Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube – Which is Right for Me?

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Social media is everywhere. Consumers can go from their home computer, to their mobile phone, to their tablet, to their office laptop without missing a social beat. What started out as an easy way for people to connect with one another has turned into one of the most influential communication mediums ever known. Not embracing social media could prove very detrimental to businesses’ marketing efforts.

But, like most people, you’re probably wondering where do I begin? Do I join ever social network I learn about? Do I have to upload videos to YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo, and Twitter every single day? Each social network has both pros and cons (just like any other marketing medium) that need to be weighed against your goals.

Here are some brief highlights of four of the top social media networks (if you want to learn more about some of the other popular networks, CMO.com publishes a href="http://www.cmo.com/social-media/2011-cmos-guide-social-landscape" target="_blank">Social Landscape Chart each year outlining the major networks and their best uses).

Facebook

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Facebook is a destination network, in other words, consumers go on the Internet to go to Facebook and spend time on the site. The primary usage is not a means to get to other sites; in fact most users don’t want to navigate away from Facebook. The site has been developed to be an all encompassing platform (pictures, pages, chat, email, video, etc.) and a hub of all social media (you can integrate nearly every other network into your Facebook profile).

B2C businesses are thriving on Facebook by being where their target audience is already conversing and simply joining the conversation.

Twitter

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Twitter is the most popular microblogging site (messages of 140 characters or less) and, like Facebook, it is a great means of communication. You can almost liken Twitter as a text message to your target audience – any exciting news, informative article link, press release, or even a quick “hello, how’s it going,” can quickly be posted in a matter of seconds for your entire following to see.  

Whether you are a B2B or a B2C business, Twitter can provide a great platform for you to converse with your target audience. However, if there isn’t a lot happening in your industry and you don’t have the means to tweet regularly, a different network may better suit your business.

LinkedIn

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LinkedIn is the new digital rolodex and the best network for personal branding and to position yourself and your business as experts in a specific area. With the ability to both create and/or engage in groups regarding specific topics, you can provide your intellect as a resource for the other group members. Just as businesses used Rolodexes pre-Internet, businesses use their LinkedIn connections to help them with their business needs.

If you are targeting business professionals, LinkedIn is the place to be.

YouTube

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The benefits of YouTube are limited only to your creativity. CMO said it well, “Whether you seek to entertain, inform, or both, video is a powerful channel for quickly responding to customer complaints and showing your social-media savvy.” Not only is YouTube great for communicating and building brand awareness, it is also a great tool for SEO.

Any business can utilize the benefits of YouTube.

Now, there are several hundred (if not more) other social networks with many more being started regularly. If you find yourself become overwhelmed with the amount of social media possibilities, take a step back and look at the overall picture. The best question you can ask yourself is, “where is my target market?” If they are on Facebook, go there. If they are on LinkedIn, go there. If they are on a very targeted network specific to industry, go there. Don’t waste your time and energy trying to connect to your target market in networks they aren’t active in.

Still unsure what network to join or if you are on the right one(s)? Comment below and let’s talk about it!

Page 26 – Web Hosting Secret Revealed

4 Ways To Generate Leads With A Premium LinkedIn Profile

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In this cold, hard, competitive online world, everyone is looking to generate leads.

And that’s understandable… your business sulks without leads… no sales, no revenue, no nothin’.

Before you even think about possibilities, there’s a lot to do. From identifying your targets, to brainstorming a pitch, to establishing a lead generation timeline based on your resources… hey, if you really want your lead to perform, you need a great game plan.

The reality is – whether you sell DIY tees or copywriting services – you have to generate leads first. How do you accomplish this vital component of boosting your bottom line?

LinkedIn, it turns out, is a happening lead generation tool. While young sellers flock to Facebook, LinkedIn is where you solve the quandary; where introducing a service can be href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/blog/socialmedia-marketing/is-social-media-right-for-your-business/" target="_blank">a little more involved; and where you get recognized by real people.

As the world’s largest professional network, LinkedIn provides a great platform for networking with the purpose of generating leads. With over 3.5 million companies and 260 million registered users residing on the network, turning a blind eye to this network is a wasted opportunity and a marketing fail.

I must say – LinkedIn was the only social network that felt unfamiliar and foreign to me for a really long time. However, after experimenting a lot (and I mean a lot!), it become less scary and a lot more exciting.

But as with all those dating websites (curse me, if I am wrong), you don’t get the full scoop until you subscribe for a membership. On LinkedIn, you have to be a Premium member to reap the most benefits when it comes to lead-generation.

Sure you can network, create new opportunities and be successful with a basic LinkedIn profile, but if you really want to leverage the depth of LinkedIn, upgrading to a Premium account is something you may consider.

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Welcome to LinkedIn Premium

Here’s a simple way to look at the Premium account. There are five premium memberships offered by LinkedIn:

• Business professionals (business)
• Recruiters (enterprise recruiters)
• Job seekers (job seeker)
• Sales professionals (sales)
• Talent Finder (individual recruiters)

For lead-generation, the business & sales professional categories are a good fit. With each membership category there are a different upgrade levels, which let you access more of the features accessible in a LinkedIn Premium profile (the basic difference between upgrade levels is the quantity of features you’re able to access).

What you’re really getting when you sign up for a Premium account is access to a bunch of exclusive features. And the more you upgrade, the more access you get.

