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Using Social Media Marketing for Lead Generation (with Video)

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MITX held a panel to discuss how companies are using social media for lead generation, and transformation to inbound marketing.  Here is a video of the panel, and some quotes from the panelists are below.

 

Brian Halligan, CEO & Founder of HubSpot

  • "Today, I have this marketing bubble around me. No can really market to me anymore. "
  • "Your business had better be ready for a lot more transparency with social media."
  • "You need to use this stuff yourself, that will help you understand that it's not just another advertising medium."

Chris Brogan, VP Strategy & Technology, CrossTech Media, Co-Founder, PodCamp

  • "Free. A four letter word that starts with F, a great thing to do to get more customers."
  • "We're still figuring out all the right metrics for social media, but essentially making more money is a good one to try to measure."

Aaron Strout, VP Social Media, Mzinga

  • "Don't just ask people to become a fan, make it exciting. Find out what people are passionate about. What are the hot buttons of your target audience?"
  • "You should think about how you measure these campaigns. Otherwise, your programs will go away really quickly unless you can tie them to measurable results."

Chris Penn, CTO, Student Loan Network, Co-Founder, PodCamp

  • "If the number of iPods and iPhones were a country, it would be the seventh largest in the world. So, if you are in a competitive industry, something like podcasting can help set you apart from the competition."
  • "I love Website Grader."
  • "What sets our marketing efforts apart is how we relate to people and how we talk to people about what we do."

Posted by Mike Volpe on Wed, Jul 23, 2008 @ 08:44 AM

COMMENTS

Great Video; you guys are big enough to trust and small enough to believe! love your products and awesome advice. Thanks

posted on Wednesday, July 23, 2008 at 10:03 AM by Calvin Cox


This reminds me of a South Park episode about 'The Underpants Gnomes' and their three-phase business plan, consisting of: 
 
Step 1. Collect underpants 
Step 2. ? 
Step 3. Profit 
 
I'm not trying to be a punk and say I didn't learn much about lead generation, but I'm left with a question mark on step 2 
 
Step 1. use social media with interesting content, have conversations 
Step 2. ? 
Step 3. Sales/Leads/Profit 
 
Like the one guy was saying "great, you have thousands of people viewing your YouTube video, now how many of them bought something?" 
 
How are people 'Using Social Media Marketing for Lead Generation?'

posted on Wednesday, July 23, 2008 at 10:42 AM by Scott H


@Scott H - First of all, I am a huge South Park fan and you get major points for the reference! Second, I totally see your point. The panel (as panels sometimes do) wandered around in terms of content and didn't really focus on the original topic/question maybe as much as it should have. So let me add my thoughts about how social media can be used to generate leads. 
 
 
 
1) Social media is a great way to drive traffic to a website that will convert people into leads. Withwww.WebsiteGrader.com a good portion of our traffic comes from StumbleUpon, a social media tool, and a good portion of our traffic on that site converts into leads for HubSpot.  
 
 
 
2) Social media is like another way of building your email list. You can use your presence in social media to advertise events (like webinars) to generate leads. We had 2000 people register for our last webinar, and we use social media to get a good portion of them. In most social networks, you can form a group, and then send that group messages by email or within the network itself. See http://LinkedIn.ProMarketers.com (6,000 members) or the HubSpot Page on Facebook (600 fans) for examples. 
 
 
 
3) Social media can drive more links to your website, which drives SEO, which in turn drives leads. A number of our blog articles have done well in social media and attracted 25-100 links into those articles. This helps improve your SEO rankings. Search Google for "Facebook Business Page" or "Google Search Tips", we're usually on the first page because these articles got a lot of acclaim in social media and attracted links. Visitors from SEO convert into leads at a decent rate.

posted on Wednesday, July 23, 2008 at 1:11 PM by Mike Volpe


What if you start a blog and no one comments on it, what if you form a community and no one joins it or posts anything? Isn't that worse than if you never did these things? That is a worry with a small company, that you might look worse if you failed at these things than if you never did them.

posted on Wednesday, July 23, 2008 at 2:10 PM by Kristen


I think that most social media "experts" are navel gazers that focus on the creative side of things.  
 
I'm more of a numbers and $ myself.  
 
Used in isolation, Social Media is hit or miss. You could produce a Youtube video and hit a homerun or a dud. You could spend a year talking to yourself on your blog and never get a comment.  
 
