Social media marketing provides an ideal channel for generating and nurturing leads. Social media can generate almost 100% more leads than other channels including direct mail, telemarketing, trade shows or even PPC.
Lead conversion, which is primarily what business owners should be aiming for, occurs 13% higher with social media marketing than the average digital marketing lead conversion rates. If you want to get the same or even better results – then learn these secrets of lead generation in Social Media as brought to you by Digital Marketing Philippines.
The infographic (click to zoom):
1. Facebook Lead Generation Secrets
With more than 1.28 billion monthly active users during the first quarter of 2014 alone, it would only be logical to start sharing lead generation secrets with Facebook. Note that up to 32% of Facebook users unlike a brand because of uninteresting posts while another 28% unlike because of too many posts.
You can focus on content that will be useful to targeted audiences, but there are other interesting Facebook secrets that you might want to try out like the following:
- Competitions
The key is to keep the mechanics of your competition as simple as possible, throw in an ample prize that will make it interesting for Facebook users, and use applications that will allow you to extract lead information from contestants without putting them off.
- Sell… Subtly…
While outright and shameless selling at Facebook may tick people off, it would do your social media marketing campaign some good if you can learn how to sell your products and services, as subtle as your campaign can be. Learn to talk in the “language” your targeted audiences would like to use and see, such as great images with useful tips, subtly embedded with your links and contact information.
- Whisper Codes
Retailers, stores and shop owners can get a pretty good number of leads, and most probably sales, by sharing “whisper codes” through your social media audiences. These special codes can be terms, phrases or alphanumeric passcodes that people can “whisper” when they visit your stores to avail of a special offer, great deals or a great discount.
- Customized Tabs
Why settle for plain page tabs when you can customize? There are great third party apps out there that you can use to customize tabs and using them for collecting lead information from page Likers and other visitors. The only drawback with tabs is that you need to link your audiences to them through your content or Facebook ads.
- Offers
With a minimal budget that you can control, you can make use of Facebook offers and turn it into a very effective lead generation tool that you can use to attract highly targeted audiences. 500,000 pages are using Facebook Offers with more than 42 million users already claiming an offer. You can set titles, descriptions, add images, expiration dates, limit to the amount of people who can claim your offers, budget and reach. You can learn how you can take advantage of Offers for your lead generation through Facebook.
2. Twitter Lead Generation Secrets
Twitter has more than 255 million average Monthly Active Users or MAUs and that’s just up to March 31 of this year alone, a 25% year-over-year increase in numbers. 80% of the world’s Heads of State have Twitter accounts, and guest who’s on the top of the list – US President Barack Obama. It is just an indication of how powerful Twitter is as a digital marketing tool, and you can get more lead generation results from this channel using these secrets:
- Lead Generation Cards
Twitter has made it easier for Digital Marketers to reach out to targeted audiences with the likes of Lead Generation Cards that allow business owners to put a CTA or Call To Action in their tweets. Using these cards, digital marketers can capture targeted users’ interest and get good lead generation information from users like their names and emails by simply expanding your tweets and clicking on the corresponding button.
- TV Ad Targeting
With the release of Twitter’s TV Ad Targeting feature, business owners can now make a connection with their television advertisements and their Twitter accounts using advanced fingerprinting technologies. Digital marketers can now actively connect with TV viewers who have seen their advertisements of television, resulting in up to 27% higher engagement rates.
- Tailored Audiences
If you’re using Twitter ads to promote your brand, products or services, you would of course want to have them seen by users who may have interacted with your brand in the past. This type of targeted advertising to relevant users is expected to produce much favorable results. Twitter’s introduction of Tailored Audiences can actually boost your engagements by up to 45% by matching your Twitter ads to highly targeted audiences.
- Promoted Accounts in Timelines
Your business or brand can even get more exposure and lead generation leverage with Twitter’s Promoted Accounts that now appear in users’ timelines. This makes it even easier for businesses to connect with targeted audiences. A study conducted by Twitter earlier showed that 72% of participants will most likely consider brands that they follow or engage with for their future purchases.
- Broad Match Keyword Targeting
It has always been difficult to reach targeted audiences if digital marketers are only limited to specific keywords that they can use for their campaigns. With Twitter’s Broad Match Keyword Targeting, digital marketers can now leverage not only on exact keyword matches but also on broad matches that include related terms – synonyms, words with different spellings and even words that include Twitter-lingo.
3. LinkedIn Lead Generation Secrets
B2B marketers and those targeting professionals and executives can get good lead generation mileage using LinkedIn. It’s all about building a network of people you know and you can do this by linking up with connections on LinkedIn. If you’re targeting specific personalities, try to connect with them through your existing colleagues or participate in discussion groups where these targeted personalities will most likely be present.
Tip: Look for targeted audiences at LinkedIn using Linked-in Search, connect with people who have viewed your profile, engage with these prospects and even use flattery to get their attention – you’ll be surprised at how effective this can be.
4. Pinterest / Instagram Lead Generation Secrets
Pinterest is a rapidly growing social platform with over 70 million users. The great thing here is that Pinterest users spend more money than other networks, including Facebook. The same can be said true with Instagram that has grown to a whopping 200 million monthly active users.
Tip: Take advantage of these channels for lead generation by getting them interested with your photos like showing behind-the-scenes shots in your company, your product creation process, and your company actively engaged in Corporate Social Responsibility work.
5. YouTube Lead Generation Secrets
50% of traffic generated online comes from online video, so just imagine how powerful YouTube can be in generating leads.
Tip: But aside from posting interesting videos that your targeted audiences will find useful or interesting, make sure that you have optimized video titles placed with keywords, and make use of optimized keyword tags, a complete and comprehensive description and use of annotations that are also keyword rich.
Social media is a very powerful online channel and will continue to define how people connect, not only with each other but also with brands, products and services in the near future. Establish a strong presence in social media for your business and leverage the power these channels have in generating leads by making use of proven digital marketing strategies – spiced up with these not-so-common lead generation secrets.
Jomer B. Gregorio is a well-rounded expert when it comes digital marketing. Jomer is also known as a semantic SEO evangelist and practitioner. Check out our Digital Marketing Services today and let us help you in achieving positive and profitable results for your business.