How to Increase Sales Using Social Media Lead Generation?

Social media is a potent tool to help reach a broader audience and generate qualified leads.

Statistics reveal that more than 84% of B2B buyers use social media to make their purchase decisions. It necessitates marketers to enhance their outreach efforts and capture leads with lucrative offers, influencing their choices.

But how does social media have such an effect?

Let’s explorewhat social media lead generation efforts areand how marketers can effectively use them to boost returns.

What is Social Media Lead Generation?

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Businesses generate leads by identifying prospects interested in their offerings. Hence, social media lead generation enables them to leverage social platforms to identify the potential prospects and convert them into qualified leads.

Social media lead generation efforts can involve any activity on social media that can draw prospects to the website. It is the first step of social media marketing, followed by two more critical steps –

• Lead nurturing- Engaging with customers to forge relationships.
• Lead conversion- Finally, turning interested leads into paying customers

Primary Objectives of Social Media Lead Generation Campaigns

The three primary objectives of running social media campaigns for their lead generation initiatives are-

• Amplifying brand awareness

Reports suggest customers prefer social media platforms to research brands catering to their needs. As a result, promoting B2B business on social media can boost lead generation. Moreover, social media users are increasing daily, expected to reach almost six billion by 2027. It opens more business opportunities to boost their brand awareness and engage leads.

• Forging robust customer relationships

Social media provides a platform for businesses to interact with customers and share relevant content. They can also utilize social media to learn what people say about their brand. It helps brands to establish strong customer relationships and improve their brand reputation.

• Boost website traffic

With over 4.59 billion active users, promoting your business on social media can effectively help you generate more traffic to your website and, ultimately, more conversions.

Social Media Lead Generation Tactics to Increase Sales

Social media allows marketers to showcase their brand as a useful source of information to their prospects by generating brand awareness, increasing website traffic and building a strong community.

Let’s explore what social media lead generation efforts are and how marketers can effectively use them to boost returns, thus making full use of their sales and marketing message development process.

Here are some proven social media lead generation methods to help you find more leads and enhance your brand’s sales prospects.

Enhance Your Social Profiles

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Your profile is your identity on social media which is the first thing people see when they look up your brand. That is why creating a profile that will make a good first impression on your prospects is essential.

You can follow simple steps to optimize your social profiles and enhance customer engagement.

• Put up a high-quality profile picture. It should be something that represents your brand’s concept and vision. Companies can also use their brand logos as profile pictures across all social channels to showcase their unique identity.
• Write an impactful bio that includes the essential aspects of your business and explain how prospects can benefit by associating with you. It should not be very lengthy. A concise bio with all the significant information can attract more prospects.
• Add important links for your website and other social media profiles.
• Put up simple CTA (call-to-action) buttons encouraging prospects to take the next steps.
• Your social media posts should entice your prospects to engage. So, pin the most impactful and relevant content at the top of your profile. Make sure they are visually attractive and offer value.

Execute Paid Ad Campaigns

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Lead generation ads help marketers to reach the prospects who earlier showed interest in their business and have higher chances of engaging with their brand. Targeting the right prospects with relevant ads can ultimately provide higher ROI.

The amount spent on social media ads is expected to exceed 300 billion USD by 2024, so investing in paid ads ensures that your efforts are well-spent and that your posts reach the right audience at the right time.

When done correctly, paid ads can help you get more leads and expand your brand presence. Here is how you can implement a successful paid ads strategy on social media

• Choose the right social platform
• Develop engaging ad copies and visuals for video ads
• Segment your targets based on demographics like behavior, interest, and more
• Established the core objectives of your paid ads to increase engagement and brand awareness
• Connect and analyze the paid ads across all your social accounts in one place to calculate the ROI.

Automate With Chatbots

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Automation has become a significant social media lead-generation tool in recent times. Chatbots are great options for establishing effective communication with prospects and reducing overhead costs.

According to research, over 69% of consumers prefer chatbots for instant response. When they ask for any information, chatbots instantly pull out the data and offer options for further engagement.

Hence, the usage of chatbots on social channels is increasing daily. There are over 300,000 chatbots on Facebook alone.

Overall, brands can enhance their lead-generation efforts by-

• Feeding pre-defined responses to the most important questions their prospects might ask the AI chatbot
• Understanding the visitor’s intent to establish the next steps so chatbots, too, can easily interpret the visitor’s intent.
• Collecting significant information about potential clients [VM1] through chatbots. This can help you generate unique customer profiles and personalize your marketing content with targeted content to attract their attention.

Conduct Giveaways

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Running social media contests and conducting giveaways can significantly boost your lead-generation efforts. One USP (unique selling point) of conducting giveaways is asking your prospects to perform specific tasks to win the giveaway, like following you on Instagram or commenting or sharing your posts on their profile to increase your outreach.

According to statistics, Instagram contests help content creators garner 3.5x likes and 64x more comments than regular posts.

To create a successful giveaway campaign, you must

• Define the main goal of your giveaway and design CTA accordingly
• Offer prizes to attract prospects and encourage them to perform the expected action. It should be appealing.
• Include prizes like a free product sample, free subscription, etc., allowing participants to engage with your brand for free and enhance conversions later.
• Define the rules for the giveaway. State clearly what you want the participants to do.

