During 2011 I was invited to be part of a vodcast series with Business Victoria. Here I give practical tips on how to use social media to find customers, build business credibility and generate sales.

The complete vodcast series can be viewed on the Business Victoria Youtube Channel where small business owners share the experience of starting their business, including the successes, achievements and mistakes they made along the way. Benefit from their hindsight as they give advice and tips for other small businesses on a range of problem areas from finance and employment to marketing.

Another six months has passed and whilst I’m still actively using social media for networking purposes, I’m definitely not as active as I was when I first started 3 years ago. I generally have a fairly set routine and time allocations throughout the week for my social media marketing and engagement.

Nevertheless, social media continues to be the dominant source of leads and new clients for my virtual administration business and here is the 4^th part in a series of Lead Generation Statistics! Yes, I love my stats!!

What I have found, the decrease in time engaging has resulted in a decrease in the inquiries but as the network is very well established, the social media connections are now referring others.

I have also included for the first time the actual number of inquiries and conversions from each source which can be seen in the graph below. Twitter continues to be the most dominant lead source and generates the best conversion rate with quality conversions also.

Past ‘Lead Generation Statistics’ Posts:

‘Lead Generation Statistics – Part 1’

‘Lead Generation Statistics – Part 2’ 

‘Lead Generation Statistics – Part 3’

A couple of times a month the Tweastie group meet at the Station Street Cafe in Nunawading and yesterday we met over lunch. The lunches always seem to attract quite a gathering and every one lingers for longer!

If you would like to learn more about the Tweastie Melbourne Eastern Suburbs networking Group, join us on Facebook or connect with us Twitter. You don’t have to be ‘tweep’ to be warmly welcomed to join us!
 

 

This is the third ‘Lead Generation Statistics’ post now made. They have all been at 6 monthly intervals after monitoring and calculating where the leads have originated from.

Social media has continued to take an even larger portion of what is represented below in this graph with the majority of leads still coming from Twitter. The last ‘Lead Generation Statistics – Part 2’ post revealed, Twitter had contributed 77 of the inquiries which has now increased to 105 at the time of writing this post.

It was on the 21 February the 100^th inquiry was made via a Twitter connection and they also became our newest client. You can see the leads and conversion statistics HERE with our success with relationship marketing.

Past ‘Lead Generation Statistics’ Posts:

‘Lead Generation Statistics – Part 2’ 

‘Lead Generation Statistics – Part 1’

 

With all the recent changes (and more to come!) to Facebook Pages, the ’Social Media Setup Guide‘ and ‘Social Media Support Guide‘ have now been updated to reflect yet another lot of Facebook changes. Yes, these Social Media e-books are a constant work-in-progress thanks to Facebook!

However, at Interim Business Solutions, we do make every effort to ensure these Guides remain up-to-date so the purchaser is getting the most current information. Whether it be to create their accounts to get started on social media or, if they have existing accounts but need further information as to how to best manage them.
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It was terrific to have some new faces come along this morning to the first Melbourne eastern suburbs Tweetup, fondly known as #tweastie! There was plenty of chatter and catching up on summer holiday news and business aspirations for 2011.

Tweastie has been running for nearly 12 months and has a core group of regulars, plus others who come along when their work commitments allow them. We have also created a Tweastie Facebook Page and anyone is welcome to join. This certainly makes it easier to notify #tweastie members of meetups or the occasional evening event which gets organised. You can also view photos of the tweetups in the Photo Albums. Of course you can also follow @tweastie for updates.

The Following Tweeps Attended Today

First timers:

@ copywritemattrs

@franpratt

@ajmckenna

@LarnaPittiglio

Regulars:

@Puggles99 

@patriciadodd

@gustodian

@Day2DayList

@hummers4hire

@drwarwick

@Chris_pinkapple

@kirsty_wilson

Feel free to join us if you are in the Nunawading or eastern suburbs of Melbourne vicinity for great conversation, collaboration, laughs, networking and good coffee!

Many of you will be more than aware that businesses are embracing and migrating to social media and in particular Facebook. The simple reason for this is the static website and emails, in essence, are old technology. The digital world is moving fast and the modern Web 2.0 tools of today are allowing people to engage instantaneously.

Websites and blogs are making it easier for the reader to share the website page or blog post with their friends by adding Facebook ‘Like’ buttons and Twitter ‘Retweet’ buttons. You will be noticing these appearing more and more. Social media is filtering through to all levels of the online world.

So why is it worth having a Facebook Page?

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Six months ago I posted an entry titled ‘Lead Generation Statistics’ to outline the growing power of social media for business. Well, this was my experience! I had always monitored my KPIs and it was becoming more obvious social media was taking over the more traditional means of advertising and exposing ones business.

Six months on and this can be supported even further. Yellow Pages inquiries have decreased further, I don’t have time for any direct marketing due to the increased inquiries from social media, and website inquiries are up.

Some more specific statistics.

The 45.9% social media inquiries between Twitter, Facebook & LinkedIn equates to a total of 92 inquiries, with 77 of them coming from Twitter alone. Of these Twitter inquiries 38% have converted to clients and plenty are still warm leads!

Below I have outlined my philosophy of the 3 big social media platforms, if used correctly, which refers to users ENGAGING, CONVERSING & SHARING!

Twitter = network building

Facebook = nurturing the connections

LinkedIn = building credibility

Social media has been very good to this virtual office, so much so, that I’m almost too busy for social media! Oh, the irony!

I have recently been contracted by a client to source local businesses in regional Victoria for a Victorian Government roadshow which is travelling to various towns during August. I am based in Melbourne and whilst I am aware of these towns and have visited many of them, I certainly don’t know what businesses are there. So being the internet savvy VA I am, I jumped on Google to undertake my searches. Well, I was amazed at how few businesses had a website (or at least a website that was found in search results!). I certainly expected the local accountant to have a website, so I could email them to query who the ‘Local Heroes’ in business were!

With so many businesses still not having a website and yet, to truly embrace Web 1.0, they’re a long way from embracing Web 2.0!  Most had not heard of Twitter and most would not dream of using Facebook for their business. Now what they should be considering, is embracing both of these and skipping the static website, to create a Blog to start to establish an online presence. Yes, it depends if their relevant market is there but I have seen the smallest, home based knitting business ‘Hand Made by Missy’ collect 1,000+ members on their Facebook Page in just 6 months. It’s about “making” it work for you and creating some buzz!

A great blog post I read just last week by Social Media Examiner was ‘Six Ways Blogs are Changing the Web’ and Flying Solo published this article titled ‘Facebook for Business’. Small businesses should be embracing whatever means they can, to assist their business to get exposed. Social media is a great way to get your business exposed and generally they are free...other than your time! If you’d like to learn more about social media for business exposure, Interim Business Solutions can assist you to get social media ready quickly with the packages and guides available. Visit our website for more information www.interimbusiness.com.au   

 

If you weren't convinced by the first 'Social Media Revolution' video released during July 2009 and seen below

 

Then check out the recent 'Social Media Revolution 2' video released earlier this month.