Social Media is an amazing tool for growing your business, however, not many brands know how to get leads through social media.
This article shares tips and tricks on how to get leads through social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and more.
What is Unique about Generating Leads on Social Media
Social media comes in many forms, each with its own lead-generation strengths and weaknesses. Facebook and LinkedIn are the platforms that most people think of for generating leads, but Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and even TikTok work well for many businesses.
1 – Social Media Users are not ready to buy (yet)
There is ONE most important thing you should remember if you want to get leads from social media:
Most people do not come to Facebook or Twitter or Instagram to buy. They come to browse updates from their friends, get caught up on the latest news, and share some of their own updates.
So, if you start selling to them right away, they may want and need your product, but they are most likely not ready to buy.
Therefore, earning trust and building a connection with your audience is the first step that you should not skip.
This means that you must deliver content and engage them in a meaningful way, making your offer interesting and exciting (never boring).
So, if you have a big launch coming up or a new product announcement, the worst thing you can do is to wait to promote it on the day of the launch.
I work with movie studio companies quite a bit. Guess when we start working on their social media promotion? If you said several months in advance of the launch, then you guessed right.
The same applies to you – Do NOT wait until your big day to post one announcement and then forget about it. Start early with the teasers, go big on the launch date, and keep going on after the launch happens.
2 – Social media helps generate leads BUT not always right away
For businesses, social media is essential for generating leads, but you may not see the conversion right away.
Here is what social media helps you with.
1. Reach a Larger Audience: With over 97% of the population on social media worldwide, businesses can reach a much larger number of potential customers with their message. Consider running
2. Increase Brand Awareness and Recognition: social media can help businesses increase brand awareness and recognition by sharing content, engaging with customers, and running ads.
3. Drive Traffic to the Website: By making it easy for potential customers to find your business online and providing them with valuable content, you can generate more leads through social media.
How to optimize your organic social media lead generation – 4 Important Rules To Remember
If you’re looking to get leads through social media, you can try a few organic methods. There are many specific tips and trick for each of the platforms, but there are also 4 general rules that apply to all.
Ignoring these rules will mean that you may end up wasting your time and effort and not seeing any results.
1 – Create a Profile that Stands Out
Make sure your social media profiles are complete and up to date. Include links to your website or blog and list your contact information. If you have a strong social media presence, people will likely reach out to you for business opportunities. Create a social media username with your brand incorporated.
2 – Share Valuable Content
Another way to organically get leads through social media is by providing valuable content. If you regularly post helpful articles, tutorials, or other information on your social media channels, people will start to see you as an expert in your field. They’ll be more likely to contact you when they need help with something related to your area of expertise.
One of the best ways to ensure that you have valuable content is to think about the top questions your followers are asking and create content around it. Educate people on how to solve their problems first and only after that ask them to convert.
3 – Network Regularly and Nurture Your Audience.
Do not forget about networking. Social media is a great way to connect with other professionals in your industry. It is an opportunity to establish yourself as a thought leader and an authority.
Networking online means supporting your peers, your partners, and your potential customers by liking and sharing their content. You can easily start a conversation with them via a comment or a direct message.
If you want to go an extra mile, send a short video, or voice messages to your potential clients or partners.
Set a few minutes every day, week, or month to engage with interesting people in your community.
4 – MOST IMPORTANTLY Be Consistent While Not Getting Overwhelmed
There are a LOT of things you can do on social media, you can post content daily, host multiple Facebook Live events, participate in Twitter chats. Most people start strong but in about a month or two they get overwhelmed as they do not see results.
So rather than following each suggestion in the post, create a plan to test different combinations of tasks to achieve the following 3 goals:
1) Engage more people every day and start a conversation with them
2) Entice them to check out your landing page or an offer
3) convert them into paying clients.
Once you figure out the winning combination, stick to it no matter what.
Without further ado, here are specific tactics you can use on individual social media platforms.
How to get leads with Facebook?
While its popularity is constantly being questioned, Facebook is still the largest social network. It is excellent for building relationships with potential customers and sharing content. However, it can be challenging to stand out in the sea of posts from friends and family members. Facebook rolls out regular algorithm updates to push more content from friends and hide content from business pages. Therefore, you need to be up-to-speed on the latest Facebook best practices.
Facebook is a great platform for lead generation. There are several ways to get leads with Facebook.
A most obvious way is to create a Facebook page for your business and post content that will interest your target audience. But remember that organic content on business pages no longer performs as well as it used to. Therefore, you will need to put some into generating leads via Facebook.
Below are some organic lead-generation strategies that work on Facebook
1 – Drive traffic to your existing offers or lead magnets.
Share landing pages or top-performing blogs containing a lead magnet or an offer and create a traffic ad to drive traffic to that page.
