How to Acquire High-quality Leads From Social Media

Your business has social media pages across platforms.

But apart from sharing posts and replying to comments, what other benefits can your social pages bring?

Well, let’s see how you can acquire valuable leads for your business.

Today, every business feels compelled to create and run social media pages. Perhaps, this is because there are 4.7 billion social media users worldwide.

Of course, reaching your audience through social media is critical to every business today. 

But are you obtaining optimum results from your social media activities?

After all, most social media users are potential buyers.

In this guide, I’ll take you through essential tactics and steps to generate more leads on social media.

Let’s get into all the details.

But before that;

Who is your ideal social media lead?

Just like there are millions of businesses on social media, there are ideal leads that can buy from each business.

An ideal social media lead is a person who has an interest in your business and can become a customer in the future with effective nurturing.

However, before you can acquire these leads on social media, you need to know them. Then, you can create a document that has details about your ideal lead.

This document is called a buyer persona. It will include details such as:

• Name
• Age
• Income 
• Location
• Gender
• Pain points
• Favorite social media channels
• Ambitions
• Likes
• Dislikes

You should include as much detail as possible. The major benefit of knowing your ideal lead is that you’ll have the knowledge to deliver the right messages on the right platforms to convert them to your leads.

Here’s an example of a buyer persona from Drip:

If you need help to create yours, you can use the HubSpot persona templates. 

Now, after knowing your ideal lead, here are 8 steps to capture them on social media:

8 steps to generate high-quality leads on social media

1. Use social media lead ads

Over the years, businesses have struggled to reach their audience through organic social media posts. That’s why running ads is one of the best ways to acquire leads on social media.

But of the various types of ads, a few are more suitable for generating leads.

One of them is social media lead ad. 

What are social media lead ads?

Social media lead ads are ads designed to trigger a lead acquisition form once a user clicks on an ad’s call-to-action (CTA) button. These ad types are currently available on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube.

With lead ads, you only have to work hard on your ad copy to convince a user. There’s no worry about designing a landing page.

Furthermore, lead ads don’t take social media users away from the platform they’re browsing. So, this works for both social media platforms and users who want to continue scrolling their feeds.

Another thing that makes lead ads work is that social media platforms usually populate the lead generation form with a user’s details. 

Hence, in most cases, a user just needs to confirm the details and click on “Submit.”

To underline the effectiveness of social media lead ads, consider a study by LinkedIn. In this study, the social media giant discovered that LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms boast an average of 13% conversion rates compared to landing pages with an average of 2.35%.

Who better to consider as an example than Facebook itself? Here’s one of Facebook’s lead ads:

Clicking the CTA button will trigger this lead form:

Here, you’ll see that Facebook has only asked for details relevant to a B2B lead.

To create effective lead ads, you have to:

• Design attractive ad images.
• Write high-converting ad copy.
• Use the right CTA button and text.
• Ask for only necessary details in your form.

2. Set up retargeting ads

Retargeting ads are ads served to people who have interacted with your brand in the past. This could be a visit to your website, follow of your social media page, interaction with one of your social media posts, and more.

Retargeting ads work because the ad recipient is already aware of your brand. For instance, WordStream discovered that remarketing audiences result in 2 – 3X better click-through and conversion rates compared to new audiences.

Here’s a retargeting ad I saw from Restream on Facebook:

I call it a retargeting ad because I once visited Restream’s website while researching live streaming software. In addition, I’ve never interacted with Restream on Facebook.

Still, I find this ad relevant to my previous interaction with the brand. 

To further convince me, they featured a testimonial in the ad image. We’ll dive more into using a testimonial later in this post.

A crucial part of using a retargeting ad is ensuring that your ad is relevant to their previous interaction with your brand. 

For example, someone who visited your pricing page will find ads about promotional offers relevant.

To create high-converting retargeting ads, you should:

• Target the right past interaction for an ideal lead
• Create ads relevant to the past interaction

3. Optimize your social media ad landing pages

Even though we discussed lead ads earlier, not all social media ads can work well without a landing page. After all, some offers require more information on the landing page before you can convince the user.

So, your landing page will contain images, videos, copy, CTA buttons, lead acquisition form, etc., to help convert a visitor to a lead.

One thing to keep in mind with your social media ad landing page is that it is a continuation of your ad. 

Getting a user to click an ad means they want your offer. Nevertheless, your landing page should complete the work by providing similar images and offer to your ad.

