Startups aren’t on social media to share cat videos and read celebrity gossip - they’re on social media for business. But, getting leads from social media is not so easy.

A survey of 300 marketers by Ascend2 found only 26 percent noted social media among their more effective lead generation tactics.

Now what are those 26 percent doing that other marketers aren’t?

According to Social Media Examiner’s “2015 Social Media Marketing Industry Report” as reported by Scoop.It, one thing they’re doing is putting in more time – six or more hours a week spent on social media. They also tended to have more than a year’s experience doing it.

There also, though, are specific strategies and techniques that have been proven to work:

1. Answer questions for people who post or follow. Try it for a month and you may be surprised at the number of leads it drums up.
2. Deliver useful content. Want people to follow you? Be useful. Want to get engagement by posting? Be useful. Want to get people signing up as leads and moving through your funnel? Be useful. People usually aren’t interested in anything that doesn’t help them.
3. Reach out to prospects. If you don’t have enough time, identify at least a few of the best prospects and try to nurture them.
4. Curate content. Give the source credit, and don’t be afraid to add your own helpful commentary.
5. Invest in some paid advertising. Make sure that you spend wisely by actually following up on the leads this will generate.
6. Promote Gated Content, offering free items that your prospects and followers can receive by paying attention to you.
7. Video is hot. Use it. More people will be interested 

To read the full article by Pam Neely at The Lean Content Marketing Blog, click here.