The important thing is to fit social media into a broader internet marketing plan like this:  
http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/4217/Generating-a-Steady-Flow-of-Inbound-Sales-Leads.aspx 
And this:  
http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/4179/Search-Engine-Optimization-THEN-Blogging-THEN-Social-Media-Marketing.aspx 
 
And then measure whether it results in leads and sales, as well as whether it supports your blog and SEO, like Mike explained above.  
 
I also think salespeople "get" social networking a lot quicker. It's a great 1 on 1 prospecting and lead nurturing tool:  
http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/4061/13-Ways-to-Use-Your-Blog-to-Improve-Your-Sales-Process.aspx

posted on Wednesday, July 23, 2008 at 6:07 PM by peter caputa


This is a very good presentation on using social media, and I like to see more, in the future.

posted on Wednesday, July 23, 2008 at 6:14 PM by Randy Kemp


 
 
You hit the essence of 'Marketing' right on with your comment, 
 
"What sets our marketing efforts apart is how we relate to people and how we talk to people about what we do." 
 
Loved the break-it-down comment response defining social media too and of course websitegrader. . . 
 
Followed your post in from somewhere & thought I'd check out what other interesting things you have to say. It is always refreshing to see informative content and interactive comments! Kudos

posted on Thursday, July 24, 2008 at 9:02 AM by Robert Skrob


@Scott H -- 
 
I second Mike's comment in complimenting you on referencing the underpants knomes episode of South Park. One of our developers (actually employee #1), Patrick FitzSimmons, showed that video to Dharmesh and I when he first joined and we all belly laughed about it and worked hard to make sure we were never in that type of business. 
 
With regard to your specific question, HubSpot is getting real benefits from the social mediasphere. Here are the actual hubspot.com metrics on visitors and lead from the last month by social media "source", not including campaigns, search engines, etc: 
- websitegrader.com: 3237 visits, 858 leads 
- blog.hubspot: 1941 visits, 142 leads 
- pressreleasegrader: 317 visits, 92 leads 
- onstartups.com blog: 467visits, 24 leads 
- linkedin: 450 visitors, 19 leads 
- facebook: 254 visitors, 16 leads 
- techcrunch: 27 visitors, 6 leads 
- stumbleupon: 825 visitors, 5 leads 
 
In particular, the linkedin stuff is trending upward rather steeply...mostly due to the marketingpro's linkedin group we set up.

posted on Thursday, July 24, 2008 at 4:19 PM by brian halligan


@Calvin -- Thanks for the compliment: "big enough to trust and small enough to believe."  
 
I got another "back-handed" compliment from a guy who was in the audience who I ran into a couple of days later. He said something to the effect of, "of the 4 guys, your geekiness was the most credible." I wasn't sure if I wanted to punch him or kiss him.

posted on Thursday, July 24, 2008 at 4:30 PM by brian halligan


I've noticed the updward trend from linkedin also. We should talk about what we can do to increase that.

posted on Friday, July 25, 2008 at 2:44 PM by peter caputa


Theoretically, I still believe in the value and concept of social networking, but I am not entirely convinced on the effectiveness of social sites for marketing. I am so tired of being added to someones site only to realize that they are trying to sell me something, particiarly porn or some cam experience. When it comes to social marketing it has become synonymous with SPAM.  
 
 
 
Agree, disagree? I am curious.  
 
 
 
Daniel

posted on Tuesday, July 29, 2008 at 1:14 PM by Daniel


@Daniel -- 
 
Disagree. See the following metrics on HubSpot's top referring sites by source: 
- websitegrader.com: 3237 visits, 858 leads  
- blog.hubspot: 1941 visits, 142 leads  
- pressreleasegrader: 317 visits, 92 leads  
- onstartups.com blog: 467visits, 24 leads  
- linkedin: 450 visitors, 19 leads  
- facebook: 254 visitors, 16 leads  
- techcrunch: 27 visitors, 6 leads  
- stumbleupon: 825 visitors, 5 leads  
 
LinkedIn, Facebook, and StumbleUpon visitors are all converting into leads. All 3 of these sources are growing quite a bit month over month. 
 
Stay tuned for more blog content about how to leverage these tools. In particular, we will be blogging about our "ProMarketers" group on LinkedIn, which is particularly interesting. Our success with ProMarketers can be replicated by others.

posted on Tuesday, July 29, 2008 at 9:09 PM by Brian Halligan


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