Additionally, running giveaways increases your lead generation sources. Apart from leads collected through the contest, word-of-mouth from participants will allow you to connect with more people.

Video Marketing on Social Platforms

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Video marketing is a popular social media lead generation method used by B2B businesses. According to a study, 60% of brands use videos as part of their social media marketing strategies. Further, 92% of marketers agree that video content gives them a better ROI.

You can share different videos on your social accounts to increase engagement, including updates about your services, stories about your company culture, and customer testimonials. You can also include snippets from company events that can be re-shared multiple times to enhance your brand’s social presence.

Here are some tips for creating an impactful video marketing strategy for social media

• Set clear goals for your video marketing strategy and establish your expectations from the video’s performance.
• Choose an ideal platform to post your videos and attract prospects.
• Decide what type of video you want to post and what aligns with your business goals. It will help you decide which platform will be ideal for it.
• Create a video content plan to save time and money. Plan out every element from conception to execution to make the process seamless.

Referral Campaigns for Generating Leads

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Successful social media referral marketing helps brands increase their visibility and reach an untapped audience base. In fact, a referral extended by a customer is more effective than any marketing campaign because of the first-hand experience with your brand.

According to a report, 84% of B2B decision makers believe referral is the starting point of a B2B buying process.

You can encourage customers to take action with the help of engaging and timely messages offering attractive rewards. These rewards can involve product discounts, free samples, etc., to attract existing customers and spread the word about your brand to their friends and family.

To ensure referral campaigns’ success, share and promote them on diverse channels such as websites, email marketing, etc. Further, you can create a dedicated landing page to elaborate on these word-of-mouth campaigns and offer discounts.

Note that a complex referral procedure can annoy customers, causing decreased interest. Hence, employ a straightforward process utilizing essential tools to promote the brand on their social profile, like a product link.

Collaborating With Influencers

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Social media lead generation can become easier by connecting with influencers who can help increase your brand exposure and connect with new audiences, essentially those who follow the influencers.

According to research, around 61% of consumers trust influencer recommendations. Hence, more marketers from B2B and B2C backgrounds are opting to collaborate with prominent influencers. 82% of marketers plan on having a special budget for their influencer marketing campaign.

How can influencers help promote your business? Here are a few tips to consider

• Ask them to feature your products in their videos and pictures without being promotional. They can also create engaging stories around your brand.
• You can request them to provide a genuine review of your brand or share brief tutorials on their social handles.
• Influencers can promote your ongoing offers and discounts to drive more sales. You can also include referral options and provide special discounts for their followers.

Leverage Social Media Listening

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Social media marketing is a competitive landscape. To make your brand stand out, you must continuously improve and optimize your efforts. One way to do this is to analyze what your prospects say about your brand using social listening tactics.

Social media listening tools allow you to track the posts your audiences share or follow, the comments they post, brand mentions, and more. It will help you understand their perspective and improve your marketing efforts. Moreover, social listening helps maintain your brand’s reputation and enhance customer service initiatives.

How can you increase social media lead generation through social listening? Using these tips can make it easier

• Identify your prospects when they talk about any services or products that match your offerings
• Provide exclusive offers to encourage them to associate with your brand.
• Monitor negative comments on your competitors’ profiles and reach these prospects with better offers.
• Look for brand mentions and understand the discussions around your company. Reach out to people who post promising comments and convert them into leads.

Post Social Proofs

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Gaining customers’ trust is the first and most important step to increasing sales. If your social media presence is trustworthy and convincing, selling your products becomes easier.

Using social proof on your profile is an effective way to build trust and brand reputation. Customer feedback and reviews help potential customers understand the brand and build credibility. According to a survey, 73% of customers trust a brand better if they see a positive review. Further, 57% of customers check the brand’s website after seeing such posts.

Marketers can share stories and posts with existing customers’ feedback on the product and the quality of service offered. Additionally, incorporating user-generated content can also act as an impactful social proof.

Look for photos or videos where your customers mention or use your brand. It also helps you with customer retention by showcasing that you value their feedback.
Furthermore, your number of followers, engagement on your posts, and other social metrics also serve as significant social proof.

Post Valuable Content

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Social media lead-generation efforts can reap manifold returns when backed by valuable content. People prefer and follow brands that identify their needs and provide valuable information.

Answering questions they may have is the key. The content you use can be of any type but should benefit your followers.

Marketers can create comprehensive content marketing strategies covering diverse content types such as infographics, trending niche-focused news and facts, an authority leader’s interview, and more. They can even post or conduct a poll asking followers about the kind of content they want to see.

Moreover, social media greatly impacts your content to boost content distribution efforts. 87% of marketers use social media to distribute their content.

Wrapping Up

With the right tactics, social media can be a powerful tool to identify your potential customers. Using the tips discussed in this blog, brands can effectively enhance their social media lead-generation efforts to boost conversions and increase sales.

Put up content that offers value, use your social listening skills, incorporate social proof, collaborate with influencers, and run referral programs and giveaways to make the most of social media platforms and reach your customers effortlessly.