9 Tips for Bringing In New Leads from Social Media
If you are still running your business the traditional way, social media may not strike you as an excellent lead generation platform, but it should.
According to stats, approximately 4 billion people across the globe are on social media, and seven in every ten Americans are on one or more social media platforms. With such numbers on social media, it should be the platform where you should focus a considerable chunk of your attention.
But like any lead generation platform, knowing what to do to get the most out of social media is important and challenging. But worry not, as this guide offers a comprehensive list of the most effective tips for getting quality leads from your social media campaign.
What Is Lead Generation?
If you are not new to doing business online, lead generation may not be a new phrase to you. But if you are venturing out in the online market, you may have come across this phrase quite a lot and may be wondering what it means.
Before understanding lead generation, it is best first to understand what a lead is. A lead is any information your audience shares that can help you follow up with them. It can include their email address, occupation, names, interests, etc. Lead generation then becomes any activity that you undertake to collect this information. Lead generation is not an end, but a means to the end. Once generated, the leads stay until they convert into paying customers.
It is important, however, to understand that not all leads will convert into paying customers. The more qualified leads you get in your lead generation efforts, the higher the chances of having them convert.
Every business is different, and the best social media platform for lead generation should be where your audience is most likely to be. If you are looking for a huge number of users, Facebook is the platform to focus on. On average, Facebook has seen over 1.95 billion daily active users. Also, Facebook offers some of the best tools for lead generation.
For B2B marketers, Linkedin has proven to be an excellent platform for lead generation, with many marketers claiming that it generates over two times as many leads as other social media platforms.
So before starting your social campaign marketing efforts, it is important to understand your audience’s demographic so that you put your money where you can get a return for your investment.
1. Identify the Channels to Target
As mentioned earlier, effective channels for running your social media campaign can differ based on who your target audience is. This means you may not need to create a campaign for all platforms. You only need to go where your audience is.
If you run a B2C business, almost every platform will be a right fit, but you may still want to consider where you will get the most leads based on your marketing.
For example, if your target audience is women between 18 and 34, Tik Tok could be an excellent consideration. The main reason behind this is that Tik Tok’s user base is mostly female and is an excellent marketing platform for cosmetic industry-based businesses.
If you run a B2B business, then a platform like LinkedIn, the most professional social media network, is where you will most likely get quality leads.
2. Customize Your Profile
Before considering a paid social media campaign, it is best to ensure that you set your profile to generate leads organically. That means providing your audience an avenue to contact you, shop around, sign up for your newsletter, and more.
So, ensure that you add your most up-to-date contact information and have measures in place to ensure that your audience will find someone to reply to their inquiries when they contact you.
You may even incorporate automation for FAQs and customer communication for off-business hours. You may also need to add a link to your bio or landing page to lead clients that find you organically to your site.
3. Launch Lead Magnet Offers
You may have come across tons of social media marketers offering free eBooks, webinars, case studies, discount codes, etc., and wonder what they gain from offering stuff for free.
The truth is while the stuff may be free, they serve as lead magnets that help marketers gather the information they could not otherwise have. The audience has to sign-up to get the free offers, usually using their email address or any other contact information, allowing the marketer better access to them.
Freebies can be a very effective motivator and you should consider it in your social media campaign. When offering free stuff, consider what your audience may consider valuable and give it to them. In return, you get better-quality leads. If your audience gets value from your free stuff, they will be more likely to trust what you are selling and thus easily convert into paying clients.
4. Incorporate Quality Images
When it comes to social media, the proverbial picture is worth a thousand words. Images are the cornerstone of social media and every other type of content. Every day, billions of images and thousands of hours of videos are uploaded on social media, competing for the same audience’s attention.
You will need compelling and original images in your marketing campaign if you hope to stand out. With photos being such an important element in your marketing, you will also want to make sure that nobody uses your images which are part of your digital assets, without your consent. So, adding a watermark is a great idea.
Adding a watermark to a few images may not be a problem. But if you intend to add a watermark to multiple photos, you may need a tool such as Befunky Photo Editor that can help you add a watermark to a whole batch of images all at once. But don’t forget about your profile picture. It’s the first thing people see when you comment on someone else’s profile or send an email. It needs to be colorful and bold to catch the eye and get your viewers’ attention. You can use this profile picture maker by Picsart to create the perfect avatar for any platform.
Paid advertising is an excellent way of reaching audiences beyond your followers. However, paying to advertise can be expensive. You want to ensure that if you spend on advertising, your target will only be the audience that is most likely to buy your products or services, and that’s where targeted advertising comes in.
Targeted social media marketing offers the highest conversion rates by leveraging the tons of user information at the disposal of the social media networks.
Leading social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter allow marketers to choose the demographics of the audiences they wish to target in terms of age and geographical region.
These platforms have access to tons of user information, making targeting highly effective and thus helping improve return on investment.
6. Monitor Your Metrics
Running a social media campaign is excellent. But knowing its effectiveness is better because it helps you understand what works, what doesn’t and what you can do to make your campaigns more effective.
Most social media platforms come with tools to help you monitor performance metrics. If you have campaigns running on different platforms, it will help if you invest in third-party performance tracking tools to better understand your campaign’s effectiveness.
The most critical metrics you may want to track in your social media campaign include conversion rates per platform, average engagement rate, click-through rate, cost per click, bounce rate, impressions, follower count, and growth, among others.
7. Create Content That Offers Value
You can do everything in the rule book but still fail at achieving your goal if you do not focus on the quality of your content. Once you capture your audience’s attention through all other strategies, you must ensure that you sustain their attention by offering content that adds value to the time they spend engaging with you.
Before a client can trust your product or service, they must trust you first. So you must design your content to portray you as an expert in the field while not being too complicated to put the audience off. The best approach will be incorporating knowledge, fun, and a pinch of sales language to help lead the audience further down your sales funnel.
8. Referral Campaigns
Nothing works better at generating quality leads than the good old word of mouth. Your audience knows the people that could need your services or products most. You could leverage this knowledge to your advantage by asking your audience to refer you to the people in their circle.
The most effective way of encouraging your audience to give you referrals is by offering incentives. For example, you can offer discounts on subscriptions or future purchases, opportunities to win prizes, etc. When done effectively, referral campaigns can be an excellent way of boosting your lead generation effforts without breaking the bank.
9. Video Marketing
Video has become the trend in recent years. The most recent evidence of the video revolution is the explosion of Tik Tok users. According to a recent study, most consumers stated that marketing videos were the most compelling content in their decision to spend money on a product or service.
You may think that creating and completing videos requires a lot of investment, but that may not be entirely true. The audience wants something relatable, like a video shot on a phone camera.
Besides creating video marketing content, you may also want to consider sharing customer testimonials videos for social proof. The good thing is that you do not always have to go where they are. You can help customers willing to offer testimonials and tips on creating compelling content using their phones.
You may also consider leveraging online testimonial collection tools in the market, which can help you get the most out of the testimonials collected from satisfied clients.
Sell more, understand your customers’ journey for free!
Sales and Marketing teams spend millions of dollars to bring visitors to your website. But do you track your customer’s journey? Do you know who buys and why?
Around 8% of your website traffic will sign up on your lead forms. What happens to the other 92% of your traffic? Can you identify your visiting accounts? Can you engage and retarget your qualified visitors even if they are not identified?
