How To Generate Leads From Social Media

Many top online entrepreneurs generate leads from social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn. But how do they do it?

LinkedIn is full of millions of business professionals that are more serious about the way they spend their time online. People on Facebook aren’t there to be marketed to, and both Twitter and Pinterest users have their own unique characteristics and patterns of behavior.

To generate leads from social media, and ultimately make sales, you need to have a sales funnel in place that carefully guide your leads through a defined series of steps. These steps enable your leads to become familiar with benefits of your products or services and so the buying decision is easier for them to make.

Can You Generate Leads From Social Media?

As a general rule, most social media platforms work best for doing a very specific job in your sales funnel. And that’s creating leads, not sales.

Social media is social. People like to socialize there. They are generally hanging out to have a good time and aren’t usually looking to buy products and services. Even on LinkedIn, populated by serious business minded professionals, people aren’t usually looking to buy your products and services.

They are there, however, and on the other social media sites, for engagement. They want to chat, interact and hang out with people a lot like themselves. This means social media offers a great opportunity for you to connect with your target audience.

How To Use Social Media For Lead Generation

To generate leads from social media you first have to present yourself as a “real person” on rather than someone doing business. Put out a lot of great content that answers big problems and solves real questions for your audience. Then you infrequently look to build a list of contact details by offering a free product or service on the social media channel in return for the email address of a prospect.

Once you have somebody’s email address, you follow up with an engaging email autoresponder sequence. Your lead is now in your sales funnel and your objective is to turn the lead into a hot prospect. Your sales funnel is a step-by-step process that gently brings prospects to the point of wanting to receive your help and ultimately buy from you.

FREE Checklist: Create An Effective Sales Funnel
 
Create A Facebook Group

Facebook groups are a great social media sales lead generation tool. Just remember that the people on Facebook rarely like to be sold to or approached from a business angle. This means the majority of your posts and updates on your Facebook group should provide value and information-oriented only. However, every few posts you can provide a free ebook, one-on-one consultation, PDF file or some other valuable piece information in return for that person joining your email list.

Once you have their email address you can communicate with them away from the crowded world of Facebook and bring them to the more personal, one-on-one, intimate interaction that email provides.

Actively Participate

Find time each day to go through your social accounts (maybe one per day) and look for questions that need answered. The more you can answer questions the more people will get to know, like and trust you. Keep the conversation casual during this process. People reading your comments will then want more information from you and be more inclined to take up your offer of a free product or service.

Stick to a Schedule

If you don’t have a plan you may waste time. After all, there’s no better time sucker than social media. If you want to be super productive, set up a schedule and stick to it for posting, sharing, and engaging.

Optimize Your Content

Everything that you publish, no matter where, should be optimized. That means it should have the right words that get the attention of your audience and a call to action. Plus the page should load fast and everything should work. Also, each social network has its own way to show content, ensure that you understand the images sizes and the rules.

Engage With Your Audience

You want to post regularly. Also you want to engage with others on their pages and groups as well as answer comments on your posts. If you post something and it gets even one comment, be sure to comment back.

Check Your Metrics

Nothing is complete until the data is checked. You never know what is working if you don’t check the numbers. You need to know where all the clicks come from so that you know that what you’re doing on social media is working. Otherwise, why do it?

Leads Not Sales

Business owners should also understand they shouldn’t expect marketing miracles from social media. Over the years it has been found that social media is a great place to keep in contact with your customer, and you can effectively generate leads from social media.

It is, however, not usually a place that is efficient for selling your goods and services. Contact, engage, inform and build interest, answer questions, offer quizzes and contests, but don’t try to sell on social media.

Free Sales Funnel Checklist

Social media is an excellent way to build your online presence and it is possible to generate leads from social media. However, there is a right way and a wrong way to use social media in your sales funnel process. An effective funnel strategy puts your business on autopilot and will turn leads into paying customers if you structure it the right way. To learn more, download my free Sales Funnel Checklist which outlines how to generate sales leads through social media to produce the intended result.