Social Media for Lead Generation?

Social media is quickly becoming an emerging channel for lead generation among technology marketing professionals surveyed in May 2010, according to the annual Unisfair marketing survey. Furthermore, 66% of respondents said lead generation was their top priority for 2010, with only 17% ranking brand awareness and 16% ranking customer retention as top concerns.

The survey illustrated that marketers are beginning to rely on social media as a steady source of new customers.

As more and more businesses incorporate lead generation into their marketing programs, unqualified leads are still prevalent, with as many as 20% of total leads needing to be thrown out due to mismatch on demographics and interests. The definition of lead generation alone is argument enough for using social media. The most important types of information for determining whether a lead is valuable include interest and demographic information—which might make social media an even more useful prospecting channel, since profiles can include exactly the type of data salespeople are looking for. So where are these users?

According to a survey conducted in April 2010 by Infogroup’s OneSource, respondents shared their views about the value of social networking and media sites for sales prospecting and research. LinkedIn rated the highest

by a wide margin. Following LinkedIn were blogs, Facebook and Twitter. YouTube came in last and was significantly lower than the rest.

Madison Logic has started to work with some of the largest LinkedIn groups to offer advertisers lead generation opportunities. LinkedIn Groups are used by members to:

• Quickly discover the most popular discussions in their professional groups.
• Have an active part in determining the top discussions.
• Follow the most influential people in the group.