Need More Leads? Here’s the Right Way to Use Social Media for Lead Generation

• Last updated September 2, 2019
• lead generation

So you already have, or you’re in the process of developing, a healthy social media following?

Great!

The issue for many however is that it can be difficult to convert that into profits on your bottom line.

Depending on the social platform (and your market), many followers can be averse to clicking on anything that even smells like an ad.

So how do you get under their radar?

Rather than trying to sell to them directly, you offer them useful information.

Sure, your regular posts should do that too. But you’ll have regular, periodic offers that attract them onto your email list.

By converting followers on social into subscribers on your email list, you take them into a completely different environment.

And it’s from here you can:

• Follow up with them.
• Build a more meaningful relationship via one-to-one communication (rather than the one-to-many of social).
• Convert them into customers.

Sounds good?

Yes, it’s highly effective.

But how do you do actually do that?

What are the different ways in which you can use social media content for lead generation?

Start with a content marketing strategy.

Don’t let those words put you off. It can be remarkably simple.

And, as you start to get results, crank up the gears and take it up a level.

One of the easiest and most common places to start is with content on a blog.

(Or you might find it easier to start with video content.

Or a podcast episode.

Find what works for you, and then go from there.)

When you regularly create new content on a blog, you can:

• Share that on social media.
• Attract new followers.
• Drive traffic back to your website.

To crank it up a level, repurpose the content in various ways.

Here are just a few ideas:

• Convert that blog post into a presentation on Slideshare.
• Similarly, convert it into a video for YouTube (and add back onto your blog post).
• Create a new version of the post and submit to other sites as guest posts.

All of this content gives you even more opportunities to:

• Share on social media.
• Attract new followers.
• Drive up your website traffic.
• Generate more leads.

But how do you use this content to generate leads?

One of the most effective ways is via ‘content upgrades’.

A ‘content upgrade’ is a kind of a highly-focused lead magnet.

It’s highly relevant to your content, and therefore attracts more lead conversions than a more general opt-in offer.

And they’re becoming increasingly popular because they work.

Conversion rates can be anything from 1-2%, to as high as 20-30% (particularly when you’re split testing your offers).

When you’ve got several such offers on the go, you’ll find it’s highly variable.

But the important point is that you’re likely to generate far more leads with a content upgrade, than through a more generic offer.

How do you create content upgrades?

It doesn’t have to be hard, drawn out, or complicated.

A content upgrade can be as simple as a PDF download, summing up the main points, and taking just minutes to create.

It’s also a job that can be easily and cheaply delegated or otherwise outsourced.

The key point is that when you add a content upgrade to the content and then share that content on social, as well as click-throughs you’ll be generated leads.

Your followers won’t feel the same sense of aversion they may feel to a self-promoting post.

Instead, you’re offering them value first, rather than trying to sell to them before you have that relationship.

And by offering them value, a proportion will want to join your list, build the relationship and get more value from the additional content you’re offering.

Even if you don’t have a content upgrade yet or can’t think of anything, don’t waste the opportunity to generate leads anyway. Offer them something else instead.

Sure, a more generic offer is unlikely to achieve the same conversion levels as a more focused content upgrade … but you’ll still get leads.

And some of those will convert over time into sales.

So why waste the opportunity?

Start thinking in terms of Content Assets...

Start thinking about blog posts (or videos, podcast episodes etc.) as a type of landing page to attract leads.

Your content attracts your target market, with your opt-in offers generating leads from those who show up.

Each piece of content you create—whether a blog post, SlideShare, video, podcast episode, guest post, or whatever else—is a long-term asset for your business, generating leads, revenue, and a host of other benefits.

How do visitors opt-in?

For blog posts, opt-in offers can be incorporated onto the page with creatives such as:

• Lightbox popups
• Floating bars
• On-page forms
• Welcome mats

But what about content published elsewhere?

You can simply use a link within the content to direct visitors to your opt-in offer. One of the easiest, quickest ways is via a Landing Mat.

You can even do this on social...

As well as posting links to various types of content on social media, you can also post links to your opt-in offers directly.

When you’ve developed a lead magnet—including a content upgrade—it’s a valuable resource of interest to followers. Again, you’re offering them information. So don’t be afraid of making your opt-in offers available directly through say Landing Mats.

The key is to simply balance out this type of post with various others.

For maximum engagement with your posts and opt-in offers on social, you need to be using the appropriate social meta tags. Find out exactly how to use them here.

Social meta tags help your content to look visually appealing and attract more eyeballs.

This means adding:

• Tags for Twitter cards.
• Open Graph tags for Facebook, LinkedIn and the other networks.

For best results, ensure you have an image of some kind associated with the content.

For a blog post, this might be the featured image. For example, see the very top of this post.

Use a tool like Canva to create these images quickly and easily.

Finally, don’t forget that when you create new content, don’t just wait for other people to share it.

Get the ball rolling yourself by sharing it across your social media channels.

Don’t share it just once either. Share it repeatedly on an ongoing basis.

Differ your social posts a little each time to capture new aspects of the content. This helps attract click-throughs from different segments of your market and keeps your social content feeds fresh.

You don’t always have to be posting content that links back to your site either:

• Repurpose content as say infographics and other visual content like video, sharing that directly.
• Publish content on other content platforms (e.g. Medium, Quora), and share that content too. Incorporate opt-in offers into this content wherever possible.

This all helps to keep your social feeds varied, and your followers engaged and interested, while attracting new ones. Ultimately it all increases the number of leads you’re able to generate from social media.

Underpinning it all of course is the need to be continually creating new content so you have something interesting and meaningful to share.

Use paid social media too to increase your reach and scale your results. This is increasingly important on Facebook for example where it’s difficult to achieve anything like the organic reach that used to be possible.

Measure the lead acquisition cost you get from:

• Different types of content.
• Different ad settings (for example, audience, device usage, ad positioning, ad type and so on).
• Different opt-in offers.

It will cost more in the beginning as you start to accumulate data, and can require some persistence, but over time you’ll discover what gives you the most cost effective results and a positive ROI.

To Conclude

As you can see, social media is powerful for lead generation when you use the following key principles:

• Regularly create new content.
• Incorporate opt-in offers into that content, particularly by using content upgrades for higher conversion rates.
• Share the content regularly on social, including sharing the same content with different posts over time.
• Share those opt-in offers directly on social media too, such as by hooking up a Landing Mat with a lead magnet.
• Repurpose the content into different forms and onto other platforms, and share that too.
• Use paid social media to scale up your lead generation activities.

steve shaw

Steve Shaw is the CEO of optinopoli™, next-generation lead capture and sales conversion technology—click here for more info.