While some say that social media marketing is overrated, we say “what’s the harm?” There’s no reason not to invest in something that has overall positive reviews, especially when it comes in lead generation. According to Hubspot, social media isn’t just a fad. In fact, 92% of marketers agreed that social media is important for their business. Moreover, by spending as little as 6 hours per week, over 66% of marketers see lead generation benefits with social media.

The list of “positive reviews” goes on and on.

So, are you ready to make use of “à la mode” tools and resources to generate leads and boost your sales? Here are a few that might help.

Posting and Monitoring Resources:

• Hootsuite: Hootsuite is almost synonymous with social media. This is a brilliant monitoring service that will tag keywords or red flag mentions related to your company or service. Hootsuite allows you to keep a close eye on anyone who has been discussing you, the problem you serve, or any other topics important to you.
• TweetDeck: Here’s another monitoring tool that is perfect for tracking and organization social mentions. Use this tool for “engagement” and bringing in a new stream of potentials to your pages.

Measurement and Analytics Resources:

• HubSpot: This is the ultimate lead generation resource. Hubspot helps social media marketers assess traffic and lead generation using social media or other channels. This is a great tool for determining how far your social media efforts have gone in terms of results.
• Topsy: If you’re a fan of Twitter, here’s a tool that might help! Topsy allows users to judge the popularity of a certain keywords and hashtags. This is especially useful for Twitter campaigns, allowing you to judge how often a hashtag was used throughout your campaign.
• Facebook Pages Manager: Make Facebook page managing easier by not having to open and scour through numerous Facebook pages every time. Facebook Page Manager will connect with your Facebook audience and keep up with multiple pages through a single application. You can post photos and statuses, get push notifications for new activity, reply to comments on your pages, get tips and more.
• Seesmic: Integrate this app to any major platform you can think of (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Linked In, etc.) and you can manage you social media accounts on the go. View your network streams all in one place in an interface that looks very much like an email platform. This is available in both desktop and mobile applications.
• Klout: Want to know how influential you’ve been with your social media accounts? Kloutlets you track your progress on some of the most popular social network. Examine how your shares and tweets change overtime, check which content made the hit-list, and more.

Blogs and other Resources:

• 6 Ways to Capture Leads from Facebook Pages: Here’s a brilliant resource written by Amanda Webb detailing ways you can capture leads on Facebook. She goes into depth about each “tip n’ trick” with pictures and examples included.
• 5 New Ways Twitter Can Get You More Business: Here’s a great article published on Wordtracker by Amanda DiSilvestro. Owing to recent changes in Twitter, lead generation is not the same as it was before. DiSilvestro discusses how you can make use of these features to your advantage and juice up your marketing strategies.
• Twitter LeadGen Cards—B2B Domination (Case Study): Jessica takes us through a case study based on Webtrends experience with Twitters new features for advertisers. As per the study, Web trends managed to accelerate its lead gen in a matter of months by nearly 1,000 percent. Now that’s huge!
• Best Practices for Instagram Marketing and Lead Generation: Instagram marketing has great potential and Annetta Powell thinks so too. She writes about how you can use spectacular visual content on this channel to generate leads and the “best practices” that will capture maximum attention.
• Pinterest Lead Generation 101—Best Practices and Hack that Will Make You a Pro: Here’s a great resource on Hubspot for SMM’s targeting the Pinterest fan base. Ginny Soskey goes through comprehensive strategies, practices, and “hacks” that will increase both direct and indirect leads through Pinterest.

Alison Stone is a creative writer and blogger who tackles academic to creative topics on different blogs. When not blogging, she works at Dissertation cube where she provides help to students who come and ask her write my coursework. Find her on Google+.