This is an overview of the ways to generate leads from social media. Learn about the benefits of social media, the platforms available & more from this post.
Learning how to generate leads from social media can seem daunting, but honestly, the first step in social media lead mastery is knowing what tools are available, what they can offer you, and how to implement them.
Social networks help create awareness and connect you with potential customers. You need to start by identifying which platforms are right for your business. If your business is Gardening and Landscaping, platforms like Instagram and Pinterest are perfect for showcasing your work, for example. If you share content in the form of a link, you will then drive traffic to your website.
Let’s dive in and familiarise ourselves with the world of social media marketing!
People Discussing How to Generate Leads From Social Media
An obvious choice for most businesses, as one of the largest social media platforms in the world. Creating a Facebook business page will help you connect with your existing contacts, and reach new potential clients.
A Facebook Business page will give you:
Brand awareness: Due to the global reach of Facebook and the sheer volume of its audience you will gain exposure to a vast number of potential clients.
Drive Traffic to your website: If you link all of your posts to your website, you will increase online visitors.
Generate business leads: Collecting ‘Likes’ is a great way to start building a marketing list. You can create competitions, and promotions to collect email addresses to enhance your database.
Customer service and feedback: You can use the messaging function to deal directly with your customers. Reviews and comments can be a great way to gather customer feedback and measure areas for improvement.
Analysis: Use the data from your page’s ‘Facebook Insights’ to understand what content works best for your business, and what is the most popular according to your audience.
Instagram is an image sharing platform. Giving your audience the option of being able to picture your products or services is a powerful tool. Many people use it for inspiration, so it’s a great sales tool and you can also use it for gathering insights.
Businesses can promote their products and services, create a following for their brand, and of course increase sales. Get started here.
The Face of your Business. Take ownership of your enterprise, by showing them that you aren’t a faceless organisation, and that you exist. Make your business relatable with live posts and stories.
Audience. On a daily basis, instagram has over 500 million users. That is a big, accessible audience, by anyone’s standards, that you can use to your advantage.
Presence. No matter what the size of your business, Instagram can offer you a presence. Make sure you are scheduling at least one post a day as part of your strategy.
Influencers. This is the term for online celebrities, who will promote a brand or a product. You can partner with a well-known celebrity, and they can advertise your company or product to their millions of followers, giving you greater outreach.
Engage. People like to have a voice. The more “likes” “comments” and “shares” you get, on any social media, the more visible you become. Use quality images, local hashtags and even partner with other brands to create more awareness.
Hashtags. Yes, Hashtags actually serve a purpose, if used correctly. They can help make your business stand out from your competitors. They will help potential new customers find you.
Make money. Instagram is constantly evolving. The latest program is called “shoppable posts”. This allows businesses to add tags to the products in their photos with links that include a product description, price and the option to “shop now,” which will lead the user direct to your website.
The Competition. Follow your competitors, see how they interact with their followers, and see what they are promoting currently.
Get Creative. Using Images allows you a great way to be creative. Inject personality into every post with the use of video’s, colour and interaction.
With over 500 million Tweets being sent each day, it’s clear that Twitter is still a current and legitimate social media platform. Twitter operates on a discovery mindset. This allows businesses and brands to connect with a relevant and engaged audience.
Twitter can give you:
Stay Current. Twitter operates in the moment. Allowing you access to what’s going on in your industry, community, and around the world right now. See what is currently trending, by using the Twitter Search function, to make sure that you stay relevant, and therefore present.
Brand Awareness. Twitter allows you to communicate with your followers and attract new followers. Twitter Ads can be used to generate greater impact.
The customer feel-good factor. People tweet when they’re unhappy. People tweet when they’re ecstatic. But there is not a lot that falls in between. Twitter has good customer service features that allow you to respond quickly to people, which will strengthen those customer relations.
Connect & Influence. Twitter differs from other social media platforms; by allowing you to interact with any users, even if you are not connected to them. This allows you to network with influencers, and other key people to grow your following in your target market.
Originally designed as a platform for recruiters to headhunt desirable candidates. Now Linkedin is an important professional networking site, essential for growing your business.
Your Shop Window. Create a profile, this should highlight your professional story, your key attributes, and your skills. You can use this to demonstrate your competitive advantage, and by appearing credible, and authentic, it builds trust in you and your business.
Your Brand. Linkedin also allows you to set up a page for your business. You can use this to detail your culture, ethics and mission as a company, and drive traffic directly to your website.
Engage and Connect. Now it’s time to build yourself a network. Connect with people from your industry, people in your target market, and your direct competitors.
Your business WILL benefit from Linkedin, here’s why:
Vacancies. Advertise your vacant positions on your company page. Prospective candidates can learn more about your company at the same time.
Showcase. Showcase Pages enable you to share in‐depth information and engage with a target audience. You can create these pages for products, services or events.
Content. Much the same as other social media platforms, you can share posts from other relevant contacts, write blogs, and articles, and link them to your website.