That’s just scratching the surface… here are the perks of being a Premium account holder on LinkedIn:

Advanced Search

A free account lets you conduct some basic searches, but a Premium profile takes it up a notch with detailed search queries. For example, you can perform a search that includes Fortune 500 executives interested in the service(s) you sell.

Premium account holders see a gold logo beside these additional search features indicating access. The number of features you can access depends on your membership level.

InMail

Free profiles are extremely limited when it comes to sending messages to people outside your connections. Usually, you need an introduction via a mutual contact, but that all changes with a Premium account where you can send a message to anyone using the InMail feature.

InMail are credits you receive being a premium member that can be applied towards sending messages. A response is guaranteed by LinkedIn, so if you don’t get a response in 7 days, LinkedIn returns your InMail credit. The quantity of InMail credits depends on your Premium account plan.

See Whos’ Viewed Your Profile

This feature displays a list of people who have recently visited your profile. Free members can only see last 5 people who have visited their profile; Premium members can see the full list of people from the past 3 months.

So you’re now able to take a deeper look at those who search for you, view your credentials. This feature also includes a list of keywords that people have used to search when they came across your profile, and the Industry they came from, which could be a great way to fill the lead pipeline (more on that later).

Full Profile View

One of the best perks of being a premium member is that you are able to see full profiles of everyone in your network, including group members and 3rd-degree connections. This feature gives you href="http://premium.linkedin.com/playbook" target="_blank">35x more access to profiles than you’d have with a free account. The latter includes limited access to profile information of distant connections.

The greater quantity of profile information can help you understand the makeup of a lead and his/her interest regardless of whether you do or don’t have mutual contacts, making the Premium profile a valuable tool.

Search Alerts

You can save particular searches and receive alerts for them weekly or monthly. For example, if you want to reach someone who is interesting in content marketing services, you can set that search to alert you once every 7 days with new results.

Alerts are quick and non-invasive and ensure that you don’t waste your time with disconnected results. It’s a great way to follow and message new leads, without making manual search endeavors time and time again.

Generating leads with LinkedIn premium

So how might you use these features to generate new leads, specifically? Here’s a 4-step blueprint for using LinkedIn premium features more effectively to gain new leads:

1. Build a targeted list

For any industry, LinkedIn Premium presents the Advanced Search option that includes several fields such as company size, interested in, groups in common, when joined, seniority level, location, school, past company and keywords. These fields are valuable because they give you the ability to narrow down your leads.

For example, if you are selling content marketing services, you may want to target content marketing managers of Fortune 50 to Fortune 100 companies.

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For the purpose, you would type content marketers in the keyword field, choose Location Anywhere, check 2nd connections, group members and 3rd degree connections, select managers from seniority level, and Fortune 51-100 from the Fortune 1000 section.

From the search listings, you can make a list of leads you want to pitch to. Most profiles will display full information about an individual courtesy of your Premium membership.

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Specifically, Full Profile View will display information that will help you narrow down the list further, such as avoiding prospects who work at companies you’ve had bad experiences with.

2. Set alerts for new leads

Advanced Search under a Premium account allows you to save searches. This feature remembers your search and also sends you weekly or monthly notifications of any new members that became a part of the LinkedIn network for the keywords you searched before.

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These profiles can be scanned from the Saved Search Tab by clicking under New. Premium members can save up to 7 searches and view additional 500 profiles displayed in the search listings. You can include any suitable new leads in your list of potential leads.

3. Search for additional leads

Who’s Viewed Your Profile page is a great source of searching additional leads. This page includes all those people who have recently visited your profile in the last 90 days. From this list, you can find prospects to include in your potential lead list.

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There’s another feature in the Who’s Viewed Your Profile page that augments your effort to cast a wide lead net: Views by Industry. This is a section that will highlight the top industries consisting of individuals who have viewed your profile.

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If more people are coming to your profile from industries you are not selling to, this may indicate an untapped market that you should consider when searching for leads.

4. Reach out directly

Use InMail to directly send a message to your leads in your list and convert them into sales. InMail increases your chances of lead generation success as it has a href="https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140402115947-18431154-the-power-of-personalized-linkedin-messages" target="_blank">higher open rate compared to traditional emails. This improves your ability to reach prospects directly and generate sales for your products and services.

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Although a 7-day response rate is guaranteed, you would want to follow href="http://www.jillkonrath.com/sales-blog/bid/101478/3-Tips-to-Get-The-Best-Response-From-LinkedIn-Inmail" target="_blank">pitching best practices for best results. Also, study a lead carefully before sending out a message… don’t scare away people by making it clear upfront that you’re selling… engage first, go for the kill later.

LinkedIn returns a credit if the response isn’t received in 7 days, so you can apply that credit to another lead. InMail credits accumulate month to month – if you have 10 inMail credits to begin with, but can only reach out to 5 leads in a particular month – the rest 5 will be added to the next month’s total InMail credits, so you’ll have 15 InMail messages to send the next month.

You’re in the hot seat

Does all of this work? Of course, but with focused efforts.

You’ll only benefit from these Premium features if you put time and effort into exploiting them.

So before you upgrade (putting the experimental nature of Michael Dell aside if you’re on a budget), ask yourself – have you been making good use of LinkedIn’s free features?

You can explore LinkedIn Premium from href="http://premium.linkedin.com/" target="_blank">this link.

Feel free to leave comments, ask questions, or suggest anything that knocks your head.

Page 12 – Web Hosting Secret Revealed