Technology, media and telecommunications marketing practitioners are ready to let go of legacy practices and try something that's potentially more effective. eMarketer reports that social media is now developing a reputation for being valuable -- for customer interaction, brand awareness and lead generation.
In February 2010, for example, inbound online marketing platform HubSpot found Twitter usage could double monthly leads, and Onesource reported in January that business-to-business salespeople were looking to LinkedIn for prospecting.
Moreover, according to virtual events provider Unisfair, social media is now the top emerging channel for sales lead generation among technology marketers that they surveyed in May 2010.
Lead generation was marketer's first priority, with 66 percent saying it was their greatest concern for 2010, compared with just 17 percent who chose brand awareness.
When online marketing firm R2integrated surveyed U.S. marketing professionals in April 2010 about why they had a social media strategy, the number one response was to increase sales lead generation.
That said, unqualified leads are still a major problem, with one-third of Unisfair respondents saying they normally rejected 16 to 30 percent of their leads as unqualified.
The most important types of information for determining whether a lead is valuable include interest and demographic information -- which might make social media an even more useful prospecting channel, since profiles can include exactly the type of data salespeople are looking for.
In addition, the industry analysts believe that social media can provide a venue for nurturing leads that are not yet ready to buy. However, I believe that more emphasis on customer-centric content development -- such as buying-cycle information and guidance tools -- is the real key to improved market development results.