Trying to understand the difference between social advertising and social networking is like trying to understand every ranking factor that Google uses in its ranking algorithm.

If you've always wanted to get a better understanding of social media for your business, this post will help.

It’ll also help you make strategic decisions on what social media platforms to choose, what type of content to share, and whether or not you should run ads on one platform vs. the other.

Your potential customer spends an average of 2 hours 22 minutes on social media every day, according to the Global Web Index report.

Building a brand theme and image on Instagram requires more than posting a photo every day. In order to create a brand that’s easily recognizable, you need to prioritize cleaning up your image on this social media giant. If you’ve just joined Instagram or started your brand, you’ve got some work to do!

Three main steps to establishing a strong brand image on Instagram

Not only will this help you gain traction on the platform, but it will also assist with the overall development of your brand’s personality and traits.

In recent times, social selling has grown in popularity because both B2B and B2C companies are using it to get results from their social media participation. Although, there’s still a lot of improvements to be made.

According to CSO Insights 2016 Sales Enablement Optimization Study, 43.1% of respondents felt their social selling training needed improvement. Additionally, 30.4% agreed social selling training required significant redesign; more than any other training process.

The good news is that you can now leverage automation technology to streamline the entire process of your social selling strategy. It doesn’t get better than that.  

What is social selling strategy?

A social selling strategy is a plan you put in place to utilize social media to connect with your prospects through your content and interactions with prospects. The main aim of your social selling strategy is to convert your prospects into customers.

That said, here are the 6 steps to implement a social selling strategy with automation technology:

It's All About Engaging with Your Followers

Social media can funnel qualified leads to your business. However, you must know how to automate the tedious process, so you can get more done in less time.

The truth is that you work hard to build and grow your social media fan base. Unfortunately, you don’t have control over your social account. You could wake up one morning and find your Facebook page blocked for reasons best known to Facebook alone.

When that happens, most businesses and marketer will quickly create a new page and start all over again. Inasmuch as that’s a great skill, I bet it’s even more important to convert social chatters and fans into leads for your business.

Networking on LinkedIn can get you better targets

LinkedIn may not be the social network that first comes to mind when we are talking about marketing – but you should not underestimate it.

While you should not expect tons of traffic to your website or an endless number of signups from LinkedIn, for lead generation, LinkedIn can well prove to be the best network to get TARGETED leads.

LinkedIn is not about shouting out, LinkedIn is about connecting. And there is a lot of power in the connections that you already have. These can give you a head start when it comes to B2B lead generation.

There are various ways to use LinkedIn to get targeted leads – here are x of them:

Put your network to work

A network is invaluable. And even if you are looking for other contacts or more leads, the connections you have are the best start to grow your network with targeted leads.

1. Make a move and ask for introductions that may fit

Ask the people you are connected with to introduce you to people from their network that might be of interest to you. In most cases your request for help with an email saying something like: “I am doing this now, if you know anyone that might be of interest to me or I should connect to please introduce us“ is very unspecific. Since this requires people put some thought into who might be interesting for you this usually works best with people you know fairly well and who are willing to invest time into helping you.

For people with whom you are rather loosely connected you should be more specific and ask for introductions to some people of your choice – which leads us directly to the second way to get leads:

Instagram stories were launched in the beginning of August and have propelled the social media giant to another level: 600 million monthly active users, thanks mostly to its new Instagram Stories feature. Instagram is currently the second-most used social media site in the U.S. and Instagram Stories now have at least 100 million daily users.

Instagram users who never used Snapchat were probably immediately smitten with this new feature. (However, if you use Snapchat, you know that Instagram stole the Stories idea from it.) Either way, Instagram stories are awesome, engaging and it looks like they’re going to stick around.

What are Instagram Stories?

Writing quality content is time-consuming enough. Posting it to multiple social media sites can take you “forever”. Here are the seven best options that can cut your task from 15 to 30 minutes, at most, freeing your time to concentrate on what’s most important.

LinkedIn is a goldmine for marketers, especially B2B companies. On LinkedIn, you can find high-level decision-makers who have the authority to pull the trigger on a new purchase.

Even if you sell consumer products, you can still reach an audience of wealthy, career-minded individuals who are ready to buy.

This is why — and how — you should reach them.

Know and understand your audience better using Facebook Insights

Does your business have a Facebook page? If so, you’re already privy to Facebook Insights, a tool that allows you to analyze data based on your user interactions. In a Facebook Insights dashboard, you can view basic information like trends in your number of likes, as well as who is talking about your content. Navigating Facebook Insights isn’t difficult, but knowing how it works can provide valuable insight for your marketing team. Learn how to become a social media pro and maximize Facebook tools to achieve your marketing goals.

You know that your business needs social media marketing. (If you disagree with that statement, please read this first.) What you may not know is exactly how much social media marketing your company needs and what it should cost.

When you can find so many social media marketing packages available online, which do you choose? Which will deliver the results you want without breaking your budget? Do you really need to spend thousands of dollars each month for ample social media marketing services?