Generating leads through social media

Social platforms provide businesses with a budget-friendly way of interacting with customers and prospects so they can begin to generate leads with little upfront costs. This is important for small businesses that have smaller budgets. What’s more, social media allows you to build relationships with customers and prospects much more easily, and this on its own can lead to sales increases. Before any of this can happen though, businesses need to prepare. Yes, doing these things yourself is near-infinitely cheaper but it is also more time consuming, especially if you go into it without a plan.

How to generate leads through social media

Simply creating a profile and hitting publish is not going to do it. You need a solid plan of action to generate leads and get the absolute most out of your social media presence and activities. Here are some tried and tested tips on how you can generate leads for your business using a social media strategy.

Beef up and strengthen your social media profile

The very first thing you need to be sure of is that you have a professional, trustworthy social profile so that people recognize you for the professional brand that you are. Your business’ social profile should explain exactly what the business is and what it offers - there are far too many companies out there that try to look clever and have confusing, prosaic descriptions about what they do. Be clear, or you will put prospects off. The profile should also provide contact details so prospects can reach out to you, get to your website, join your mailing list… You also need to be sure that you use the same branding everywhere - the same colors (if the platform allows), the same banner, the same profile image… Use the same things across all of your accounts and your website. Brand consistency is essential.

Post valuable content

Valuable content is paramount when it comes to creating a solid social media presence. Prospects connect because they have a problem (what bike to buy because theirs is beyond repair, for example) and your content is insightful and you might be able to help them.

Invest in social leads advertising

Generating leads is a process, an ongoing one that demands patience and time, especially if you rely purely on organic lead generation strategies. If you have the budget, the best way to generate leads for your business is by investing in social leads ads. With these, you can run campaigns that target specific demographics that may be interested in what you are offering. Because these types of ads are highly targeted, you are probably going to start seeing hot leads a lot faster than you would when using organic lead generation.

In conclusion

Hopefully, this piece has given a better understanding of how you can generate leads for your business using social media. Generating qualified leads is cumbersome and it takes time - because succeeding with a lead generation campaign means excelling across multiple platforms (including search, your website, landing page, etc.). You can’t just publish a few blog posts a few times a month, or plan some cold calls and then think that’s it. In today’s brave new digital marketing world you need to build a solid social media presence, and a well-defined sales funnel. All of these activities demand that you are proactive, creative and sometimes even a little lucky. But, if you can implement each one as a part of your lead generation strategy then the rewards are going to be worth it. If you don’t have the time, and many people don’t, then an agency such as ourselves can take the load for you so you can get busy running your business.