Recent Entrepreneur.com Feature Reveals How Online Marketing Experts, Ben Simkin (Founder of BusinessNET) & Jenn Scalia (Business Coach for Entrepreneurs), Provide Insight on Generating 660 Leads in One Week Using Social Media Challenges

Brisbane, Australia, November 2, 2016 (Newswire.com) -  ​Ben Simkin, known as the 900-million dollar man, with the figure now exceeding $1.45 billion, recently interviewed business growth and visibility specialist Jenn Scalia in his column on Entrepreneur.com. The two are both leading experts in their respective fields, specialising in aspects of online marketing. The article, “how to generate 660 new leads in a week using social media challenges”, was based on Scalia’s recent success that added $60,000 in revenue for her business in under a week.

In the article Scalia says, “Challenges are a great way to generate buzz as part of launches, or just to create engagement in your community”.

Social media ‘challenges’ are always trending around the globe and can be highly beneficial for those involved if executed effectively. One of the biggest challenges was the ‘Ice Bucket Challenge’ that raised $220 million and increased awareness for the not-for-profit group ALS. However, social media challenges are often a hit-or-miss because many people approach it with no strategy. Simkin explains that without a strategy, “it’ll be just a lot of busywork with no results to show.”

The article goes on to discuss Ms. Scalia’s three things you need to know to get a social media challenge right:

1.  Make it original and relevant to your specific audience: Create the challenge around your audience so it attracts them and addresses their biggest needs and struggles. Scalia states, “You want them to have something at the end, whether that’s a physical result, a game plan, a specific feeling, confidence, etc.” So create the challenge to be engaging, but also solves a problem.

2.  Keep it short and sweet: Scalia suggests challenges should run for 7-10 days and any longer can be detrimental to the challenge. Scalia elaborates on her recent seven day ‘Gutsy Girl’ challenge that generated the 660 leads. She says, “it had 130 active participants play along, and because the challenge included a social shares component (using the custom #gutsygirls hashtag), our community created 550 social media posts and 85 videos. In under a week, we received 40 new customers, which resulted in $60,000 in sales for my new coaching program.”

3.  Follow the C-A-S-H equation:

• C- Cohesive: Make the challenge Step 1 or Step 0 before someone actually works with your or buys your product.
• A- Actionable: Don’t over-complicate this or give them too many things to do. One, quick but impactful actionable step will do the trick.
• S- Sharable: Offer something that they can use on their personal social media platforms or for their own business use. Make sure you have them @ tag you and use your specific challenge hashtag when sharing.
• H- Helpful: Each prompt should take them one step further along the path. It should be helpful in getting them where they want to go or to who they want to be. Your challenge should gently nudge them in the right direction.

The results of the ‘Ice Bucket Challenge’ and Scalia’s ‘Gutsy Girl Challenge’ are both proof of well executed social media challenges. Simkin adds, “you can even further amplify the impact of using challenges on your bottom line when you integrate this strategy with using Facebook ads. That way, you benefit from the viral nature add social proof elements of the organic shares and have additional, highly targeted traffic hit your website.”

To keep up to date with Ben Simkin follow him on his Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/benjaminsimkin where he shares expert knowledge and connects the world with successful strategies for businesses.

The full article on "How to Generate 660 New Leads in a Week Using Social Media Challenges" can be found here: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/273206

Source: BusinessNET