One of the key issues facing sales and marketing teams in the modern age is the need to constantly generate new leads to fill sales funnels. Though the lead generation function has been around for quite some time now, it has become a far more complex operation to effectively target and reach out to potential customers.
Of all the lead generation strategies for businesses to employ, social media has to be one of the hardest for businesses to address. Not only is the success of your efforts hard to measure, brands also have to be constantly vigilant to address and respond to brand mentions (negative or positive) within an acceptable timeframe in order to maximize results.
The hardest part about social media marketing is choosing the right platform or channel to reach your target audience effectively and in the right context. That’s why we’ve compiled a list of the most prominent social media platforms for businesses to leverage for lead generation and the best ways to go about using them.
Choosing the Proper Social Media Channels for Lead Generation
Depending on what type of company you are, what products you offer and who your target audience is, there are a handful of relevant social media platforms for you to choose from. These platforms can help your brand build awareness, increase outreach, learn about your target audience and even generate qualified leads, provided you use them correctly.
Twitter has millions of active daily users who are constantly sharing their interests, opinions and experiences. This makes it a great place to learn about your audiences and develop new ideas to enhance your targeting efforts. Frequency plays a critical role in getting favorable results due to the average user’s short attention span and continual updates from pretty much everyone on the network.
Use “Twitter Lead Generation Cards” to help increase your number of click-throughs while decreasing the cost per click. This is a highly effective tool for marketers targeting social media users. Your “Twitter Profile Page” is an opportunity to provide a Call-To-Action for users who are interested in your brand. Lastly, “Twitter Advanced Search” allows you to dig deeper into online conversations to learn more about your audience and gain insights into industry trends.
Facebook is the largest and most active social media platform around and it can enable your brand to reach out to a huge audience base. With over a billion users, Facebook captures about 10% of all internet traffic (research by Hubspot). Though mainly used for social/entertainment purposes, a significant amount of businesses use it to showcase their organization’s products, services and most importantly, culture.
Make use of “Facebook Lead Ads” to lead users to your website or landing page, or simply direct them to an embedded lead ad that remains within the Facebook portal. Take advantage of your Facebook company page and status updates to build engagement with your followers and prospects. Remember to frequently use Calls-To-Action and post a variety of content to keep your audience entertained.
LinkedIn is a predominantly professional network, which is why it works well for B2B companies. Out of all the social media channels, LinkedIn is the most used and most effective for targeting professionals (according to Gleanster research). There is an assortment of ways that you can use LinkedIn to enhance your brand’s sales and marketing efforts by increasing brand awareness, trust, outreach and presence.
Join “LinkedIn Groups” to connect with communities for learning and sharing purposes. Harness the targeting power of “LinkedIn Ads” to get your message out to the right audience. Boost your awareness and build a following with your “LinkedIn Company Page”. Learn about your audience and discover who the decision makers are with “LinkedIn Advanced Search”. Finally, use “Sponsored InMail” to reach individual users through their LinkedIn inbox, even if you aren’t connected with them.
Instagram is a social media platform for the more visually-inclined. It works best for brands that have plenty of visual content to publish and share with their audiences. It can also be used as a channel to showcase your company culture, as like Facebook, it is mainly used for social/entertainment purposes. This being said, at about 300 million users and growing, it is still a great way to reach your audience.
Be sure to use “Instagram Hashtags” properly. Leverage what’s trending or even better, create your own unique hashtag that is relevant to your business and resonates with your audience. This will increase the engagement levels of people who are interacting with your brand. Post a variety of content and make use of “Instagram Videos” which can further increase engagement levels.
Other Alternatives
There are other platforms available such as Pinterest, Google+, Youtube and Snapchat that you can also use to boost your social media presence and outreach. Effectiveness is all dependent on which platforms your audience tends to be more active on and which ones they use to engage with brands. Another dependent factor of course, is what type of content they like to consume.
Takeaway
No matter what channel you choose, there are specific ways to leverage them because users on each of these platforms behave differently. There’s no hard-and-fast rule as to which ones will work best for your brand so your best bet is to test them out and see for yourself.
The most important part of generating leads on social media is to maintain an active presence. If your brand goes idle for too long, users will simply get bored and move on to the next big thing. Unfortunately, most users on social media do have a short attention span because there’s a constant battle for audience engagement by other brands, personal or commercial.
Take these points into account and you’ll be making social media waves in no time!
Author Bio
Dianne Carillo is the Marketing Communications and Brand Manager at PureB2B, a lead generation company that help accelerate on business solutions and technology sales processes. Dianne loves reading, and especially knowledgeable in both sales and lead generation techniques and trends.
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