you are interested in establishing a connection that leads to a positive relationship. Save the conversion for Step #3.

#3: Turn Prospects Into Customers

Step #3 is your chance to turn your prospects into your customers. You have completed Step #1, which gave you the information needed to understand your prospects on both a macro and micro level. In Step #2 you initiated the conversation. Step #3 is the opportunity to put your hard work to good use by closing the deal. It is important to remember that above all Step #3 is about converting prospects into customers who want to have a long term relationship with your company.

Through the above three steps you can and will develop a good approach to social media prospecting. With this good approach at the ready, you will soon be able to grow your number of current and future customers.