Social media has taken the world by a storm. According to recent data, people across the world are spending, on average, 2-3 hours on social media every day.
That’s why targeting your audience on social networking sites has to be an integral part of your brand’s marketing strategy.
Having said that, it is then essential to bring forth one of the most commonly asked business questions and its answers today, “How to turn social media platforms into lead generating machines?”
In this article, you’ll learn practical ways to leverage social media to grow your email list, expand your business, and make profits.
Capture Leads with Quizzes:
Quizzes are emerging as a popular social media lead generation tool. According to a survey conducted by the Content Marketing Institute (CMI), more than 80% of marketers find interactive content like quizzes a better way to capture visitors’ attention over other kinds of content.
You know why?
Quizzes are fun and have immense entertainment value. Visitors are more likely to get attracted to them while scrolling through social media.
If they like the quiz experience, they are more likely to share the quiz with friends on social media. This significantly expands a brand’s reach and builds brand awareness.
Remember, not all quizzes can go viral. They need to have a clear title, engaging questions, and relevant results people wish to share. The quiz outcome has to be valuable.
Look at this personality quiz and its result:
Want to create something similar?
ProProfs Lead Quiz is a great tool that allows you to create share-worthy personality quizzes with instant feedback and generate qualified leads.
You can upload your content or choose from a variety of ready-made quiz templates, thousands of ready-to-use questions, and utilize customization options to create Facebook quizzes or quizzes to post on other platforms on topics based on the type of audience you want to attract.
To generate leads and conversions, the tool allows you to strategically implement opt-in form before you display the results. You can ask the user to sign-up for an email newsletter, get a discount on the first 2-month subscription, and more.
Create Impressive Social Media Landing Pages:
A social media landing page is the destination you’d want the visitors to arrive at after clicking on a link shared by you during a social media campaign.
It is worth noting that a landing page will only be successful in a lead generation if it properly guides visitors to the CTA (Call-to-Action). The CTA has to be strong and appealing. It should let potential customers know what they should do next and encourage them to make a purchase.
Take this example of the Sprout Social landing page for a Facebook ad. It has a clean and pronounced CTA button.
Another example is the clothing company BlackMilk. They offer a discount on their social media landing page before asking a visitor to subscribe and submit their email id.
Want to do the same for your page?
Landigni is one of the best tools in the market today to create customizable landing pages. It is easy to use and comes with hundreds of templates and a drag and drop editor to design mobile friendly-landing pages from scratch or customize an existing one.
This tool also sends the data to your email campaign or CRM when someone converts on your landing page.Use Social Media Leads Ads:
Lead generation is tricky when you don't have the contact details of the prospects.
Surprisingly, visitors may want to sign-up to get updates from your business or newsletters. But filling the sign-up forms can seem a daunting task for many, especially on small screens.
Also, when the user is sent off-site to sign up when they click the Ad’s call-to-action button, there are high chances you may lose the visitor.
Social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin have made it all simple. For instance, when a visitor clicks on a Facebook Lead Ads, a lead form pops up right away. The best part is that it already has most of your contact details.
Facebook extracts the user’s contact information already available with their account and pre-populates the forms.
When people can complete the form in just two clicks, they are more likely to complete the form. You just need to carefully optimize your Ad, and image for more clicks and leads.Focus on Social Sharing Scheduling:
There is no denying that having great content is the most effective way to build your audience.
But without being consistent with your content on social platforms, you’ll not be able to garner the kind of clicks and traffic to your website that you are expecting.
How can you ensure the consistency of your posts?
A buffer is a simple tool that you can use to automatically schedule your blog posts as well as the latest updates on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn and track content performance.
Just add the content, including text, image, video, or link that you want to share on social media on Buffer and select the social media platform and time when you want them posted.
It doesn’t matter if you share the same content on various social media platforms multiple times unless you have the answer to the following questions:
1. How long will my content remain relevant and fresh?
2. How can I tweak it slightly to make the same post appear different?
3. What is the acceptable number of times to share content on a particular social media platform?
4. What is the preferred day and time to post content?
5. How to bring variation in the social sharing schedule
6. When should I post new content?
To get detailed answers to your questions, read this blog, and learn about social media posting time and how you can create your own social media calendar.Engage with Beautiful Cover Images:
A well-designed social media cover photo plays an important role in attracting potential customers towards your brand awareness and communicating with them.
A cover photo shows your personality and speaks of what the visitor can expect from the brand and its news feed. Having strong CTAs on the cover page of your social media profile image or adding a "Book Now" button below the profile image is also a great way to lead generation.
How to design a great cover photo
Canva helps you design breathtaking graphics, images, and layouts for Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Google+, and Instagram via ready-made templates and drag-and-drop features to gather more meaningful social media marketing results campaigns.
Take a look at their own Twitter profile page. It is simple, fun, and true to their own brand.
You can also use Flipsnack to design and share a digital catalog on social media to reach a wider audience. The tool allows you to make the catalog interactive by adding product links and tags to increase your sales opportunities.
Promote Your Gated Content
So you have attracted a great following on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, or any social media platform. But what's the benefit if these followers are not on your email list?
How will you market your products/services to those leads and make sales without access to their inbox?
With OptinMonster, a robust conversion optimization toolkit at your rescue, social media platforms can become your gateway to
1. Effectively deliver your brand message,
2. Promote your gated content, and
3. Generate more email leads.
Any content that can be accessed through filling in a form is gated or locked content. It can be:
1. Articles
2. Videos
3. White papers
4. Webinars
5. Research reports
Gating content makes people perceive it as more valuable. The user can access some of the content but has to opt-in to upgrade, read the rest, or access some additional features. In the form, users can be asked to provide their name, email address, phone number, etc.
Collaborate with Influencers:
Celebrity endorsements that leverage a popular personality’s fame have always been an effective method to pitch the brand or product amongst the masses. But, for small businesses getting a celebrity without making a hole in their pocket can be difficult.
How about trying influencer marketing?
Partner with influencers who are self-made social media experts. They’ll use your product or simply highlight its best features through their pictures or videos while associating their trust with the brand.
Take a look at this Instagram post by Jaclyn, Founder, and CEO of Create & Cultivate, promoting the health drink Mural Cerveza.
This does the following things:
1. Makes people excited about your brand
2. Encourages positive word-of-mouth
3. Demonstrates credibility and reliability
With the right social media influencers, you can pull off an effective influencer marketing campaign like a pro. But the question is -
How to find an influencer?
You can try BuzzSumo, which helps you find influencers on any topic or from your niche on social media to be your brand’s advocates and improve your brand awareness. The influencers can be nano-, micro-, macro- and mega based on their number and fan following. Pick as per your target audience and budget.
Not only that, with this tool, you can identify the most shareable and like content to restructure your content strategy.
Final Thoughts
Now that you have a great understanding of how you can use social media for business growth, implement the discussed strategies as a part of your brand’s marketing strategy.
Just remember that not all tactics will work the same way for you as they could for another business. Be experimental and see what works for you and what doesn’t. Seek to make changes and improvements, wherever required.
Further, strengthen your knowledge about content optimization and learn more about digital marketing and the top SEO audit tools to win the game.
