5 Ways to Grow Your Business Network Through Social Media

Maintaining a strong social media presence takes a lot of work. The payoff can be incredible, though–growing your business through social media is very possible. Serious online marketers know that in order to harness the power of social media you need to incorporate a deliberate mixture of: Listening to your audience, sharing your relevant message and enabling others to share your relevant message.

Here are five ways to use social media to find and establish relationships with new prospects and leads for your business………

1.Join a Conversation on Twitter

Tweet chats are great for person-to-person networking on Twitter and they can act as one of the single best lead generation tools in social media. You can consult a number of lists to quickly locate chats that are relevant to you. These lists include hashtags and other key information like date, time and the name of the host or owner of the chat.

2. Participate in LinkedIn Groups

LinkedIn groups hold a lot of opportunity for networking with people who fit your prospect profile. There’s an easy way to find the groups you are interested in. Hover on Interests in the header navigation and click on Groups. From here, click on More>> in the Groups You May Like box. From here, use keywords specific to your industry to search for and find groups relevant to your business. You can filter your search results by Relationship, Categories and Languages.

3. Share Insights From an Event

When you attend trade shows or conferences, share the highlights and notes with people who can’t attend and you’ll attract people interested in the same niche. On Twitter, share your notes in real time with your followers. Use the official event hashtag in your tweets so they are included in the larger conversation, and they’ll be visible to people who don’t follow you. Make sure you pay attention to new follows during this time, as they could well be new prospects for you.

4. Promote your products

Social media promotions draw in new users and returning customers alike, providing a new outlet for deals, sales, and the like. Making them exclusively available through social media drives traffic, which in turn generates buzz surrounding a brand. Just about everyone is on one platform or another–reach out to them and give them some value.

5. Developing a social media strategy

Developing a social media strategy is the new way of selling by educating your leads, developing trust with prospects, and engaging your customers. To execute on your strategy, it’s imperative to understand who is your audience, what are their challenges, and what information is relevant to educate them by creating interactive conversations to ultimately expand your audience reach on social networks. It’s also highly conducive to networking, allowing professionals to build relationships and discover new avenues to explore.