Updated April 22, 2022
Nearly 4.5 billion people across the globe are active on social media. 82% are over the age of 13 in North America and have social media accounts. With statistics like these, it’d be silly for your company to neglect to search for online leads on popular social media platforms. But if you want to generate leads on social, like Facebook (now known as Meta), TikTok, or LinkedIn, you need the right strategies. We’ve put together this article to help you find those strategies. Keep reading to see the latest tips and tricks for generating leads on social media for the year ahead.
The value of social media marketing to generate leads on social
Social media marketing gives you access to a huge pool of potential customers. But it also offers several benefits that can be tough to find through other marketing channels. Here are three that are worth thinking about.
Super precise targeting
When you advertise on platforms like Facebook, TikTok, and LinkedIn, you can get precise about how you define your target audience.
Unsurprisingly, users provide a lot of information about their preferences and interests. Social media brands allow companies to leverage this information to show ads to a small subset of carefully defined users.
You can use this feature to develop more online leads and get a higher ROI from your campaigns. It should enable you to only show your ads to users who are the most likely to buy from you.
Build audiences for free
Social media platforms are also an excellent channel for building an audience you can later convert into paying customers. And the best part is, you can do this for free.
When you share posts that members of your target audience find valuable, they’ll follow you to see more of them in the future. At that point, you can serve marketing content without even having to pay for ads.
Easily track your performance
Social media platforms also have built-in analytical features that make it easier to track your ROI and determine the effectiveness of your campaigns. This makes it easier to cut a poorly-performing campaign early and reinvest in ones that exceed your expectations.
Top strategies to generate leads online through Facebook
Now that we know why advertising on social media is valuable let’s take a look at specific strategies. Here are the best ways to generate leads online with Facebook in 2022.
Use video
There’s statistical evidence showing that video ads perform better than non-video content on platforms like Facebook. So if you’ve been running advertisements on this social media platform and they’re not meeting your expectations, a good first step could be to spin up video versions.
Run a giveaway
Giveaways can effectively create buzz around your brand and build a larger following on your social media pages. Running one on your Facebook page could be just what you need to find more leads.
When running a giveaway, ask people to enter by sharing one of your posts or using a special hashtag. This equates to free advertising, as your entrants’ friends could see these posts and you receive more buzz.
Use Facebook advertising
You can spend $1 per day on Facebook advertising and get your brand in front of 4,000 people who wouldn’t have seen it otherwise. Those 8,000 eyeballs become even more valuable when considering how precise you can get with audience targeting on Facebook.
So even though you can advertise on Facebook for free, dedicating a bit of your marketing budget to Facebook ads could be worth it.
Respond in a timely manner
If you want to engage with more individuals, make it easy for them to reach you. Check your Messenger app regularly and respond to questions before your prospect loses interest.
In addition, it’s important to respond to every comment on your posts. Customize each comment to each individual instead of responding the same way to everyone.
According to Sprout Social, 40% of consumers expect brands to respond within ONE hour of reaching out on social media, and a whopping 79% expect a response within at least 24 hours. Consumers are likely to turn to other brands if they don’t get a quick answer, but a fast response will build credibility and customer loyalty.
Pin lead-catching posts to the top of your profile
When someone visits your profile, they typically don’t spend much time on it. That’s because you’re competing for their attention with everything else that the internet has to offer.
It’s why you’ll want to be sure to pin lead-generating posts to the top of your Facebook profile. That way, one of the first things that a new visitor sees is the ideal message for getting them into your sales funnel.
Finding online leads on TikTok
Get involved with the latest trends
TikTok is a platform that’s grown around trends. A new video format emerges, and people race to create versions to highlight their personalities. Directions on the platform get millions, if not billions of views, and people proactively search for them.
That means your brand could get a ton of views on TikTok by jumping on the latest trends. If you can identify and create exciting videos in the early stages of a trend, you could build a significant audience for yourself.
Add a clickable link to your bio
You could get all of the views on your TikToks in the world, but they may not, ultimately, mean much for your brand if users don’t have an easy way to take the next step. That’s why it’s essential to have a clickable link on your bio.
Users might be interested in learning more about you. But they likely won’t exit their TikTok app and search for you online. If you allow them to click a simple link within the TikTok app, it becomes much likelier they visit your website. And you can get them into your sales pipeline software once that happens.
Partner with TikTok influencers
Maybe you’re not interested in spending the amount of time and energy it will take to build a dedicated following for your brand on TikTok. If so, partnering with TikTok influencers could be a better strategy. Advertising with them allows you to avoid the negative implications of standalone ads, which many users instinctively ignore.
Go live
In 2021 live streaming viewership increased by 49% and is expected to grow in the years to come. That’s why your company may also want to consider going live on TikTok. Doing so could be a great way to tap into a growing audience and make your brand stand out from others on the platform.
