A Smart Strategy for Getting Leads through Social Media

There are four truly successful ways to generate B2B leads. The first is social media—but probably not in the way you’ve been approaching it. There are two warnings:

Warning 1: Don’t expect mere social media presence to be a source of leads.

Warning 2: Don’t dismiss social media as a source of leads.

Twitter is not effective for generating leads: Use LinkedIn instead

LinkedIn consistently ranks the highest among social media platforms for its B2B lead generation value. Research from the Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs showed that more B2B marketers use LinkedIn than any other platform. But again, like the other social media channels, LinkedIn doesn’t generate leads all by itself. Here’s what you need to do to make it work.

· Be present and active. Every social media presence requires that you both have an account and do something about it. Get online, and start being active. Connect with your colleagues and other industry professionals.

· Make sure that your company has a robust LinkedIn account. Now, you need to make sure that your company’s presence is clear. Completely fill out your company’s spot on the network. This is distinct from your own personal profile, and it is essential for B2B leads.

· Join groups. LinkedIn has a huge variety of groups that you can join. You can easily find a group that contains professionals who are likely to become your leads. Here’s my LinkedIn group page. It looks like there are nearly 2 million groups I can join (1,924,327).

· Join conversations. LinkedIn is like a massive cocktail party, minus the cocktails. There are constantly people huddled in groups, talking about everything. Being active in these conversations means being a stronger marketing presence among people who matter.

· Look for help. Sometimes, the best way to encourage a lead is to ask for help. A little quid pro quo goes a long way toward starting and solidifying valuable professional relationships. I’ve used LinkedIn to find qualified people in my industry who can help me with a project, point me in the right direction, or recommend a solution to a quandrum. These people who help me — in or outside of my network — are useful leads.

· Pay for lead collection. If you want to go the direct route, LinkedIn has an integrated lead collection tool.

· This tool allows users who come across your company to request a contact. These are genuine warm leads.

Bottom Line

In spite of the upswing and potential of social media, it hasn’t proven particularly successful for actual high-converting leads. In order to see ROI from these sources, you’ve got to have a process for converting the leads. In order to get the most leads, and get the best leads, you should 1) Use CTAs and links to your website, and 2) Put most of your efforts into Linkedin lead gen.

Much of the above is from an excellent Crazy Egg article on lead generation. Read additional effective ways to generate leads in subsequent blog posts here. For a no cost discussion of your situation and the volume of quality traffic we can drive to your website via organic search call 630-363-8081 or email jeanna@smartprcommunications.com.