Social networks have become a great place to find prospects.
The advantages of social platforms are that they are easy to access, free or almost, fast and without secretary or assistant filtering. Moreover, they constitute an immense pool of information on prospects (professional relations, interests …) and allow direct access to decision-makers. Since there are many different approaches, it is necessary to choose the one that best suits its prospecting objective. Obviously, it is impossible to do everything at the same time. So you have to understand what you want to do: a direct or indirect approach via newsgroups, identify needs or weak signals to buy, keep a watch on new companies, exchange leads, etc.
After defining the objective, it is necessary to work its presence and its visibility on the social networks. This can be done through thematic groups, for example. The goal is to share a lot of credibilizing information. To achieve good results, do not hesitate to adopt a direct and clearly sales-oriented approach.
Mistakes not to be made: as one must adapt its approach to each site, it is necessary to identify and avoid certain errors. On LinkedIn for example, overly commercial messages are not seen because most members use their private email. In general, the shared information must be brief because the prospects receive a lot. Of course, over-solicitations are prohibited.
Finally, which networks to use? It all depends on the objective and the functionality.