How to get more leads on LinkedIn
Join groups
LinkedIn groups are a great place to meet new people on the platform. You can find groups that focus on topics directly relevant to your company and what it sells. Then you can build relationships with a like-minded audience and, later, advertise to them directly.
Post insightful content from personal accounts
Perhaps the best way to find leads on LinkedIn is to regularly post content that you know your desired audience will care about. This can include insightful blog posts, relevant statistics, and engaging video content.
You can post this content on your company’s page, but you may get more organic interest in the content if you post it from leaders’ profiles, such as your CEO or CTO.
People on social media platforms are more likely to engage with individual accounts than they are with company ones. And helping your leaders build an audience on LinkedIn will only be suitable for your brand in the long term.
Focus on connecting, not making sales
Just 17% of salespeople would describe themselves as pushy. But prospects say that the actual number is closer to 50%. If you push sales content too much on your LinkedIn profile, you could turn people away from your company.
That’s why it’s best to focus on building relationships on LinkedIn instead of making sales. In the long run, these relationships should convert to sales numbers without creating a negative pushy reputation for your brand.
You can build strong relationships on LinkedIn by:
- Celebrating your contacts: If you see a news story or post that mentions one of your LinkedIn contacts, @ them and interact, or consider sharing it to your own page and congratulate them.
- Engaging with posts: Like, comment on, and share your contacts’ posts. Personalize your comments as much as possible by mentioning a commonality – like a favorite sports team, a hobby, or a hometown. Include their name when it seems natural. Let your contacts know they’re more than just prospects, and that you’re more than just a brand, business, or bot.
Write a few recommendations
Take a few minutes each day to log in to your account and write recommendations for your LinkedIn connections. Be honest but positive and be truthful – if you have never used their product or service, don’t pretend you have. Your contacts may feel encouraged to try your product or service and even leave you a recommendation in return. Even if they don’t, your recommendation will appear on their profile so more people can find your business.
Once you’re walking the walk, you can start asking your LinkedIn connections for recommendations and referrals as well.
New Facebook Tips
Replace text-dense posts with links to landing pages
A good blog strategy is an important component of your marketing success. But your Facebook page isn’t where you want to post long-form blog content in its entirety. These posts will clog your page, make it look sloppy, and ultimately cause people to lose interest.
Replace those long posts with links instead. You can tease the article’s value in one or more posts, and people who want the content will click on it.
Take advantage of Facebook’s custom tabs feature
When you create a business page, tabs like “About, Photos, and Events” pop up automatically. But you may not know that you can customize your tabs to include whatever categories of content you want.
For example, you can create a tab that’s just a lead generation form. Or create one that’s home to your contests.
However you decide to use it, this feature can help deliver more value to your Facebook page by organizing your content more effectively.
New TikTok Tips
Be short and sweet
The average attention span is just 8 seconds. Perhaps nowhere is felt more than on TikTok, where users scroll through videos at lightning speeds.
Your company should aim to be as quick with its messaging as possible. The shorter you make your advertising content, the likelier it is to be seen by more people.
Don’t be too sales-y
People expect businesses to be active on Facebook and LinkedIn, so they’re prepared to be pitched to a bit on those platforms. But the same isn’t true of TikTok – at least not yet.
The platform is still in its infancy, and it has a younger user base, which means your content on TikTok can’t be as overtly sales-y as it would be on other social media networks.
New LinkedIn Tips
Build a best-in-class business page
It’s great to have high-level executives active on LinkedIn. But everything should flow back to your business page. You want your business page to be a hub for engaging content that people enjoy visiting to learn more about your industry.
A good LinkedIn business page includes:
- Thought leadership content
- Video content
- Information curated from other sources
- Easy contact information for leads who want to learn more about you or your business
Take advantage of paid LinkedIn Ads
LinkedIn also has a paid advertisement system that’s worth taking advantage of. There are several types of advertisements you can run on LinkedIn – each of which could be a good way to help your company generate more leads.
Paid ads are beneficial for ensuring your content gets shown to your ideal audience. They can help you attract new members of your target audience and reinforce your relationship with existing ones.
Sales pipeline software from LeadLander makes it easier to convert social media leads
Sales pipeline software can help you get more out of your social media advertising in 2022. If you’re interested in enhancing your advertising efforts on platforms like Facebook, TikTok, and LinkedIn, LeadLander can help.
Our website visitor tracking software gives you a wealth of information about who’s visiting your website and how they’re getting there. This can tell you which of your social media accounts is performing best and help you follow up with users from one of your profiles to your website. Consider it your helping hand to generate leads from social.
Sign up for a risk-free 14-day trial of LeadLander today.
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