Generating Organic Leads via Social Media
The goal of every advertiser is quality leads. That’s a word you may often hear – quality -because a quality lead is one that will likely convert. They are who ultimately use your services and make purchases. If leads are key, then you may have wondered how you can generate better, more efficient leads.
There is a great deal of work that goes into generating leads. Pay-Per-Click is still a very common method that is used for lead generating. It’s proven successful for many and may increase traffic for those in search for more leads. In fact, you can even be location-specific when setting up such campaigns in an effort to better connect with local leads, which may be your desired audience.
There are various ways in which leads may be produced in addition to their purchase. These include organic lead generation. These are leads that occur naturally, such as through a search engine or other websites, rather than an advertising campaign. Pay-Per-Click leads come from ads, which people may avoid, whereas organic leads are more directly interested. These leads may also prove more cost effective than pay leads, since in many cases, you aren’t paying for a campaign of any kind. In addition, you may also find that organic leads convert in larger quantities and potentially return more so than purchased leads.
The following are several ways in which you may produce organic leads via social media sites.
1) Twitter
Twitter has more than 288 million monthly active users and 500 million tweets are sent per day. Twitter also ranks as second most popular social networking service, with LinkedIn close behind. Twitter may also be effective because you can connect with anyone that is a user; unlike Facebook where communication is made through “friends.” Twitter, as a result, offers a huge platform where you can use tags that may generate organic leads. In fact, retweets will help spread your message and reach a wider audience. In order to increase your followers, you may want to participate as much as possible. If you join in on conversations and constantly communicate with people who share similar interests as you, you will better connect with professionals. This can take a few minutes of your day, but may increase your reach into your target market.
2) LinkedIn
In April 2014, LinkedIn was considered the preferred B2B social media platform and lead generation was identified as the primary goal for social media. LinkedIn is designed as a platform for connecting with businesses. In 2012, 61% of LinkedIn users were using LinkedIn as their primary professional networking site.
There are a number of ways in which you can use LinkedIn as a way of generating leads. These include adding connections and building and establishing a network. This is a great way of connecting with people on a large scale. LinkedIn also has groups, which you can join, based on interests and similarities you share with others. These can be treated as online conferences, meetings or spaces where you further connect with others. In addition, you may want to write recommendations for people in your network, congratulate and celebrate their work via status updates, and endorse peoples’ skills. This may help increase your identity on LinkedIn.
3) Facebook
It’s amazing to think that adults in the United States spend an average of 21 minutes each day on Facebook. Who can blame them? It’s incredibly addicting, but also a great way of making connections.
There are a variety of methods in which you can generate solid leads using Facebook. The social media site offers an option for adding tabs that can generate leads. In adding a “Subscribe Now” or “Get in Touch” page, people will have a way of connecting with you directly.
There are also options for hosting contests on the site, which can be a creative way of engaging with users. This will help generate e-mails from prospective consumers. These sorts of contests can be incredibly popular and fun. Lay’s, the potato chip company, hosted a campaign on Facebook where people voted for a new flavor. The campaign was incredibly successful and generated a lot of publicity and fans for the company.
4) Instagram
The sharing of pictures via social networking sites has become immensely popular. I guess we really are interested in seeing what our friends are eating. Instagram has set itself apart from the crowd and has become a major player in social media, especially after Facebook dropped $1 billion and bought them out.
Those who stand out on social media sites tend to be those who have effectively branded themselves. Instagram is a space for establishing a brand for yourself, through carefully curated content that successfully represents your image. In an effort to generate leads, you may want to think about how you can brand yourself. This may be through sharing pictures of your team, which will further humanize your brand, while also sharing images of your products and services. The goal is successfully communicating who you are.
Instagram is also best known for its hashtags. The use of hashtags makes your pictures available to those who are searching for that particular keyword. It’s a great way of staying relevant, considering many people are using Instagram as a way of searching specific hashtags.
Conclusion
These are methods that may work well with your plans. There are, of course, a number of other ways in which you can generate leads outside of social media sites. If nothing else, hopefully you are inspired and will think of various ways in which you can test these and other methods.
Citations:
Twitter: https://about.twitter.com/company
eBiz: http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/social-networking-websites
Inflexion-Point: http://www.inflexion-point.com/blog/twitter-loses-its-crown-as-the-most-used-b2b-social-media-platform
The Social Skinny: http://thesocialskinny.com/216-social-media-and-internet-statistics-september-2012
ABC News: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/technology/2012/04/facebook-buys-instagram-for-1-billion
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