Generating Leads through Social Media

Intro

There are many ways to generate leads on social media. 20% of business users have replaced email with social media as their primary communication method—and 23% of internet users spend almost all their time on social media and blogs. According to Sales for Life, 61% of B2B marketers use social media to increase lead generation and 64% of sales teams use inbound marketing social selling to reach their quotas. Using social media to generate leads can be very beneficial. Here are a few ways to generate leads via social media.

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1. Host a Contest or Giveaway

Contests and giveaways generate appeal among your consumer base. Contests can also enable people to express their creative side. An example of a contest you can consider throwing is a photo contest. In addition to all the leads you generate through the contest, you also benefit from user-generated content. Giveaways are another easy way to generate leads. They give you a good reason to ask for email and other personal info. You can also ask consumers to tag you on their socials or use one of your hashtags in a post. This can help gain you a lot of publicity!

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2. Host a Live Event/Stream

Live streams provide you with a way to generate leads in real-time while engaging with consumers. Live videos also make it easier for you to direct your viewers to complete actions you want them to do. You can direct them to your blog, sign-up page, product page(s), and more. Live streaming creates a way for you to provide personalized interaction with your users. You can answer questions right as they come in as opposed to responding hours or even days later. People are impatient, they expect rapid responses. Here’s an example of a webinar lead generation page from Neil Patel.

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3. Promote Gated Lead Magnets

Gated lead magnets are dedicated landing pages with a high-value lead magnet. Such pages are useful because they have only one conversion goal. Your consumer can either do something or not do it. An example of a such page is a page for users to download a free e-book. If they want to download the e-book, they will be required to enter some information, usually an email address. If they don't they can click off. In most cases, the fact that they are seeing such a page in the first place means they are interested in whatever it is that your lead magnet landing page offers. Other examples of gated content to try are content upgrades, whitepapers, resource guides, templates, and webinars.

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4. Create a Facebook Group

Why Facebook and not any other platform? Because Facebook Groups allows users with common interests to communicate in one place. More than 1.4 billion people use Facebook Groups, giving you plenty of possible targets for lead generation. Facebook Groups can also be made private, requiring interested users to enter some information to be approved. A private Facebook group is a type of gated content. Facebook groups give you a place to provide brand updates, offer deals, run promotions, and receive and respond to comments. The more you interact with your audience, the higher your engagement will be.

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Conclusion

Hopefully, now you know a few ways to use social media to your advantage and generate leads! Hosting contests or giveaways, hosting live events, promoting gated lead magnets, and creating a Facebook Group are a few ways you can generate leads from social media. Good luck!

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About the Author

Nikith Deo is the Digital Marketing intern for Sparrow Marketing. He is a senior marketing student at San Jose State University.