Websites that are "social media friendly" could improve their lead generation, it has been claimed.

According to Top Rank Blog, people discover sites through social media content, including links on Twitter and Facebook and their favourite blogs.

The article advises businesses to make websites social media friendly by creating fresh social content that is easy to share in order to "facilitate the saving and sharing of content with others, extending reach and facilitating engagement".

Those advantages identified as being associated with incorporating social features into websites include improving online word of mouth, expanding market reach and stimulating conversations with advocates or prospective customers.

Although search is the most effective way of consumers discovering content, it is suggested that social media participation can also improve search visibility.

Businesses are advised to "ensure their content strategy factors in the value of search as well as social media" by gaining an understanding of crawlable content, site organisation, keyword usage and other issues.

In other lead generation news, research by Forbes has indicated that the majority of marketers (82 per cent) employ conversions or sales data to measure the success of lead generation campaigns, while search engine optimisation and pay-per-click tactics are the most effective at gathering conversions.

Written by Julian Poulter and Copyright "Selling People 2009"