Conventional billboards are costly and distracting. Therefore, social media is now giving them a run for their money.
Over time, social media has evolved into a great tool for marketing. The social media landscape nowadays is changing at a quicker pace. Thus, many marketers look at social as lead-generating channels.
For instance, a business shares a piece of content that leads someone back to their site to purchase whatever they’re selling. Additionally, this is quite usual for small businesses, as social media is a preferred tool for focused lead generation.
What is a Social Lead?
A person that is interested in a company’s products or services after viewing their social platforms is known as a lead. Leads are potential customers who if handled correctly, can convert into long-term clients.
A social lead expresses an interest in what manufacturer offer before following up with them through other channels. This proves how leads are more qualified than general web traffic.
It is easy to convert the lead into a customer since their trust has already been earned; as the business’s social platform already conveyed to them what they desired.
Social Media Lead Generation Facts
In case you are still contemplating if social media marketing is the right option for your business?
Here are some statistics that may help you understand the importance of social lead generations:
- Social media marketing has reduced costs for 45% of businesses.
- Businesses grew by 24% by using social media for lead generation.
- Almost 68% of businesses were using social media to generate leads in 2018.
- Biggest social media barrier for 77% of businesses is a limitation in lead improvement.
- An average lead costs $2.50 on Google and $0.80 on Facebook. In short, that’s a 32% cost efficiency through social media advertisement.
Best Social Media Platforms for Lead Generation
38% of organizations plan to spend more than 20% of their total advertising budgets on social media channels. Whether they are a B2B or B2C business, anyone can use social media across their sales funnel.
By choosing the right lead generation platform, businesses can not only acquire qualified leads but also increase their brand visibility. Here are some platforms commonly used for lead generation.
Facebook for Social Media Lead Generation
Facebook is the most widely used social platform for lead generation as every consumer utilizes this platform.
In fact, there are currently 60 million active business pages on Facebook. Consequently, it has the lowest CPC rates which is one of the reasons why many businesses opt for it to promote their products.
The key ways to generate leads with Facebook are:
- On-page promotion
- Off-page promotion
- Paid promotion
LinkedIn for Social Media Lead Generation
LinkedIn is one of the best platforms when it comes to B2B social media marketing lead generation and has over 575+ million users, with 260 million+ monthly active users.
Here are some ways to generate leads with LinkedIn:
- Target unique audience
- Create effective ads
- Control your costs
Twitter for Social Media Lead Generation
This is the most popular social media marketing channel for organizations. Twitter ads are great when it comes to targeting and drilling down into desired segments of users.
Here’s how businesses capture leads on Twitter:
- Outline campaign objectives
- Increase brand awareness, attract new followers
- Drive traffic to your website
- Choose the audience by using targeting features such as geographic areas or followers of a notable account.
Instagram for Social Media Lead Generation
Today the world is primarily visual. Almost 80% of accounts follow a business on Instagram. Therefore, there is a high likelihood for marketers to generate leads via Instagram.
Here how Instagram leads are generated:
- Use Instagram lead ads
- Add action buttons to your profile
- Add a direct buying link of specific products and link it with Instagram images.
- Add a ‘swipe up’ feature of Instagram stories
5 Tactics for Generating Social Media Leads
Considering the fact that when used for lead generation, social media platforms give a high ROI of 229%. If social media is not currently your preferred platform for B2B leads, then it should be.
So choose the right lead generation tools for this purpose. Companies can even hire digital marketing services providers like Digitrends and increase their brand visibility.
Here are some ways for lead generation where you can leverage social media to attract new customers by also keeping them engaged.
Social Media Ads
This is one of the best ways of generating leads from social media. Ads are powered with sophisticated targeting features, allowing brands to reach relevant audiences with precision.
First, create a sense of urgency and then guide people down your sales funnel. Use time-sensitive language for this purpose.
Expand business while increasing sales funnel with the help of demographics and geo-location. This helps in reaching the reach target audiences.
Use custom advertising features offered by the social media platforms to launch advertising campaigns. Businesses can even team up with digital marketing service providers. For instance, Digitrends that delivers experiences and realities by connecting business insight with potential technologies.
Hangouts, Webinars, and Live Videos
Most business conduct webinars on a particular topic with advanced registration. The idea is to collect as many leads as they can. Virtual events present multiple opportunities for content marketing. Because the registration is in advance so most people will not even attend the webinar. Therefore, by gating content, businesses can constantly generate leads from social media long after the event is over.
Hangouts include a few people interested in a topic for instance, ‘Google hangouts’. The person who starts the hangouts can invite people to join it. At most 150 people can join the hangouts at a single time. This way like-minded people get engaged, hence, higher chances of potential customers.
For live videos, businesses can go for in-video promotion or gated content. They can also direct the viewer to contests and landing pages of their choice. There are many options available with live videos. Add links to your webinar, or forms/polls to turn the viewers into leads.
Use Lead Magnets
Keep your users engaged through social media and websites. Incentivizing people to share their information is a skill that works exceptionally well on social media. To leverage this tactic for generating leads from social media, create compelling lead magnets like:
- Creating engaging social media quizzes
- Running contests on social media
- Offer lucrative deals and discounts
- Add gated content
- Offer free tools or trial periods
Referral Campaigns
Another effective way of generating leads from social media is referral marketing. The more people learn about your brand, the more likely they are to sign up or purchase from you.
Although asking for referrals is quite tricky, here are a few proven tricks to avoid this pitfall.
- First, reward referrers with coupons, freebies, or loyalty discounts. Make it a win-win for all stakeholders.
- Secondly, get the timing right. Approach users for referrals at the right times. For instance, when they’ve just completed a transaction successfully.
- Lastly, promote referral campaigns through status updates and stories. Customer testimonials can be a magnet for potential leads and ads to the campaign’s authenticity.
Social Listening
With effective social listening, you can identify hidden lead-generation opportunities.
Social listening allows businesses to join conversations relevant to their brand. For example, someone looking for product recommendations. They also provide prompt support in case a user voices issues with a product.
Monitor brand mentions or track industry-related keywords or competitors’ mentions with social listening tools like Mention. Then, respond appropriately to user comments and guide them toward lead-generation pages.
Takeaway of the article
Generating social media leads isn’t a one-day process and takes time. However, with these lead-generating ideas, businesses can efficiently increase their social ROI as well as fuel their brand growth. Keep in mind to measure the impact of the lead generation efforts while looking for opportunities to improve. If it all feels overwhelming reach out to a credible source for digital marketing service providers such as Digitrends.
In conclusion, use these foolproof strategies to turn various social platforms into personal lead-generating machines. Best of luck!