Content marketing Trends - Metrics for Social Engagement

Continuing with the FAQ from the previous post, this post includes the rest of the questions asked at the webinar on ‘6 Lead Generation Strategies using Social Media’. You can access the webinar content here:

View the Recording

Question 24

Can you give a comparison overview with Google AdWords and Facebook?

You can find a basic overview of how to create ads on Facebook and Google Adwords in these respective guides. To give you a brief overview, Adwords is way more complicated than Facebook as an advertising platform. One major difference between both is that on Adwords, people search for what you have to offer (i.e. using keywords on search, they would see your ads), whereas on Facebook you target people not necessarily looking for what you have to offer, but interested in it, based on their Interests as expressed on their Facebook profiles. This might cause you to believe that Adwords would get you more qualified leads than Facebook, but personally we have seen that Facebook lead quality is pretty good; oftentimes, better than Adwords. It is cheaper than Adwords as well. But, it would all really depend on how well you are running your ads. On Adwords, you regularly have to monitor what keywords are getting you quality leads, and which ones are getting you junk ones, and accordingly mark those keywords as negative keywords.
On Facebook, on the other hand, you have to make sure that your reach doesn’t go down. For that, you have to keep changing the creatives and targeting. It’s best to change creative every week, or as and when the reach starts to drop.

Question 25

Is it possible to integrate Twitter and Facebook?

If by integration, you mean cross-posting from one channel to another, then of course it is possible. Both, Twitter and Facebook, provide integration options. This can also be achieved through third-parties like Hootsuite. Ideally you should try not to cross-post, and post customized updates on each of the platforms.

Question 26

What would be the best platform for me to advertise? We are into the business of setting up modular kitchen gardens and terrace top farms (organic food).

As you are a niche business, I think Twitter would make a  lot of sense for you, as you can find like-minded people there. Use hashtags to allow people to find you. You can also look at Facebook ads. There are a lot of Interest targeting options relevant for you like Organic Food under “Food” category, and “Home and Garden” under Hobbies. In addition, you can also create Facebook Groups, because they seem to work well for niche businesses.

Question 27

How can LinkedIn be used for content marketing?

Other than posting your regular blog stuff on LinkedIn like other social networks, you can make use of LinkedIn’s publishing platform now, as LinkedIn has opened it for users other than influencers as well.

Question 28

Can we generate a lead by using social media for Software product?

LeadSquared is a software product and social media is among the top lead generation sources here. Leads come in from Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and LinkedIn. We also participate extensively on Open Forum and Quora to generate unique leads. So I think it should definitely work for you.

Question 29

What is the use of Twitter Advanced Search and how does it help in generating leads? Any such data driven analysis available?

You can use Twitter Advanced Search to find what people are talking about real-time on Twitter. You can search using specific phrases, hashtags and timelines. Check out this example. Here, to demonstrate that it can work for real estate businesses, I have taken “house hunting” as the keyword, and #bangalore as the hashtag for location. I could find quite a people searching for houses in Bangalore, so real estate guys would find this interesting.

The drawback is that you have to keep listening continuously; in addition you can set streams in tools like HootSuite and HootSuite alternatives as well. And, no I don’t really have any data-driven analysis for this, as businesses have only recently started using this. You can find out if it would make sense for your business by trying a few random keywords. This is where you can do it.

Question 30

Can you brief me about LinkedIn as a social media tool? Any tips about LinkedIn Ads?

LinkedIn is primarily a social tool for B2B marketing. It can of course assist  in B2C marketing as well but the type of audience on LinkedIn would perhaps not be a right fit for B2C marketing.

If you are planning to start running LinkedIn Ads, get started with this post. We tried to run ads for sometime on LinkedIn but it didn’t really get great results. The reason can be that we did not give it enough time, so you can give it a shot. In addition, joining relevant groups and making meaningful contribution can help build your credibility as an expert in your field, and you can get leads from there as well. Of course, this is a time-consuming exercise, and you need to see if you have the bandwidth for it.

