social-media-prospectingIdentify new leads through Social Media Prospecting.

With more than one billion monthly active users on Facebook, and over two hundred and thirty million monthly active users on Twitter, you likely already recognize the enormous potential social media offers for getting your name out there, spreading your content and driving more people to your site.

You are likely already engaging your existing fans and followers, but what about the people out there who could really use your products or services, but don’t even know you exist? This is more commonly known as your second-degree network and this is where your opportunities lie.

That’s where social media prospecting comes in. It’s the art of searching the social web for your potential prospects, identifying influencers who have an audience you can prospect to, engaging them and drawing them to your site to convert them into leads.

Getting Started

Start by writing down the top three keyword phrases that describe your ideal customer. Remember, everything is shorter on social media, keep your search phrases brief.

Sign into the appropriate social media site. Using the search function, look up the keywords identified above and list five pages or users that could be potential leads for your business.

Once you’ve identified the influencers, start engaging with those individuals.

On Facebook, Like and comment on relevant page content as well as consider sharing relevant content from their page to yours. For Twitter, retweet some of the content they have shared and click favorite for tweets relevant to your industry. On LinkedIn, join industry relevant groups. Participate in conversations in those groups where you can add value with your comments. Like the content that others are sharing in the groups as well as pose questions to the group.

Spending a couple of minutes on each of these social networking sites for week we’ll begin to yield amazing results. At least once a week follow these steps to search for new influencers in your industry.