Social Media Lead Generation: Tips And Tricks For 2021

It comes as no surprise that social media is dominating the internet and life as we know it. 

For businesses, taking advantage of social media lead generation can be an effective way of implementing a strategic marketing tactic that can help capture leads and pull them into the sales funnel.

But how does social media lead generation work and what tips and tricks work best in 2021? 

A lot has changed, especially with the recent pandemic where many more people across the globe find themselves working from home and spending more time online watching videos.

So with that being said, there are some major benefits of using this to potentially bring in more revenue for your business.

What Is Social Media Lead Generation?

Image Source: Marketing Charts 

Social media lead generation is a strategic marketing tactic that has been specifically designed to bring in the right leads that you're after and who'll hopefully venture down your sales funnel as a result.

• It's a way of getting people interested in your brand and these leads that you capture are potential customers. 
• It enables you to offer special discounts and offers in order to convert them to paying customers.
• It can also help to grow your follower audience, which can directly impact your social media growth as a whole. 
• You can also easily find sponsors and pre-existing audiences that you may have not captured properly beforehand or it was perhaps a missed opportunity of some sort.

Social media lead generation vs. lead nurturing

It's important to know the difference between social media lead generation vs lead nurturing. 

With lead nurturing, it's a process where you're trying to build these relationships with the individual customer. 

Image Source: Make Web Better

Lead nurturing focuses on qualified leads because these leads are often already interested in the business already. 

With lead generation, it's finding new leads through various methods like pay-per-click, content marketing, SEO, etc.

Image Source: Connect2Customer 

When it comes to the order in which you do the two, social media lead generation would come first. 

With that being said, what methods are available when it comes to social media lead generation? 

Here are some of the most popular and most used elements of this type of marketing.

1. Pay Per Click

PPC or otherwise known as pay-per-click is a model that's used online in marketing where advertisers will pay a fee every time one of the ads they've put up has been clicked. One of the most popular forms of PPC is through search engine advertising.

Advertisers will bid for the ad placement offers in the search engine's sponsored links. This is beneficial for those who are looking to rank themselves at the top of search engines for specific keywords.

Ads on social media platforms work in a similar way. For example, Facebook uses the PPC model whereas Instagram allows you to create an ad where you set the budget of what you want to spend per day and how long you'd like it to run. 

This will then generate a certain amount of reach depending on the amount of budget you spend.

When it comes to segmentation tools with paid advertising, it's important to use those that are going to help target your ads in the best possible way. 

Platforms like Semrush and Spyfu are helpful in suggesting the best keywords and finding the most profitable opportunities when it comes to things like location and time. 

This is all-important for target audience analysis which is the insight that all businesses will need in order to get the maximum value out of their marketing campaigns. 

A/B testing is also a great process in which you can help identify and cater to the specific niches of your customer through these ads. 

It can be used on something like Facebook Ads where you test the variables of your paid advertising campaign and adjust accordingly to what is best for getting maximum exposure and value for money. 

This is all whilst ensuring it targets your audience correctly.

2. Create Webinars Or Other Giveaway Content

Image Source: Instagram

A lot of social media traffic can be driven to things like webinars and whitepapers, etc. 

This type of gated content can make for a compelling incentive for those potential leads to sign up and gain access. 

It might be that you get people onto an email list or perhaps trialing out something before they commit to buying it. 

Giveaway contests can also be an effective way of attracting followers and potential leads, especially when you're catering these contests to your target audience specifically.

It's important to understand the user persona (which is your ideal customer based on your analytics and assumption), as well as your brand's niche and what the customer will want to see as a prize.

3. Map Out The Customer Journey

Image Source: Customerthermometer

It's good to gather data on your customer's journey. Each customer's journey can be unique, yet similar depending on who your target audience is. 

It's useful to know what your audience tends to click on when it comes to social media or video content to blog websites.

If you're offering webinars or other content pieces that enable the reader to learn more about the brand itself or about the products or services it provides, then this is something that can be cross-linked from one platform to another.

Linking out from e-books to blog pages or landing pages can be a great way of helping to link up and provide a customer journey that leads up to the bottom of the sales funnel.

4. Use Automation With Chatbots 

Automation is a very popular form of technology that many businesses are using. Smart chatbots can know everything about your brand and therefore can help answer any questions that a potential lead might have. 

Frase is a good option when it comes to chatbots and is a useful tool in helping provide all the answers that your leads might need in order to make a purchase.

There are also lots of tools that can help with your social media marketing by integrating your social media platforms all into one place to help with scheduling and automating content. Tools like Hootsuite and Sprout Social are also popular choices.

5. Encourage Competition

Everyone loves a competition and just like any competition, you need to be in it to win it! It's useful to include analytics within the competition in order to understand who your users are and how they behave when it comes to your site. 

6. Referral Campaigns

Referrals are a great way to earn extra money and these can be useful when you're an influencer. 

If you're able to link up with influencers and they help spread a discount or offer, then not only do they benefit from a cut of the profits, you also grow your audience.

It's useful to actively and passively reach out with referral or affiliate link opportunities for users. Whether they're customers yet or not, it can be a great way to generate new leads for your brand.

7. Video Marketing

Video marketing and video content, in general, are on the rise . It's something that is rising in popularity mainly due to it being one of the most engaging mediums for the human brain. 

That's why platforms like YouTube and TikTok are becoming hugely influential for many brands who are looking to advertise and reach a more engaged audience.

According to TechSmith, "Facebook ads with video have an average click-through rate (CTR) of 1.84%, the highest CTR of all digital ad formats. They also tend to grab attention more effectively than static images." 

Here are a few Instagram video ads that are worth watching for inspiration.

8. Landing Page Integration

Landing page integration can be a great way of capturing leads. You can provide directional landing page access from your social media straight to the page you want them to be on. 

The benefits of removing these barriers for your users with social media accounts by embedding the social media right in the landing page can be the difference between them becoming a customer and dismissing it.

The less of a hassle you make it for that lead, the better.

9. Holistic Marketing, Sales, and Support Analytics Integration

Tools like Hubspot, SalesForce, and MailChimp can all be useful in helping to integrate email analytics with sales, support, and CRM. 

Through tools like MailChimp, you're able to create landing pages, social media advertisements, and automated email sequences that are all essential for gathering new leads. These tools can help in the sales funnel after you've analyzed your audience's behavior. 

It's a great way of linking up your email subscribers to your social media, video content, and blog content too.

Social media lead generation is something that's only increasing in popularity due to more and more people being on social media in general. 

Sprout Social has a great post on guaranteed ways of generating leads via social media that's worth a ready. In order to entice new leads and get them in the sales funnel, it's useful to incorporate this marketing tactic into your marketing strategy overall.