How to Use Social Media for Lead Generation

Social media has completely changed how brands interact with their customers, presenting new opportunities for brands of all kinds to generate leads. If you want to maximize your social media efforts and tap into its lead generation potential, AdRoll is here to help. There are many ways to use social media within your marketing strategy. In this blog, we will examine the strategies, measuring methods, and tips for leveraging social media to produce the quality leads that your brand needs.

Social Media for B2B Lead Generation: The Influence of Relationships

Establishing relationships and trust with audiences through social media is necessary for brands conducting marketing operations within today’s digital landscape. Social media presents brands with a singular opportunity to develop deeper relationships and connections with potential B2B clients. Engage your brand’s target audience by answering their comments and concerns, offering insightful information not only about your products, but your brand’s mission, and offering helpful guidance to those inquiring about additional details.

Over time, as your brand builds its trust and credibility, it will position itself as a thought leader in its industry. The domino effect that this social media approach will have on your brand’s marketing success must be taken into consideration. As your brand’s validity increases, so does its success rate and the possibility of producing high-quality B2B leads.

Unleashing the B2B potential within LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a lively social networking site where professionals connect, network, and show off their skills in a professional setting. LinkedIn has made a name for itself as an essential tool for anyone trying to build their personal brand and expand their network of contacts because of its focus on professional networking. 

If you want to increase your brand’s B2B leads, then LinkedIn will be your best friend. Use LinkedIn’s sophisticated targeting tools to connect with leaders in your brand’s industry, including professionals and decision-makers. Elevate your brand’s LinkedIn presence by posting engaging content, joining interesting industry groups, and implementing all of the platform’s dynamic advertising tools to boost your visibility, which will lead you to connect with potential B2B clients. 

Here’s an example of a LinkedIn advertising tool to get you a little more familiar with the platform:

• LinkedIn lead generation forms: Created to simplify your brand’s lead generation process, this tool allows you to obtain leads directly from the LinkedIn website. When viewers click on your brand’s advertisement, a pre-filled form with details from their LinkedIn profile appears, making it simple for them to share their information with you. 

Social Media for Lead Generation: Strategies for Producing Results

Let’s walk through several social media lead generation strategies you can use to produce your results. 

1. The first strategy is to have a targeted approach. In order to have a successful lead generation from social media, your brand must identify its target audience. Take the necessary time you need to determine the characteristics of the ideal customer accurately. Conduct extensive research to learn about their interests, habits, and problems they would like help with. Utilize social media analytics tools to gather valuable data so you can utilize that information to tailor your content for your target audience.
   

2. Create compelling content for your brand. Lead generation on social media is fueled by interesting and useful content. Your brand should be producing material that not only informs your audience but amuses and leaves them wanting more. To grab your audience’s attention, use a variety of different social postings such as articles, videos, tutorials, and even case studies. It is important to remember that the more compelling your content is, the more likely it is to be shared with others, widening your brand’s awareness and reach, which will lead to increased potential sales. 
   

3. Don’t forget about your call-to-action (CTA). An effective call-to-action makes all the difference in your brand’s lead generation potential. To convince your audience to take action, you must use clear and simple messaging, whether it’s signing up for an email newsletter, inquiring about more information, or inputting a phone number to receive updates about upcoming sales. It is your job and responsibility to try different types of CTAs and see which performs best (increases your conversion rate). 
   

Social Media Lead Generation: The Secret to Success

For brands, having a strong social media presence is essential to their marketing success because it allows them to actively connect with their target audience, amplify their brand’s message and purpose, and build a loyal community. All of which help increase overall brand recognition and awareness, customer loyalty, and brand success. 

Consistency is key

If you want to increase your lead generation, your brand needs to establish a strong presence on the platforms your target audience spends the majority of their time. Consistency is critical, so develop a consistent brand voice and visual identity that aligns with your target market. An example of how you can engage with your audience to boost engagement includes responding, liking, and even pinning comments. Using these tactics can help build your brand’s credibility and establish trust with the audience.

Leverage paid social ads

Never overlook the importance of utilizing paid advertising. Many social media platforms have built-in advertising tools; you should use these to increase your brand’s lead generation. Make use of the targeting features so that you can connect with your target audience. Test out all the different advertising formats ranging from sponsored posts, display and video ads to native ads. Try every one of them out so you can discover which format works best for your audience. If you’re ever stuck figuring out which ad format works best, choose the ad format your target audience responds to most and you will have identified it. 

Best Practices on Using Social Media for Lead Gen 

Ensure you’re engaging and interacting with your audience to keep them entertained and wanting to know more about your brand. It’s one thing to simply broadcast your content across all the different channels, but you should also actively engage with your audience. 

Examples of engagement include responding to direct messages, comments, and even mentions in a timely manner. It’s also helpful to encourage your audience to discuss your content with one another, allow them to ask questions, and provide helpful information on your accounts. These are all great ways to spark your audience’s interest. By fostering meaningful conversations, you create an abundance of opportunities to gain leads and develop relationships online. 

You can also look into implementing paid social media advertising into your marketing mix. Several best practices on using paid social include:

1. Spreading your brand’s offer to your ideal audience for an instant boost in conversions 

2. Breaking through algorithms and connecting with audiences that are unlikely to be discovered otherwise

3. Persuading receptive customers into purchasing your products 

4. Reinforcing the values and messaging that you released through organic social

5. Leveraging audience targeting for tapping into the precise shoppers that your brand ultimately wants to reach

The Importance of Offering Valuable Incentives

Another route you can take to generate leads is to offer valuable incentives to your audience. There are many great examples of this, including offering exclusive content, discounts or sales, and even free trials. It’s very important that you withhold this information behind a lead capture form so that you can collect viewers' contact information. Offering incentives is an effective strategy for increasing your lead generation potential because your audience will be encouraged to provide their information since they believe the reward is worth it. 

How to Measure Social Media Lead Generation: Clarifying Objectives

Every brand needs to define its goals. As marketers ourselves, we cannot stress enough how important this step is for brands looking to optimize their lead generation potential. The very first step for measuring your social media lead generation methods is to define your objectives, also known as your goals. Having clear goals will help you in the long run as your brand aims to increase its website traffic, grow your email list, and boost sales. These goals will help your brand identify the metrics that matter the most.

Here are a few key metrics to track to measure the effectiveness of your social media lead generation: 

1. Click-through rate: a click-through rate is the ratio of clicks on a specific link to the number of times the post is shown. 

2. Conversion rates: the ratio of your total audience to the number of people who completed the desired conversion action from social media in line with your business goals.

3. Engagement rate: the total engagements a post received divided by the total number of impressions on that post.  

4. Lead quality: a measure of the value of the leads you generate.

Not sure what your KPIs should be? Check out these metrics to track your business goals:

Don’t Underestimate the Power of Social Media

In this blog, we explored the potential and impact of social media for lead generation. We emphasized the importance of establishing lasting and meaningful relationships with viewers across your brand’s social platforms, getting to truly understand who your audience is, and we reviewed the many strategies needed to produce high-quality leads. If used correctly, social media can be a powerful tool for your brand’s marketing strategy. If you want to see results, your brand must actively utilize paid advertising, engage with its target audience, offer valuable incentives, and have clear goals to measure. Ready to learn more about using social for lead generation? Use the linked resources to get started!

Launch, analyze, and manage your social media ads, web ads, and email in one streamlined platform with AdRoll. Learn more: 

Last updated on June 28th, 2023.