Social Networking and Web 2.0 for Lead Gen
Social Networking and Web2.0: these are basically buzz words that you probably seeing around in magazines and newspapers all the time at the moment. A social networking site is basically a site that is aimed at building a community of people who share interest and activities or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others. Some of the most common social and networking sites that you might of heard of are: Myspace, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
For website owners, there is something to be noted here - wherever there are people, there is an opportunity to generate traffic for their website. The idea here if you want to generate traffic is to build a community of people who may be interested in the products or services you provide and getting them to visit your site in order to learn more. For business lead generation, there are a few obstacles to overcome along the way.
Firstly, the target audience is very often in the sub-30 age group. If your product or service is aimed at HR managers who tend to be aged 35-40+, pretty conservative and aren't necessarily trawling Myspace all the time, then you may not actually be able to generate very high-quality content by using this type of technique.
Also, social network users tend to be a hard sell - you have to be careful here and not just come off as a salesperson. Introduce your product or service subtly instead of just trying to advertise in the traditional sense. You have to have the right product and be able to motivate your fellow social networking users.
Nick Schoonen's blog rczero.com (he's a colleague of mine) is aimed at remote control hobbyists, featuring remote control cars, planes and the like. He has a strategy to monetize this site which I won't get into here; the point is that Nick has successfully been able to use MySpace and other social networks to drive a lot of traffic to his site. Why has he been so successful? Because his target audience is a good match with the user base of these sites.
Suppose that your business is something a bit less appealing to a youth-oriented market; garbage disposal, for instance. MySpace probably isn't the right venue for your business to generate traffic.
Social networking sites are not necessarily the best place for your business' lead generation efforts, in other words. It all depends on your product; other strategies may be far more cost effective for you. Before resorting to social networking to drive traffic to your site, I would urge you to try out some other strategies.
About the Author
About the author: David B. Ascot will improve your site's sales lead generation numbers so you'll make more sales with a winning strategy for effective online lead generation.
Source: http://www.whyamirich.com