Question 31

Any options to advertise specifically in open groups on Facebook?

Unfortunately, it is not possible to advertise in Facebook groups.

Question 32

How frequently do we need to update our posts on social network sites?

Your audience is looking for the most recent information out there; hence, keeping up with the times is a necessity. If you are talking about how many times one must post in a day, on social media, I’d say three or four times. You could also use certain tools available to find out the best times to post in a day. Facebook Insights (image below) and Tweriod help in case of Facebook and Twitter respectively.

Content marketing Trends - Metrics for Social Engagement

Tip: Based on the data above, if you see your traffic increasing, keep up the regular updates. However, if there are more ‘Unlikes’ then reduce the regular update by a little and analyse again.

For more information on this, take a look at this post that I came across on bufferapp.com.

Question 33

How do you qualify the leads from Social Media?

We generally qualify the leads by looking at whether or not the lead moved to the next stage on LeadSquared. We have this logical way of categorizing leads on LeadSquared, so if the lead is showing engagement, it moves to the next upward stage, closer to conversion. However, if the lead’s persona does not meet our ideal customer profile, or if he/she does not express interest, then they are moved to lower stages, like Disqualified or Invalid.

Question 34

In B2B business, the professional and personal IDs used are often different. How do we operate in that scenario?

That situation is a little difficult, and we have received this question in the past. What you can do is try uploading whatever email IDs you have, and see whether Facebook creates a big enough custom audience or not. If it doesn’t, which is your concern, then you can stick to the normal Interest and Behaviour targeting options. Also, if you have phone numbers available for these leads, then you can upload phone numbers as well to create custom audience.

Question 35

How can I convert YouTube visitors?

You can send traffic from YouTube to your website or blog, where you can capture their details. You can put links to your website in video descriptions, and clickable annotations for this.

Question 36

How can I correct address of centres on Google?

You can just go to your respective page and edit and correct the address there. Google Plus would give you an option to verify your address by means of a phone call or postcard. You can choose either, but you must verify your business to get all the benefits that Google Local has to offer.

Question 37

Briefly explain Google Places.

Google Places for Business allows you to control what information shows up for your business in Local Listings (local searches). You can specify information including Business Address, Contact number, hours of operation, etc. Google generally pulls information (about your local business) from multiple sources to show in local listings; creating a Places account gives you control over what information is displayed.

This is how a Google Places listing would look like:

This is how the Google Places for Business Page would appear:

Read this post for more information. You could also listen to this webinar recording to know all about Google Plus for Businesses.

Question 38

Please send a link to help me run Facebook Lookalike Ads

Here are links to the post, the webinar and the E-Book on Facebook Lookalike Ads.

Question 39

What elements should be there on an ideal landing page?

Yes, landing page should be very closely targeted depending on what your offer/ad says. It shouldn’t have all the information about your business, but primarily information about your offer and related elements. Try to avoid navigation elements as well, as they distract people and would increase bounce rates. Following are the elements that must be there in your landing pages.

Question 40

How can I repeat sales through social media?

If you have already made a sale to a customer, and you are the kind of business that can make a repeat sale, like a travel business, or an e-commerce business, then you can upload the list of your customers on Facebook, create a custom audience and target them. Make sure that the product/service you are targeting them is similar to what they bought/showed interest in before.

Question 41

Which ad platforms should an educational institution focus on?

Facebook is probably a good bet for you, as most students are there on Facebook, and they make buying decisions as well by looking at their peers’ recommendations on Facebook.

Should I use landing pages for my business?

– See more at: https://www.leadsquared.com/?p=3840&preview=true#sthash.eRf4K5nB.dpuf

Question 23

Should I use landing pages for my business?

– See more at: https://www.leadsquared.com/?p=3840&preview=true#sthash.eRf4K5nB.dpuf

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