3 Winning Tactics to Use Social Media for Lead Generation

3 Winning Tactics to Use Social Media for Lead Generation

The success of an organization largely depends on its ability to generate quality leads that have a profound impact on customer acquisition, which in turn impacts the bottom line results. And there is a multitude of ways to source leads for businesses including Marketing and advertising. However, Lead Generation using Social media has an edge over traditional media for its swift and cost-effective methods that deliver results quickly. Consider the fact that Social media has a 100 percent higher lead-to-close rate than outbound marketing according to Quick Sprout. Also, 90% of top decision-makers say that they never respond to cold calls, while 76% of buyers are willing to have an interaction on Social media. Lead generation using Social media can help you rack up sales with a smaller price tag while giving you a better exposure online. And with the right tools like Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Salesforce Social Studio that allow you to streamline your Social media marketing efforts, the sky is the limit on Social media.

Read on to explore this two-part series that will cover the basics of high-quality lead generation using Social media.

The demand for highly valuable content is always on the rise. Your business audiences are looking for relevant information regarding their industry and they don’t mind sharing their basic contact information in exchange for something of value. For Lead generation through social media, you can promote gated content by sharing a link to a landing page where potential readers provide their contact information before gaining access to the content. However, publicly available content receives more visits and reads than gated content for obvious reasons and if your organization prioritizes brand awareness over Lead Generation, gated content might not be the ideal tactic for you. Spoiler Alert – Provide thought leadership and incredible value to the reader to ensure that they come back for more!

Check out the post below to get a glimpse of what gated content looks like in action.

Take advantage of Social Media Advertising

While Organic social media posts reach your audiences with its highly engaging content quality, Social media advertising takes targeting and the capability to extract leads from laser-focused groups of potential customers to the next level. With the right targeting and the right message at the right time, your Social Media advertising could create a lasting impact in terms of positive branding along with creating highly convertible Marketing qualified leads.

However, beyond simple targeting, social media advertising has evolved to include specific social media lead generation tools that allow marketers to collect leads within social networks.

Facebook Lead Ads for Lead Generation

This ad format facilitates Lead Generation by offering a low-commitment and low-barrier way for potential customers to connect with your brand without leaving the Facebook page. Similar to the Gated content offer, the prospective customer provides information in exchange for something of value – like a newsletter, white paper or coupon or something that can extend beyond the virtual platform and can be delivered in real life like a product demo at a brick and mortar store or a test drive.

One major difference and an advantage, however, is that Lead ads allow advertisers to directly collect prospect’s information from mobile ads instead of sending traffic to a landing page where the prospect has to fill out a form and click on submit manually, whereas Lead Generation using Lead ads simplify the process by allowing the person to just click on the ad while the name and email gets pre-populated after which he can just click on Submit. You can connect the generated leads directly to your CRM or mail campaign or download them and pass it along to your sales team.

Instagram Lead Ads for Lead Generation

Since Instagram is part of Facebook, Facebook lead ads can also appear on Instagram, as long as the ads meet Instagram’s design requirements. However, Lead Generation using lead ads function slightly different on Instagram than they do on Facebook. Instagram can only pre-populate the lead form with email, full name, phone number, and gender. So if you require additional information, the user has to type it in manually. And since Instagram lead ads appear only on mobile devices and for the fact that it takes 40 percent longer time to fill out a form on a mobile device, it is recommended that you request additional information only if it is absolutely necessary for your initial sales efforts.

LinkedIn Lead Generation Forms

LinkedIn has also made it easy for prospects to share their information since they are pre-populated with details from the users’ LinkedIn profile. LinkedIn being a professional networking site, the pre-populated form can include work details including job title, company, seniority, as well as education details including degree, school, and field of study to give you a rich set of data about the leads. However, LinkedIn recommends sticking to three or four key fields to optimize Lead Generation. As with Facebook lead ads, LinkedIn forms are automated and do not require you to type in any detail.

Run a Contest or a Social Sweepstake

Social media contests can help you maximize your marketing initiatives in many ways – to expand your reach, increase brand recognition and of course, Lead Generation. While there are numerous types of contests that can be run, we recommend specifically for lead generation that you run a sweepstake or a giveaway that can only be entered once your prospects provide their contact info.

Ensure that you are super-targeted with the paid promotion for your event, so you don’t end up generating low-quality leads. It is also essential that the prizes be targeted to attract only your target audience and not anybody else who might be interested in winning the prize. For instance, a generalized gift like an iPhone or a vacation could attract anyone, who might not be an ideal prospect. Make your giveaway, interesting enough only for your audiences and not for the others. For example, if your audience is made up of sales professionals, try giving away free admission and airfare for an industry event to maximize your Lead Generation efforts.

Lead your way to Success

The possibilities are endless with Social Media Marketing, and if it isn’t part of your Lead generation strategy, the time to start is now. However, you need to analyze your audiences and ensure that you use the right platforms and the right messaging in order to get the maximum eyeballs for your Lead gen campaigns. You can also take advantage of Salesforce tools that help you determine whether your Social Media efforts are leading to conversions.These tools come with a host of features that enable you to streamline your Social media management and carefully track the effectiveness of your campaigns to get the maximum out of your Social Media efforts and spend.

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