Spoiler alert: it’s no good having thousands of followers or views on social media if none of them are becoming conversions or leads. This is why follower counts are often alluded to as ‘vanity metrics,’ and clued-up companies are looking at engagement rates over follower numbers when choosing social media influencers and creators to work with.
So how can you monetise your existing audiences, and increase your lead generation using social media?
Strategies to generate leads on social media
- Run a Facebook Lead Ads campaign across Facebook and Instagram
Facebook Lead Ads is a product that not only allows you to target and reach specific demographic segments and audience profiles categorised by online behaviours (meaning that you’re only reaching the target users likeliest to become your customers, reducing budget wastage and increasing conversions), online users are presented with a form when they click on your social advert’s call-to-action button on Facebook or Instagram.
Businesses using Facebook Lead Ads can tailor this form to gather specific data and information they require – from personal details such as points of contact to customisable questions that are relevant to them and their company. For example, a dental surgery could ask users ‘which dental treatment are you most interested in?’ on their lead form. This means that when the business gets in contact with their lead, they already know about that individual’s wants, needs, and desires, so they are a much easier lead to convert.
2. Implement better calls-to-action
A call-to-action is important because it tells your potential customers what it is you want them to do. Revise the calls-to-action within your organic social media captions and on your social media advertising campaigns and make it easier for viewers to become leads. What is it you want them to do? Remember to give them the benefit of following your call to action, too. As an example, instead of ‘Download our app,’ you could say ‘download our app to use our instant same-day delivery service and enjoy 15% off’
3. Adopt strategic social targeting and audience profiling
If you’re targeting the wrong people, you’re not going to produce conversions. Ensure you have created your audience personas, and defined your target customers, so you specifically know who you are talking to, trying to reach, and looking to convert.
Consider your target audiences:
- Demographics
- Interests and hobbies
- Online behaviours, such as purchasing habits, content consumed, preferred news sites, etc.
Doing so will enable you to adjust your marketing messaging to better suit your target audience and appeal to them, and you can also implement your desired audience targeting with a paid social media campaign.
4. Run social media campaigns with defined goals
Constructing a social media campaign with a clearly defined goal will help you drive the leads and conversions you want. Here are some ideas and examples;
For more website sales, consider a social advertising campaign to drive website traffic
For more leads, encourage form fills, survey respondents, and online sign-ups
To strengthen your relationships with existing audiences, work on building a community around your business to convert followers into customers
5. Implement a higher quality content plan
If you aren’t generating many leads or conversions from social media, it’s probably time to revise and improve your social media content plan.
If you want to drive more leads on social media, you need to get noticed and build up your recognisability which you can do by producing content that generates high social media engagement, expands your organic reach and increases the amount of individual consumer touchpoints online users have with you (the more touchpoints, the likelier they are to convert – which is why multi-channel marketing campaigns and retargeting work so well).
Define clear-cut content pillars (typically 4 topics that you want your business to be known online for) to make it easier to convert your target customers. Your chosen content pillars should attract the audience and potential clients we want.
If you are stuck for new social content, read our 19 imaginative ways to generate social media content ideas.
Knowing when to post on social media will also help maximise the value of your content and generate more engagement and leads.
The more social proof you have, the more likely your online followers are to buy from you and convert into customers – because they have seen how you have benefited other people like themselves.
Ensure you generate and share user-generated content, and drive interaction with your followers as much as possible to build a relationship with your potential customers.
Discuss your benefits, not just your features
The trick to selling is outlining the benefits of your products and services – people buy into them for their benefits, not features.
How does buying a fireplace from you improve a customer’s life and home? Well, for starters, it’ll give them umpteen cosy Sunday afternoons, watching films with a glass of red wine in front of their beautiful new log burner, instead of trying to keep warm under an old blanket. It’ll also look great next to the Christmas tree and will be admired by all of their guests.
Use social media to showcase and demonstrate all of the benefits and value your products, services, and company provide.
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Related Reading:
Why is social media engagement so important?
