If you have a marketing goal to increase your lead generation, have you tried using tactics through social media?
Social media is a great way to get in touch with your audience, engage them in a conversation, and boost brand awareness. It’s easier for users to convert when you’re active on these platforms and interact with people.
Gathering leads on social media helps your brand build recognition and move users through the conversion funnel. People can see your brand’s personality and engage with your content in a fun, entertaining way.
However, more than 50 percent of businesses say that generating leads and traffic to their site is their biggest marketing challenge. Lead generation doesn’t need to be difficult, but it is important to understand how to use social media to achieve that goal. Doing so will put you ahead of your competitors and help you grow your business.
If you want to generate leads using social media, here are four ways to get started.
Run a Contest or Giveaway
Running a contest or giveaway is a great way to both engage and entertain your social media audience. And with more than 3 billion social media users worldwide, you don’t need to worry about having enough contest participants.
People love to win things for free, especially from brands they like. If you cater to your audience’s needs, they’re likelier to join your contest and spread the word to family and friends.
Collecting leads through giveaways works because it’s a great incentive to encourage action. To enter, you can ask users to submit the information you need to move them through the sales funnel. You can also require them to tag others in their post or follow your account to increase your social media conversions and engagement.
As long as you know what your goals are with your campaign, you can track your progress to ensure you’re getting closer to reaching them. Before creating your contest, set actionable goals you can measure. That way, your next giveaway will produce even better lead generation results than the last.
Host Live Streams
Over the last decade, live streaming has taken social media by storm. Before, there was no way for businesses to interact with a global audience in real-time. But live video has made it possible for brands to engage with customers, receive feedback, and generate leads.
Around 39 percent of B2B professionals agree that social selling reduces the amount of time they spend researching potential leads. Social selling is the process of finding, understanding, and nurturing prospects through social media. And what better way to sell on social platforms than to use live video?
Live video is effective at generating leads because it makes it easier to point your audience in the right direction. You can lead them to landing pages, blog posts, product pages, and more.
It’s also easier to create a personalized interaction with users with live streaming. You can respond and answer questions as they come in rather than hours or days later. Customers get to learn more about your brand, its values, and why they should buy from you.
Create a Facebook Group
You can generate leads through any social platform as long as your target audience is there. A special thing about Facebook is that it has Facebook Groups where users with common interests can share and bond over their experiences.
More than 1.4 billion people use Facebook Groups, which gives your brand plenty of room for lead generation. On top of that, many of these groups are private and provide limited access, making them a form of gated content.
Through a Facebook Group, you can provide users with the latest brand updates, offer exclusive deals, receive feedback, respond to questions, and much more. The more you interact with your audience, the better your engagement rate will be.
Promote Gated Content
Offering limited access to something makes people that much more interested in it. When you add gated content to your social media strategy, it encourages users to take action. They want to see what else you have to offer that others may not have access to, which makes gated content so effective.
Did you know that 59 percent of people use social media as buying inspiration? They’re actively browsing social media to influence their buying behaviors and make purchasing decisions. So, if they see an exclusive piece of content relevant to their interests, they’re likelier to engage with it.
Some examples of gated social content include:
- Content upgrades
- Ebooks
- Whitepapers
- Resource guides
- Templates
- Webinars
One great thing about gated content is that it collects high-quality leads that are more serious about your offer. Users browsing your site without a clear intention aren’t likely to hand over their information in exchange for your lead magnet. But those who understand your offer’s value won’t hesitate to convert.
Publish social media posts that promote your gated content and encourage users to join an exclusive community. You can also send reminders in your email marketing to remind subscribers why your gated content will benefit them.
Over to You
Marketers who struggle to build quality leads need to improve their social selling strategy. Generating and collecting leads on social media is an effective method only if you know how to engage your followers. Social media users want brands that are responsive, provide value, and build trust.
Through content marketing, live video, and gated content, you can create a lead generation strategy that converts users into paying customers. How will you leverage social media to nurture prospects?
