Implement almost any type of marketing campaign, and you’ll find that getting truly qualified leads is like trying to hit targets you can’t see.
Not so with social media campaigns.
By marketing to your followers on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, or anywhere else your customers may be, you’re reaching out to people who already love, support, or are interested in your company, or have had a prior relationship or encounter with you - in other words, a qualified lead.
They follow you precisely because they’re looking for information and updates; therefore, you’re very likely to get your posts read, links clicked, and they are more likely to respond to your CTAs.
Don’t just take our word for it – here are the numbers:
89 % of consumers buy brands they follow on social media
66 % of marketers say they generate leads after just six hours of social marketing a week
72 % of US adults who have at least one social media platform
59 % of marketers who say social media marketing is one of the best ways to get higher-quality leads
80 % of B2B social media leads that come from LinkedIn
Putting it into Action
Social media marketing isn’t just a matter of putting up witty posts. It’s a combination of Shared and Paid efforts to generate the right traffic. You need to find your audience, engage them, and turn them into loyal clients and customers.
Collect new and qualified leads in social media
To transform social media followers into high-quality, high-value clients, start with the social media platform that your target demographic uses most.
Stay active and interact with people: Run a contest, host live streams, create a LinkedIn or Facebook group, and promote gated content - ebooks, webinars, templates, whitepapers, resource guides etc. that your prospects can access once they provide their contact information.
One Platform at a Time
Let’s dive deeper into getting leads from specific social platforms.
LinkedIn
LinkedIn is useful for targeting professionals. Capture quality leads via your professional or corporate profile where you can include links to your contact form in the Contact Info, Publications, and Projects sections. Recruit other members of your team to participate in the activities. Use a tool like Oktopost to coordinate everyone’s activities.
LinkedIn also offers paid ads - sponsored updates and text ads - that can include your contact form.
Twitter
Posting free content to invite likes and retweets and running a contest can help generate leads from Twitter. Twitter ads let you capture leads from “Leads on Twitter” or “Website Clicks or Conversions.”
Facebook
On Facebook, you can create your own page and acquire leads from those who liked your page or via links to your contact form, promote lead-generation content on Facebook groups and communities, or implement paid Facebook ads targeting specific demographics.
Instagram
Instagram, a great branding tool with a billion highly engaged users, offers the power of relevant hashtags to add to your lead-generating posts, as well as lead ads that include a clickable link to the relevant page.
TikTok
For TikTok, focus on creating viral videos to generate interest. Take a cue from the Ocean Spray skateboarder and try to juxtapose concepts.
Get Our Guide to Social Media Channels
Nurture Leads in Social Media
You worked hard to generate those social media leads. Take advantage of these budding relationships and establish deeper connections by nurturing them through the customer journey and sales funnel.
- Encourage leads to connect with you - include social icons or links to your social accounts in subsequent communications
- Monitor your social media accounts for questions, comments, complaints, or other feedback and acknowledge and respond to them
- Post relevant, educational, and shareable objective as well as promotional content on your social networks without applying any sales pressure
- Use LinkedIn ABM ads to focus targeting and nurturing efforts on specific decision makers within a company with very distinct conversion-increasing ads, either display ads or personalized InMail messages
- Survey your social audience to discover their favorite social network so you can engage them steadily where they hang out most
- Enable followers to engage with your social posts right from your website by establishing a social hub page displaying all your social activities on your site
- Use social media listening to gauge prospect interest and buying intent, so you can segment your messages and deliver them to the appropriate leads
Download our Content for Social Media Success Tip Sheet
Convert Leads in Social Media
Conversion occurs when someone responds to your call-to action - be it clicking a link to a blog, signing up for a free trial or, best of all, buying your product or service. In social media, conversion is turning fans into paying customers. This means eschewing a too-salesy approach for a value-adding and trust-building one.
Here’s how:
- Understand your sales funnel and where social media fits into it.
- Make your social media pages user friendly, smoothing the path to conversion and purchase.
- Nurture social media leads with valuable, thought leadership-boosting content that will help them reach a decision.
- Grow your touchpoints with leads by connecting with them in more than one social platform.
- Let prospects see and hear you via webinars and live events to increase authority, trust, likability - and conversions
- Convert social network traffic to website traffic, via high-quality, high-value blog posts that encourage multiple visits.
- Pinpoint LinkedIn groups closest to your target market profile and ply them with relevant and original content.
- Utilize the conversion pixel in Facebook advertising to track people who have viewed the ad and work to get them to your email list.
- Demo your product or service on YouTube so your prospects see your offer in action.
- Use conversion-boosting tools like HubSpot to get detailed info on your prospects, enable page testing so you know which ones best convert visitors, and personalize content based on what each social platform users are likely to read.
Social media has been proven to drive greater revenue growth than most marketing channels. If you want to implement it in your own B2B or B2C campaign, this “social media 101” is probably not enough. Consult with an expert who can help you engage your target audiences, balance commercial and objective, curated content, as well as provide content creation and maintenance across platforms.
K2 receives no promotional consideration for mentioning these products in our blog.