You will need to make sure that you have a click-worthy headline and a hero image that attracts attention.
2 – Host a Facebook Live event.
Lead a training session or a live video event on a specific pain point for your audience. Remember to include an invitation to check out your offer. Live video is also a great way to explain the benefits of your offer and answer any questions.
But remember that the live event is only helpful if it helps you capture leads in the future. Really think of how each event is integrated into your sales funnel and overall marketing plan.
Live launch is an amazing strategy to introduce a new course. It gives people a sense of urgency, an opportunity to preview your content and earns you the right to introduce your offer (especially with bonuses) to the audience that already loves you.
3 – Join (better yet, lead) relevant Facebook groups
There are many groups on Facebook, they range from very broad topics to very specific ones. Leading a Facebook group is a great way to build trust that you can later turn into leads. But it is quite time-consuming. If you are not ready for the commitment, join an existing group and start networking there.
You can also run ads on Facebook that target your ideal customer. Another way to get leads is to join relevant Facebook groups and participate in discussions.
How to get leads with Twitter?
Regardless of what you think of the whole Elon Mask Twitter debacle. Twitter is still a powerful lead generation tool (when used correctly).
It is perfect for sharing short updates and engaging with others in real time.
Here are a few tips on how to get leads with Twitter:
1. Use Twitter Search to find potential leads and connect with them
You can use keywords or hashtags to find people who might be interested in your product or service. Add them to a specific list. You can segment the lists by types of audiences, size, and more.
Once you’ve found some potential leads, reach out and connect with them. Retweet their posts, send them a direct message or @mention them in your own tweet.
2. Promote a link to your offer via Twitter
Whether it’s an eBook, white paper, or discount code. Post a Tweet inviting people to check out your landing page.
3. Educate people on specific questions/issues via a Twitter thread
With 280-character limit, tweets must be concise and to the point. It can be challenging, but it forces you to get creative with your messaging. Twitter thread is a “workaround” for the 280-character limit imposed by Twitter. It allows you to share multiple messages at once and create a storyline.
4. Host a regular Twitter chat
Twitter chats are regular scheduled conversations. They can be centered around a specific topic, issue, milestone or more.
How to get leads with Instagram?
Instagram can be a great place to start if you’re looking for leads. But since it does not really allow you to add links to the posts, you will have to be a bit more creative.
Here are a few tips on how to get the most out of Instagram for lead generation:
1. Create a strong bio that stands out and is searchable.
Pack as much high-value information as you can into the bio AND the keyword your clients are searching for to your bio.
For example, I add Digital Marketing Strategy to our Instagram profiles. That way, when the clients are searching for Digital Marketing Strategy on Instagram, they may discover my profile.
Make sure that you tell people in your bio a bit about the services that you offer and add a call to action to your offer.
Add URLs to the landing pages with specific offers in your bio. Change these frequently OR use tools like https://lnk.bio/ to share multiple offers at once.
2 – Use targeted hashtags to reach a wider audience.
Hashtags can help you get people who might not be following you yet but are searching for a specific topic.
So, make sure to use relevant/niche hashtags in your posts. For example, if you have a tool that helps people generate more leads on Instagram, add #InstagramLeads hashtag to your post. You can also create your own branded hashtag to start building awareness of your brand.
3. Add Action Buttons to your profile.
Instagram gives you several options for Action buttons. These are Order Food, Reserve, Book Now or Get a Quote.
While the first two are mostly appropriate for the restaurant businesses. The Book Now and Get a Quote can work well for the services, SAAS or coaches and consultants.
Tell your followers what you want them to do, whether visiting your website or signing up for your newsletter.
4. Create Instagram Stories and Reels
Stories and Reels are a great way to connect with your followers and give them a behind-the-scenes look at what you’re up to. Another benefit of stories is that they allow links. Use stories to promote special offers or discounts that you’re running.
5. Run an Instagram contest or giveaway.
These are especially powerful if you partner with one of the influencers and offer a substantial prize.
How to get leads with LinkedIn?
LinkedIn is a huge professional network with over 600 million users, most of them are business professionals. This makes LinkedIn a largest virtual database of contacts for practically every industry. This is a true goldmine for any salespeople.
LinkedIn works for lead generation, but many people struggle to generate leads. So, what are the successful lead generation strategies for LinkedIn?
1 – Optimize your profile for your ideal customer.
Update your profile image with the most trustworthy image. Make sure your headline has a clear description of what you do and the value that you offer to the potential client.
Most importantly, you need to help your potential prospect see value that you can bring to them via content.
2 –Use the full power of Sales Navigator.
Many salespeople use Sales Navigator to research their ideal audience, but most of them do not realize the full power of what it offers.
You can use a combination of different search criteria (and, or, not, “Quotes”, and [Parentheses]) to find the EXACT person you are looking for.
