A lead to me is anyone that contacts me via phone, email, tweet, FB comment....anything. Conversion to me is turning that lead not only into a client, but into a transaction. I've turned leads into clients that were either unable to sell their home, or never bought a home....that is not conversion for my business.

I should clarify a little here.....I'm not talking about random comments on SM as being a lead. It would have to be someone inquiring about some aspect of my business.

A "lead" to me is someone who is already interested in what you have to offer but isn't yet a customer. So to me, an email, a phone call, or even a message received via social media (Twitter reply/DM, Facebook message), as long as you can track it back to your social media efforts in some way, is a social media lead.

So "point of contact" is the point at which you categorize someone as a lead. My question then would be, do you use some sort of database management system?

I think that a lot of people would consider a message, an email a call or a message received via social networks a "lead" but then due to a lack of organization, there's a lot of fall-out or rather, little conversion to a sale. (Not saying this is you by any means, just trying to expand on the dialogue here is all).

Thanks for sharing your thoughts Kari!

I agree - we're still trying to define the "social CRM" and the best, most efficient way to organize and act on these leads. I don't have the answers myself, but here's an excellent article I've just read about defining social CRM: http://www.socialmediatoday.com/SMC/179998