Social media leads generation is part of every marketer’s strategy—whether they know it or not.
For marketers ready to move beyond brand awareness and engagement, social media leads generation is a good next step. Collecting leads on social media will help you find people interested in your company. More importantly, these leads will help you keep in touch with potential customers—whether it’s to make a special offer or share the news.
This article is for anyone looking to take their social media marketing up a notch. If you’re new to social media leads, treat this article as a primer. For everyone else, this article offers a refresher and several up-to-date tactics on how to earn more quality leads.
In fact, when it comes to improving lead quality, most marketers agree that social media marketing is the way to go.
What is a social media lead?
A lead is any information someone shares that you can use to follow up with them. That includes names, email addresses, occupations, employers, or any other information that a social media user shares with you.
Before moving forward, let’s break down some of the lingo marketers use when it comes to social media leads.
Social media lead generation
Put simply, social media lead generation is any activity undertaken on social to collect new leads.
Social media leads nurturing
Once a social media lead is generated, good marketers will nurture their leads. This includes taking them through the customer journey, or as marketers would say: through the sales funnel.
Social media lead converting
The final stage of collecting social media leads is converting. This is the process of turning potential customers into paying customers.
What’s a quality social media lead?
How you define a quality lead depends on your industry, campaign, and goals. Generally speaking, a quality lead will include useful information and clear signs of intent to engage with your business.
It’s worthwhile to remember that when it comes to generating social media leads, quality often matters more than quantity.
How to get more leads on social media
Here’s how to get more leads on social media, and how to see results.
1. Optimize your profile
Before you plan your next social media lead campaign, make sure everything is in place for you to collect leads organically. Your profile should provide the means for customers to contact you, sign up for your newsletter, shop, and more.
Provide contact information
Your contact details should be readily available on your profile. But before you add them, make sure you’re able to support customer inquiries—whether by phone, email, Messenger, or some other means.
Create call-to-action buttons
Depending on your goal, different platforms offer unique profile features. For example, if you’d like more newsletter subscribers, add a Sign-Up button to your Facebook Page.
If you’re looking for appointment, restaurant, or consultation bookings, add Book, Reserve, or Get Tickets action buttons to your Instagram or Facebook profiles.
Add a link to your bio
When more specific tools aren’t available, add a link to your bio. This space is often taken advantage of on Instagram but can be used on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest, too. If you can, add a call-to-action so people know why they should click, and what they should expect to find.
2. Create clickable content
Without compelling content, you won’t collect leads. It’s that simple.
Remember, everyone on social media is competing for attention. And attention spans are shorter than ever. Images need to be sharp, and copy needs to be sharper. If your goal is to generate leads, make sure to tailor your creative to support it.
With click-worthy content, you’ll want to make sure people have a place to click. Wherever possible, make sure each post has a clear link and tempting call-to-action.
3. Design user-friendly landing pages
If you’ve convinced someone to click on your link, don’t disappoint them with a sloppy landing page.
For starters, the landing page must be relevant. If someone is expecting to find a certain product or specific information when they click on your link, it better be there. Without the corresponding content, it’s easier for someone to close a window or forget why they clicked in the first place.
A good landing page will be visually seamless and easily scannable. It should provide users with a clear path, and attempt to be as personal as possible.
If your landing page involves a form, keep it simple. Each question you add reduces the odds of someone finishing it. The more sensitive the details, the less likely you are to get them. For example, studies have found that forms that ask for age are more likely to be skipped.
If possible, pre-fill as much information as you have available. Doing this increases the chances of someone completing the form.
4. Use social lead ads
When you’ve exhausted organic lead collection measures, or if you would like to boost those efforts, there are social lead ads.
Facebook lead ads
Facebook offers a specific lead ad format for marketers. Lead ads on Facebook have basically promoted forms. Leads collected by these ads can be synced directly to your customer management system or downloaded so your sales team can follow up as needed. Facebook’s retargeting tools are especially handy when it comes to lead nurturing.
Make sure you install Facebook Pixel on your website. This makes it easier to track leads and measure how much they cost.
Instagram lead ads
Much like Facebook, Instagram offers lead ads designed to help marketers collect information. Like Facebook, Instagram offers the option to partially pre-fill forms. Email address, full name, phone number, and gender sections can all be pre-completed in these ads.
LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms
LinkedIn also offers an ad format just for lead generation, which it calls Lead Gen Forms. These ads are now available as Message Ads and Sponsored InMail on the platform. Like Facebook and Instagram, LinkedIn uses profile information to pre-fill sections. The average conversion rate on a LinkedIn Lead Gen Form is 13%. That’s high considering a typical website conversion rate is 2.35%, according to Wordstream.
LinkedIn Dynamic Ads also feature direct call-to-actions that can help generate leads. Learn more about LinkedIn ads.
YouTube TrueView for Action ads
This format on YouTube is designed to help advertisers drive a specific action—including generating leads. These ads have prominent call-to-action buttons that can link to a site of your choice. When creating these ads, simply select “Leads” as your goal.
Other sites, such as Pinterest and Twitter, don’t have specific formats for lead ads per se. However, both platforms offer ad options that can boost social media lead generation. Learn more about Pinterest and Twitter ads.
5. Offer the right incentive & Personalize your offer
Give people a reason to share information with you. Depending on the type of lead you’re looking to collect, there are different incentives you can offer to sweeten the deal.
Contests or sweepstakes
Holding a social media contest is a great way to collect leads. For entry, ask participants to share whatever information they’d like to learn. For example, the medical-learning platform Osmosis held a social contest that required participants to submit a form to enter. Among other things, the form asked for school and field of study information.
Broaden the reach of your contest by teaming up with an influencer or brand partner.
Discount code
Many brands offer customers a discount code in exchange for a newsletter sign-up. Discount codes or rewards points encourage customers to make a return visit to your site, and ideally a purchase. If you plan to offer one, have a strategy in place for not just generating leads, but also nurturing and converting them.
Gated content
Depending on your industry, gated content such as whitepapers, invite-only webinars, or even access to private Facebook Groups make for compelling incentives. It makes sense, for example, to ask for an email address to deliver a whitepaper. But you can also ask for job titles or other details that will inform your marketing and business efforts. Also, you can offer customers the chance to opt-in to receive more news from your company.
Contests, discount codes, and exclusive content are great rewards. But remember, you should have a good reason to collect customer information. Whether it’s to deliver a quality newsletter, cultivate loyalty, or offer rewards in the future, tell customers what’s in it for them.
A little personalization can go a long way, especially when it comes to social media lead generation.
Targeting is a good place to start. Take advantage of the targeting tools available on Facebook, LinkedIn, and other platforms to reach the right audience. Run separate campaigns for different audiences so you can tailor your message accordingly. For example, you may wish to split campaigns by gender, occupation, or age level.
Retargeting works here, too.
