An 8-Step Social Media Strategy to Generate Leads [infographic]

For businesses entering the social media marketing landscape, where to start and what to do on an ongoing basis can be daunting and frustrating. It is important to develop a strong social media strategy before you get started.

This infographic by QuickSprout  gives a good outline on how businesses and marketers are using social media to generate leads and increase their Web Presence. It breaks down a basic social media strategy into eight clear and concise steps.

While they advocate using many social media channels, if you are managing your social media networking and running your business, you won’t have time to devote energy to more than one or two social media channels. So make sure what you do has an impact, and is delivered to the correct audience or else your time will be ill-spent.

Before you decide on which channels to use in your social media strategy, do your research to see what type of user is on each social channel. If your business is in the home and design industry, Pinterest is a great place for visual posting. Beauty and fashion, as well as the food industry also do very well on Pinterest. LinkedIn is more of a professional-based social media network, good for businesses, executives, and job hunters. Google+ is more of an educational, informational-based network, good for professionals in a range of businesses, but it also contains some of the basic casual social feel of Facebook. Twitter covers all areas but requires more posting–several times a day at least.

Once you’ve determined which social media networks to use, use the steps in this guide to get the most out of your social media marketing.