How will social media change lead nurturing?

This is a great question. I think it will help lead nurturing, massively, but for a surprising reason. I think the social Web's insatiable appetite for content will drive companies to produce more video, more papers, more infographics, more webinars, more e-books (you get the idea), and all of these types of content can be valuable fodder for a lead nurturing program.

In other words, if lead nurturing is part of your revenue engine, then the fuel that powers it is content. Social media is forcing companies to commit to the production of more content.

Would love your thoughts, and the thoughts of others on this. Truly great question!

Joe Chernov
Director of Content
Eloqua
@jchernov

Before potential clients register on your website, they will most likely follow your organization via social media. They subscribe to your blog, "like" your facebook page, or follow you on Twitter. This is just as much lead nurturing as sending emails to leads in your database. So I think that's a pretty dramatic change.

Hope that helps

Jep
www.leadsloth.com

You already have answers from two of the very best, but let me add my 2 cents.

Social media turns a one way lead nurturing campaign into a 2 way conversation. You send emails, but they visit your blog, your Facebook fan page, your website, your Twitter profile, etc.

So, as Jep points out, you're always nurturing, even if emails are not going out.

And as Joe points out, there is an insatiable appetite for content now. People are looking for content on all of those channels.

Jeff Ogden, the Fearless Competitor @fearlesscomp
Find New Customers "Lead Generation Made Simple"
www.findnewcustomers.com

First you understand what lead nurturing is defined to be. For now we'll say "cultivating a relationship with a prospective customer through ongoing relevant communication until the prospect is ready to purchase" So typically through marketing automation that communication is distributed through email. However, if your audience is on various social media channels, then these are other areas to promote content and buld relationships with these prospects. Answering questions in LinkedIn groups, promoting content through Twitter, utilizing webinars and promoting them on social media are all examples of showing expertise towards potential target audiences that embrace social media. Believe it or not- not everyone has a social media presence, so utilizing a mix of email, direct mail, or print advertising are also considered for multi-media lead nurturing channels.

Paul Mosenson
President
NuSpark Marketing
www.nusparkmarketing.com
@nusparkmktg

Joe,Jeff and Kim specifically mention "content." Jep and Jeff refer to email campaigns and getting the content out there while Kim distinguishes between types of content and lists of distribution channels. Paul goes deeper into the nature of the content.

Putting it all together, content is king. This hasn't changed. The need to distribute content hasn't changed. We simply have newly evolved channels. Email is either one-to-one, or, like advertising, one-to-many. Web sites allow for some feedback, much like bingo cards did in the days of snail mail. Social media allows for deep and broad many-to-many communication. Feedback not only to the issuer, but to everyone else. This makes content and vigilance more important because the initial issuer doesn't retain control of the channel. Not only can the target you're nurturing communicate with you, but he can also give feedback to the world at large, and he can receive information about you from others, nurturing or otherwise. And you have no control over this external information. It is no longer sufficient to nurture only your leads. You need to nurture everyone that comes in contact with him.

While I agree with all the above, I would say that social media also adds a very interesting "passive" metaphor for discovering all the great content - whether through a Facebook or Twitter feed, or LinkedIn discussions, lots of great content can be chanced upon if one is in the mood to see what's happening, but in a far less "direct" way than other content distribution channels.

This concept is, in so many ways, the core philosophy of lead nurturing - having great content that long-term potential buyers happen to stumble across and find interesting.

Agreed with the general theme though that the change in philosophy towards creating great sharable content is the biggest contribution that social media will make.

I find asking questions on Linked In, for instance, to often be far more effective in learning what industry people really think than asking them to answer yet another survey or respond to an email. Recently I reached out in an industry group and discovered hugely influential global professionals giving me very thoughful responses essential for marketing research.

More than just content, social media takes us from a cascading, 1-way, interruption communications model to a 2-way conversation model that will be a rule changer in ways we cannot begin to imagine - particularly as the social media inventors, Gen Y, become ubiquitous in the business realm.

Lead nurturing will change, because we will have a more individual understanding of each client's needs, and the client, in turn, will have - and expect - great choices in how the relationship proceeds in terms of frequency and level of involvement.

Social media has changed the entire definition of a lead. So it has actually killed the whole traditional definition of lead nurturing.

A lead means different things to sales and marketing people. And it is different between B2C and B2B.
For a marketing person it is someone who has shown an interest in buying your product. In online marketing, "shown" has for some time been considered as giving your email address or filling out a form.
For a B2B sales person, it is a prospect who has been qualified for Budget, Authority, Need and Timeline (BANT). That is a long way down the line from our marketing person. Traditionally it has been marketing's job to get leads to that level, whereupon a sales person would move in and close them.

Lead Nurturing took the person from one to the other. Once you had that email address, you could send a series of emails which moved the person closer. Along the way it qualified them. You found out their niche or vertical market. You found out who else was involved in the decision. You found the ballpark price they were considering, and the competitors you were up against. And how urgent it all was. BANT, in other words.

But Social Media has changed the game totally. Buyers have for a while been able to find out a lot more about your company than you want to give them. Prices, reviews, competitors, things to consider when choosing. But it has all been vendor sourced.

To the buyer, that means not trustworthy. Biased. With Social Media, however, they can talk to people like them. That's true whether they are teenage girls sharing make-up tips, blokes looking for their next car or businessmen choosing an ERP system for their business. They can find someone with real hands-on experience and ask them what problems they faced, what to consider and which companies to trust and to avoid.

That's powerful. The minute social media came along, the information you choose to put out over the web, via PR etc. took second place.

It changes the whole idea of lead nurturing. Along the path, there's now a lot more distractions - it is more like herding cats than herding cows. It means customers choose their own nurturing programme, taking in the information they want, when they want it.
They'll still make a buying decision - but you cannot simply engage, nurture, close.

There are ways to influence this new buying pattern. But buying a traditional Marketing Automation package because it can do Lead Nurturing isn't the answer. You need a second generation package - one which can show you buyer intent, long before they engage with you. And you need to put the right thought processes behind it.

When I think of social media's affect on lead nurturing, I look towards its viral benefits. Social media opens up additional channels (as previously stated) for distribution of content. But having content that is both timely and "appropriate" for an audience is critical. As Kim points out "it all boils down to CONTENT". Delivering compelling content in a particular channel can produce a viral "mass" of followers and fans (i.e. new leads). Once this mass is engaged, it provides the marketer with an audience that is more likely to be salivating for more content. Feed it to them and the nurturing process is underway.