Written by Corenne Gutierrez, Senior Content Specialist
Targeted social media efforts put you and your company in the same virtual room with hundreds of your potential buyers and partners at little cost compared to trade 
show spending. The caveat is, however, if you go in with selling messages, it’s a lot easier for this audience to shut you down than in person. All they need to do is click the close button or “unfriend” you.
This may seem contradictory to people trying to link social media to revenue. After all, you want these channels to grow sales. How can you sell without selling?
Social media is only effective if you provide relevant information your audience finds valuable. In a Hubspot webinar, Tim Ash said one-third of SEO comes from text and two-thirds comes from authority. You gain authority in social media when people are sharing your information. People are a thousand times more likely to share you when you are helpful in answering their questions or providing tips to solve their problems.
A couple of days ago, I was interested in buyer personas and wanted to ask how others in my Focus.com groups develop buyer personas. As it turned out, someone beat me to the punch and posted the question. There were already four responses filled with real, authentic tips. I personally gained a lot of value from the responses and shared the information with a colleague, and started following one of the contributors, Tony Zambito. Shortly after this, I discovered Zambito’s e-book,” 10 Rules for Buyer Persona Development,” and his Focus research brief called “The Importance of Buyer Personas to Lead-to-Revenue Management.”
In contrast to Zambito, when I was engaged in a Q&A session on Web SEO strategies on Focus.com, a person answered with a teaser and a link to a white paper her company created. I easily gave this person a “thumbs down.” She didn’t provide any real authority on the subject. I could tell she just wanted me to register on her website, which is not usually why I got to social media sites. I didn’t share the white paper or even click on it.
Zambito didn’t answer the question to sell his business or even his e-book. He provided helpful, valuable content to the discussion. He gave enough information to intrigue me to find more about his topic and company.
Adding value to conversations in social media keeps your prospects open to what you have to say and helps them be in charge of their purchasing process.
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