You should also use a form with few form fields to improve conversions. According to research by Formstack, you can increase conversion rates by 50% when you reduce your form fields from 4 to 3.

On the other hand, if you want to qualify leads regardless of low conversions, you can use a longer form.

Here’s a Facebook ad by Adobe:

If you click on the CTA, it will take you to this landing page:

Comparing the ad and landing page, you’ll find similarities. One, the images look similar, and the offer is the same.

With the well-optimized landing page, a lot of visitors to the page will register for the conference.

A few tips for effective optimization of your social media ad landing pages:

• Ensure consistency of landing page offers, images, and other elements with your ad.
• Use a robust landing page creation tool.
• Use a CTA button with high contrast to the landing page.
• A/B test various page elements to improve conversions.
• Use a few form fields in the lead acquisition form.

4. Offer lead magnets to your audience

As people commonly say in my place, nothing goes for nothing. The time of getting emails for free is gone.

With so much spam today, most people will only consider submitting their emails or other details when there’s a benefit attached.

This is where your lead magnet comes in.

What is a lead magnet?

A lead magnet is a valuable document or gift that can convince your audience to submit their personal information. Examples of lead magnets include ebooks, whitepapers, checklists, webinars, podcasts, videos, discounts, and more.

While your lead magnet is a gift, no gift appeals to everyone. So, you need to present a gift that can eliminate your ideal lead’s pain points.

Likewise, your lead magnet should be short and possess information that can solve a problem for your new lead immediately. For instance, a checklist to perform a common task more effectively will be helpful immediately.

By doing these, your audience will have little objection to submitting their information.

Also, remember that your lead magnet is your first impression with your new lead. If they find it underwhelming, they may lose interest in your future communications with them.

Here’s an example of Techment’s whitepaper on Twitter:

When you click the link, you’ll land on a page containing more details about the whitepaper. To download it, you have to enter your work email address.

This makes sense, considering that the whitepaper is about digital transformation for small and medium businesses.

Keep these in mind to create lead magnets that persuade leads:

• Consider the pain points your ideal lead wants to eliminate right now.
• Create the lead magnet in an easy-to-consume format for your lead.
• Pin the offer to the top of your business’s social media page.

5. Run social media giveaways and contests

If you’re like most people, you love winning gifts. Especially from brands you follow and admire.

Furthermore, giveaways trigger the competitive instinct in everybody to emerge as the winner.

That’s why organizing a giveaway can have many benefits for your business. 

In fact, you can run social media giveaways for various reasons. This could be to:

• Improve social media engagement 
• Increase page followership 
• Boost website traffic
• Acquire user-generated content (UGC)
• Generate more leads

So, in this case, you’re running a giveaway to obtain more leads for your sales funnel. 

Yet, there are a few things to keep in mind.

Rather than giving away a gift that everybody wants to win, like an iPhone, use gifts that are valuable to your ideal lead, preferably your product.

This way, you’ll discourage users who enter every giveaway they see on social media but have little chance of buying from you.

After selecting the right gift, you have to make submission of their details an entry requirement. 

Of course, you can use other requirements such as referrals, social shares, and tagging friends to reach more social media users.

Here’s an Instagram giveaway from Designer Bathware:

Through this giveaway, the brand can gain more Instagram followers and email subscribers.

After your contest deadline, ensure you announce the winner(s) to build trust with your audience. More so, this will encourage more users to enter your future giveaways.

In a nutshell, here are some details to consider before and during your giveaways:

• Determine gifts that will interest your ideal leads.
• Promote your giveaways before and during the campaign.
• Use your lead acquisition action (e.g., social media follow or newsletter subscription) as an entry requirement.
• Use the right giveaway tools on platforms such as Instagram and Facebook. 
• Announce your winners.

6. Use social proof to attract ideal leads

We hate to admit it, but we are influenced heavily by what people like us do. That’s why social proof is a powerful tool to generate more leads.

Social proof contains information such as testimonials, reviews, customer base, user-generated content (UGC), etc. that are intended to make your business attractive to a potential customer.

Through social proof content, potential leads can see the results people like them have achieved through your product. And if these are results they want to achieve too, they’ll reach out to your business.

Apart from your website, you can also feature social proof elements on your social media pages.

But first, you have to collect these pieces of content. One way to collect testimonials from customers is through email.

Another popular way is to specify a hashtag customers can use for an opportunity to feature on your account.

One of the best examples of using social proof on social media is GoPro. The camera manufacturer has acquired over 19 million Instagram followers with content from its customers.

