It might be time to look ina new place: social media.
Social media can provideengaged leads eager to buy—but only if you know how to start with effectiveoutreach.
Today, you’ll learn thestrategies behind effective lead generation on social media. We’ll explore bothpaid and unpaid strategies to find high-quality buyers—mostly in the B2B space,but with techniques that can also work wonders if you’re selling B2C.
Let’s dig in!
Social Media’s Advantage in Generating High-QualityLeads
Let’s start by exploringwhy social media is the secret to great leads.
To start off, social mediausers are more engaged with their networks than many other platforms, includingemail.
In fact, 20% of business users have replaced email with social media astheir primary communication method—and 23% of internet users spend almost alltheir time on social media and blogs.
In addition to socialmedia’s prominent place in the worlds of your users, it also has targeting andcontact information built in. Unlike emails, which lack location precision orcontextual data, platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn let you initiate contactwith prospects based on highly specific criteria.
That’s probably why,according to Sales for Life, 61% of B2B marketers use social media toincrease lead generation
So, what are the mosteffective ways to reach out to prospects and find new buyers?
Strategies to Generate Leads with SocialMedia
Social media leadgeneration strategies include both free and paid techniques. Let’s look atboth.
The first strategy is toshare links to content. Content is one of the most important parts of thebuying cycle. Sixty-five percent of buyers feel that content has an impact onpurchase decisions, according to HubSpot.
So if you aren’t producingcontent to bring leads into a sale with you, you’re missing out.
A great way to grow your email list is with links to gated content—that is,content that requires a signup first. It’s been estimated that up to 80% of B2B content marketing assets are gated.
If you’re frustrated withthe number or quality of the leads you’re getting, it might be time to ramp upyour strategy. You can start implementing a paid strategy for even moreconsistent lead generation.
There are lead generationstrategies on nearly every platform nowadays, so your choice of strategy shoulddepend mostly on where your audience is.
If you’re in the B2C space,you should probably start with Facebook. Facebook’s lead ads allow prospects to send you theircontact information with just a few taps.
Facebook automaticallypopulates with their information and all the prospect needs to do is confirmthe submission.
Since Facebook ownsInstagram, they’ve implemented the same type of ad on that platform, too.Instagram lead ads are nearly identical to those on Facebook—you can choose the information to ask for. Once again, this worksbest with B2C products.
The next strategy togenerate leads through social media is through live events. This doesn’t meanconferences or in-person meetups, but content generated in-the-moment online.
According to HubSpot, webinars and webcasts are the single most effectivecontent tactic for B2B marketers, beating out blogs, case studies, and researchreports
The most basic version ofan event of this type is a webinar. These are typically held live (but can alsobe recorded and replayed later).
Here’s an example ofa webinarlead generation page fromNeil Patel.
You will, of course, needto set this up on your own site, but you can use social media to draw in leadsto promote it. By sharing it on social media, you can expand your reach andstart generating more leads by leveraging your existing social connections.
A simple post to thewebinar registration page works fine. Here’s how Cleriti promotes their webinar on Twitter.
If you’re willing to spendsome money to generate more leads through social media, you can use a referralcampaign.
To make this work, you’llneed to encourage customers to share on social media, track new signups throughtheir referral link, and compensate referrers.
It can be a lot to manageyourself, so to speed up the process you’ll find a lot of use in an automaticprogram to handle the details for you.
A great system for thisis LeadDyno,which will handle affiliate payouts and will even provide affiliates withsocial media messages you’ve crafted for them.
Finally, you can use a newphilosophy to maximize your leads—social selling.
Social selling isn’t quitelike the other recommendations. It’s not a technique or strategy—it’s adifferent way to think about selling.
Instead of using coldpitching and leads, it’s a sales process built on relationships and education.
But it’s not just a theoryor a fad. While it’s a relatively new mindset, research and numbers show thatit’s highly effective at generating high-quality leads on social media.
According to PostBeyond, 73% of salespeople who use social sellingoutperformed their peers and exceeded their sales quota 23% more often.