News. Share your News – product launches, offers and events.
Visibility. Increase your business’s visibility on both LinkedIn and the search engines.
Engage. Use your Company Page to communicate and engage with your followers.
Network. Get your team members to set up a profile, and list your business as their place of employment. They will then show up on your company page as working for your brand. This will increase your range and your opportunities to network.
YOUTUBE
A platform you may not have previously considered, but YouTube does offer a range of benefits for business, that can work alongside other platforms.
Visual Aid. YouTube allows you to show your products in action, so customers can see before they buy! This is a great tool for e-commerce sites.
Expertise. You can use YouTube to build yourself a reputation for being an expert in your field, by uploading video’s showing tutorials, or ‘How To’ tips.
Brand. Make your brand more visual by uploading video’s of events you may have held, or about where your product comes from. Create video’s interviewing your customers, then others in similar fields can see for themselves how satisfied your customers are.
Bandwidth. YouTube allows you to embed video content in your website, without increasing the bandwidth of your site.
Events. If you are organising events, and you want to generate interest, show your target audience how successful the last event was, and what they can expect from this event.
Troubleshooting. You can use YouTube to tackle issues that your customers may encounter. For example, you could upload a video about how to install one of your products, or how to maintain it.
PINTREST
Users of Pinterest are more likely to convert into leads, or direct sales faster, than on any other platform. Pinterest is 80% more viral and 3x more effective at generating leads than Twitter.
Inspiration. During the research of any project, idea or design, people refer to Pinterest for Inspiration.
Visualisation. Think of Pinterest as a giant shop window for your business.
Traffic. Good quality images mean that your audience will be more likely to follow your links, and this will drive traffic directly back to your website. Pinterest is more effective at this than any other platform because of the use of pins – every one of them contains a link that takes them back to the source of the image.
Sharing is caring. Pinterest engagement is high, users share things with groups and individuals regularly, which means that your pins are more likely to be seen, increasing your visibility.
Integration. Pinterest allows users to automatically pin to their news feeds, integrating with your website, Facebook and Twitter accounts.
What’s hot right now? Pinterest allows you to see what is trending right now, you can then use this information to tailor your offers and products accordingly.
SNAPCHAT
Often overlooked, as associated with younger users, but, you cannot deny its relevance with 300 million monthly active users. 188 million of those are active each day!
So, if your target market is the younger audience, who may have an interest in your products or services, it can prove a worthy tool!
Create a VIP Club. Building brand loyalty is what gives you repeat business, and the easiest business to get is from a customer that is already happy with your product or service. This platform makes it possible to offer special offers exclusively to your followers, which keeps them connected to your brand.
For a short time only. Create a sense of urgency with a limited time offer. Snap chat appeals to audiences short attention span and can make an impact quickly because of the short viewing timeframe that the platform uses.
Links. You can add links directly to posts, making it quick and easy to share with potential customers. If you create trackable URL’s, you can track how many clicks your post generates.
Get down with the kids. Snap chat can help you break into the Millennial target market, with 30 million of its users being aged between 13 – 25!
Get Ahead. Relatively speaking, Snap Chat is unchartered territory for business, despite being released nearly 8 years ago. So get ahead of the competition by using this underutilised platform.
In your own time. Unlike advertising on Facebook, you do not have to post regularly to be visible. So, you can choose when to post, or if at all, without it impacting your contacts or potential client reach.
TIKTOK
One of the newer additions to the list, TikTok is a powerful video-based app that puts you, your products or services and your brand squarely in the limelight. TikTok puts the focus firmly on engagement. This allows businesses to build strong bridges with their audiences by connecting with them and relating to them in a personal way.
A presence and following on TikTok can benefit you with:
Reach. With over 800 million active monthly users and counting, your potential audience is huge.
TikTok Ads. TikTok offers an integrated suite of targeted advertising solutions that you can leverage to put your organisation, products and services in front of the people most likely to convert.
The Personal Touch. Tell the story of your business. Let the personality of your organisation shine through with engaging video content that lets your audience feel like they are a part of the story. Connect with your audience by participating in TikTok challenges, or even set up your own.
Increased Website Traffic. By including your website landing page in your TikTok bio, you have included a gateway to your business. By the time they have clicked this link, your audience will have had a chance to see what your business stands for, and importantly, what you have to offer. Informed audiences lead to higher sales!
Relevance. TikTok allows you to easily keep your finger on the pulse of both what makes your audience tick, and of what is currently trending around the world. These can provide insight as to how you can do things differently now and in the future.
About the author:
GLO is an award-winning full-service digital marketing agency, delivering insight-led, results-driven services on a holistic basis. We’ve made it our mission to cultivate interactive digital experiences that excite and inspire. Our in-house specialists work as an extension of businesses and brands, using a bespoke process from the start to the end of your project, ensuring 100% satisfaction, every time.
