Are you struggling to generate results from your social media marketing efforts, particularly in regards to lead generation and social selling?
You've leveraged paid advertising, targeted the right keywords, shared your content across multiple social media platforms, but you've only ended up with a handful of quality leads (if you’re lucky). If you've found yourself in this situation, fret not - all is not lost.
All you need are a few handy tips to help you improve your strategy, and optimize your lead conversion path.
In this post, I'll go over some handy tips and tools to help you generate quality leads on social media. Whether you’re not leveraging social media at all for lead generation, or you simply want to improve your overall results, these notes will help.
1. Use Smart Lead Generation Tools together with social media
In today’s tech-centric world, any marketer who's still relying on the “bait methods” of attracting leads will get only a small piece of the pie.
The advancement of technology – particularly Artificial Intelligence - has given rise to a slew of marketing tools which are now helping marketers optimize the prospect’s journey in every way - from identifying potential leads to personalizing the content journey, and even to qualifying your lead.
For example, here are a couple of useful tools to help you boost your social media lead generation:
Oktopost
Oktopost is a social media management solution which caters to B2B marketers who are looking to generate quality leads through social media.
Using Oktopost, you’re able to publish content on all the leading social platforms, including Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, and then track the performance of each post using the app's advanced analytics tools.
As soon as your content goes live, Oktopost starts collecting important metrics, like clicks, likes, comments, conversions, etc. But it doesn’t stop there - Oktopost will also show you how your content is performing, and suggest ways to improve your marketing efforts. For example, it'll show you which Facebook post prompted a lead to subscribe to your newsletter, so you know what type of content your audience is interested in, and which drives action.
You should also look to leverage the app's monitoring and listening features in order to catch any opportunities on social media, such as people looking for products or services like yours and people complaining about your competitors’ products or services. This way, you can engage as quickly as possible, so that you can ultimately turn them into leads as well.
CliClap
CliClap is an AI-powered lead generation and qualification tool, which integrates seamlessly with your marketing automation and social media management tools to help you capture leads from all platforms.
By leveraging AI, CliClap analyzes, in real time, the interest of every visitor who comes to your website. CliClap then uses the information it's gathered to determine whether each person has the potential to convert.
From there, CliClap will then predict and apply the next best action for each visitor, based on what they have viewed on your website. It'll provide each visitor with the precise content needed to move forward in your sales funnel, helping to increase the chances of a lead converting by personalizing their content journey.
This way, you’re not just driving traffic from social media - you’re also moving them along the funnel and helping them convert into leads and prospects.
2. Identify the Proper Channels
Identifying the right platforms for channeling your marketing efforts is perhaps the biggest problem that many marketers face today. It may seem like a great idea to be on every social network under the sun, but it might not do you justice when it comes to returns. Likewise, it might be tempting to think that being on all the top social networks is a must, but that might not be the case.
While all the social media channels are viable options to generate leads, you need to establish where your target personas, specifically, are hanging out on social media.
For example, Facebook has the highest number of active users in the world, but it may not be the best for you, depending on the nature of your business. If you’re targeting CMOs, LinkedIn will likely prove a better prospecting platform than Facebook, because LinkedIn is a professional network and their content is more geared for a business crowd.
If you’re in the fashion/beauty industry, Instagram might be a better option, because Instagram is best suited to fashion brands which rely heavily on visual content marketing.
The best way to go about this is to use a social listening tool like Brand24. Brand24 will enable you to research your audience and see exactly where they’re spending their time online.
In addition, you’ll also be able to discover:
When they’re most activeWhat influencers they engage with on those platformsWhat types of content they like (so that you can create more content in that vein)
3. Run Social Media Ads
Social media advertising is one of the most reliable bets when it comes to advanced marketing techniques - not only does it enable you to choose your specific target market, but it also gives you various options to interact with your leads.
For example, with Facebook ads, you can select a specific geographical location where you want to market your products. This can come in handy, especially if you want to attract international clients.
Facebook has also sought to improve its lead generation capacity with the introduction of ads designed specifically for this task - called Facebook Lead Ads.
These ads enable you to capture your prospects’ information with minimal effort on your part.
Whenever a user clicks on a lead ad, they're presented with an opt-in form - but rather than having to manually enter the information themselves, Facebook automatically fills in the details with their contact information based on the info listed on their Facebook profile. This simplifies the process for the user, making them more likely to submit the form.
LinkedIn has a similar model of advertising with their own LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms. Just like Facebook Lead Ads, an auto-populating form will pop up when a user clicks your ad.
4. Share Links to Gated Content
Have you ever visited a website that offered you an incentive, like an eBook, in exchange for your contact information? That’s called 'Gated Content'.
Gated content is locked away, and is only accessible to users who provide their name and email address. The 'gate', ideally, implies that what’s locked is more valuable than what you’ll find in other blogs for free, or without a trade-off.
Gating content is performed with the primary goal of generating quality leads - and it’s a very effective strategy because it aims at providing content only to those who have high potential to convert.
To generate more leads with gated content, make sure you’re sharing it regularly on leading social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
5. Run a Photo Contest
Social media contests are a great way to engage your audience.
In addition to increasing the number of people who interact with your brand, a contest provides the ideal means to deepen the connection with your community as well. In social media marketing, running a contest can also be a great way to increase your following, and raise brand awareness.
But why a photo contest?
While quizzes are great, they lack the visual appeal needed to pique your audience’s interest. A photo contest is best suited for social media lead generation because of its visual and interactive appeal. Besides, everyone loves taking photos - and it gets sweeter when there's a prize to be won.
What the participants have to do is to submit a photo which reflects the theme of the contest in order to be entered to win a prize. To reach a wider audience, encourage all participants to share the contest on social media, and maybe offer bonus entries to those who share extensively.
Results?
You’ll get more leads, a huge following, participants’ contact information - and most importantly, you’ll get user-generated content (UGC). That’s the true power of running a photo contest on social media.
Conclusion
With billions of people using social media to interact and do businesses every day, you’re losing a lot to the competition if you’re not on the social media bus, and not leveraging it for lead generation and social selling. The techniques outlined in this post are some of the most reliable strategies, and will help you generate quality leads on social media.
Комментарии