Increase your chances of getting leads through social media

In the world of business and marketing, everyone wants more leads, as these usually result in more sales, which brings in more money. This is all well and good, but how do you actually get leads from your social media efforts?

Leads cannot be guaranteed through social media; however, if you ensure that your social media is optimised and that your product or service is in demand, people will naturally want to enquire about it and buy it.

Here are my top tips on how to generate leads through social media:

• Utilise social media advertising on platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.

Adverts are a great way to direct people to your social media platform, and to collect information, depending on your KPIs. Facebook forms are useful, as there are so many ways to customise Facebook ads; they can then be shown on Instagram, too. Sites such as Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn all have lead generation ads, whereas Pinterest and Twitter don’t - however, both these platforms offer options to boost social media lead generation.

• One of the most important things to remember when creating a social media account is to optimise your social media profile

You need to ensure that potential customers can contact you when they eventually stumble over your profile on the relevant platform - whether this is via your email address, a phone number, by messenger, or a website link. Also, include calls to action, showing what you want potential customers to do, i.e. ‘book now’; ‘get tickets’.

• As a business, you continuously go up against your competition. You need to create engaging, stand out content

Any images or videos that you upload need to be of a certain quality. Quality always trumps quantity. Your images should also relate to your end goal, and be interesting enough to draw people's attention. If you want people to buy tickets for an event, you should create a buzz around the particular day/evening and what they’ll enjoy if they were to attend, so that they’ll be more likely to buy tickets.

• So, your page has caught the attention of potential customers and they’ve followed your call to action…now what?

You need to lead people to a sleek, simple landing page that displays all information in a clear and concise way. If you include a form on your landing page, keep the form simple and only ask for the information you really need. According to www.wordstream.com*, ‘the optimal number of form fields for the most conversions from your landing pages is 3’. If possible, have an option for people to use pre-fill information, where, with one click of a button, someone could fill in the whole form easily.

*www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2017/08/02/conversion-rate-statistics