When you check GoPro’s Instagram account, there’s a hashtag to promote its new GoPro Hero 11 camera:

When you click this hashtag, it already has almost 16,000 Instagram posts. Apart from this hashtag, GoPro has others like #GoPro, which has over 50 million posts, #GoProAwards, and more.

How many of these posts can GoPro use? Over 10 years worth of quality content. It’s safe to say that the brand is spoilt with choices.

Better still, GoPro can easily market its new products to prospects through the power of social proof.

To use social proof effectively, execute these steps:

• Use social proof content that displays significant problems customers are solving.
• Feature people similar to your ideal leads.
• Specify hashtags to collect user-generated content.
• Send emails to collect detailed testimonials.
• Share social proof content on your social media pages.

7. Exploit social media listening

In 2020, at the height of COVID-19, more than half of marketers used social media listening tools to obtain information about consumers. This was because many businesses needed to provide health and other services quickly.

Should you continue to engage in social listening now that outdoor activities are returning to pre-pandemic levels?

The truth is that social media listening is an activity every business should engage in, no matter the time.

Social media listening is the process of tracking what users say about your product/brand, industry, or competitors. Through this, you can identify satisfied customers, disgruntled customers, potential leads, customer complaints, and more.

But for the sake of this post, I’ll dwell more on how to use social media listening to capture more leads.

By tracking the right keywords, you can discover people who may need your products based on what they publish. Furthermore, you can find your competitors’ disgruntled customers who need another solution.

Here’s an example by Sprout Social:

All things being equal, the chances of this social media user trying their tool is high. 

To execute this tactic properly, you need a social media listening tool. With this tool, you can track keywords that a potential lead may use in social media posts.

The good news is that if you use social media management tools like Sprout Social, Hootsuite, Buffer, or Falcon.io, you’ll find listening features. Otherwise, you can go for dedicated listening tools such as Mention, Keyhole, BuzzSumo, Awario, etc.

Here are a few points to keep in mind to use social media listening for lead generation:

• Use the right social media listening tool.
• Determine the keywords and hashtags ideal leads may use on social media.
• Set alerts for these keywords.
• Listen on the right social media platforms.

8. Engage social media influencers for influencer marketing 

No matter how unique your product may be, there’s no completely new niche. Still, one problem every business will face at one stage is reaching its ideal audience.

If you currently have a small audience, collaborating with influencers can put you in front of a much bigger audience through influencer marketing.

Influencer marketing involves engaging influencers to promote your product, which is highly relevant to their audience. Through this process, influencers can provide value to their audience, and you can acquire valuable leads.

In most cases, influencers gain influence through achievements in a particular industry. Therefore, their audiences are usually people interested in that industry.

There are two types of influencers:

• Macro influencers: are influencers with a large number of followers, usually over 100,000. Most times, their big followership means followers have various interests. If you create a product for the general population, they’ll fit in well.
• Micro-influencers: are influencers with a low number of followers, usually less than 100,000. Therefore, most of their followers follow them because of their expertise in a niche. They may be more suitable for a niche product.

So, which one is suitable for your business? It depends on your needs.

You can obtain more details about an influencer before working with them. Thanks to a tool like HYPR, you have access to more information about an influencer, such as industry, location, engagement stats, etc.

These pieces of information will let you find influencers that can help acquire your ideal leads.

Let’s consider Alo Yoga, a great example of Instagram influencer marketing. Alo Yoga is a brand that produces clothes for Yoga.

When you check out their influencers, you’ll find both macro and micro-influencers.

But, there’s one common trend across their influencers. Most of them are Yoga instructors.

Naturally, a yoga instructor will have yoga students online and offline. And if a yoga instructor uses Alo Yoga gear, what do you think their students will likely use?

Here’s one of their influencers in an Instagram Reel:

Check out these points to consider for successful influencer marketing:

• Define your ideal influencer.
• Analyze prospective influencers with a tool like HYPR.
• Discuss remunerations for your campaigns.
• Analyze the results of your influencer marketing efforts.

Conclusion

While social media is a place to be “social,” businesses can also utilize this marketing channel to acquire leads that will turn into customers in the future.

I believe you’ve picked a few points about using ads, influencer marketing, giveaways, social proof, and more to generate social media leads.

The only way to obtain maximum value is to implement these strategies in your business.

Do you currently run social media campaigns to acquire leads? What’s your experience? Let me know in the comments!