There are a lot of opinions regarding social media and how it can help your business. I like the concept of the funnel but knowing the terrain of the Internet I feel that social media should be used as "triggers" to help your site move up in the search engines organically. Social media is powerful in that when people are shopping for an item (typically larger ticket items) they will spend time reading blogs and forums to help them make a decision. When using social media or writing on the blog, you should think in terms of your FAQ's. The blog is really a vehicle to discuss the FAQ's of your product or services. Just like when the sales people in your organization do sales and speak with customers, they are answering questions and trying to eliminate all the objections so they can go for the close. The blog is intended to supply information so the customer is knowledgeable after reading it. Social media from a business perspective is really a set triggers to make your site visible. Other social media triggers such as back linking to sites and articles that are correlated to your business vertical, social book marking and great content distribution are the triggers that make things work for you. When all is said and done if you are selling product or services you need to be on page one of Google for your money keywords. Even if people read about your company in a blog, that is great but if you want to close business you need to be on page one multiple times. In conclusion, think of social media as a set of triggers to give your business more exposure.

posted on Monday, May 16, 2011 at 7:47 AM by Email List Dude

As I am getting more involved with social media I realize that it is similar to, but much wider in scope than old fashioned networking was back in the days when you had to do all of this in person. The challenge is to be active enough that the localized return can be achieved even while being involved in the larger discussion. I think David's comment on how is your business doing reflects this. If you are active enough and then building local response as well then your business can be ok. If you are not building response where your business gets it's customers then you are not going to be ok and my need to change your tactics somewhat.

posted on Monday, May 16, 2011 at 8:56 AM by Lee Kirkby

But how to track those sales and qualified leads specifically? Yes, sometimes there is a direct, obvious loop being completed: post a picture of a table, FB friend asks how much table costs, you answer, they drive in store to purchase table. This is of course not generally the case. So, where does the influence of social media turn to purchase and how can that be measured? My guess is, it can't. So just like with any other marketing, there's a fair amount of guess work.

posted on Monday, May 16, 2011 at 9:11 AM by Caroline Nuttall

Thanks for the comments, everyone! 
@Caroline - you can track leads and customers using HubSpot - check out our Analytics feature: http://www.hubspot.com/products/marketing-analytics/

posted on Monday, May 16, 2011 at 9:20 AM by Magdalena Georgieva

I'm glad this discussion is up with sales indicated as the top measurement. Many marketers and social media 'experts' shy away from this tracking result and even argue with me about whether or not sales matter. Why? They can't prove sales so measure things like followers alone to 'sell' success. If no conversions, job and business go by by. Simple as that. In our business we do classic things found in traditional media tracking. We learn where our customers come from. In our less touch transactions we see direct relationship to online and offline activity. Exact #s, no. Strategic data to sales, yes. I feel comfortable paying someone for the efforts because we can track...sales to their social media efforts. ROI is good.

posted on Saturday, May 21, 2011 at 2:26 PM by David Sandusky