How to Generate High-Quality Leads from Your Social Media

Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.: How to Generate High-Quality Leads from Your Social Media

When it comes to generating sales leads, much has been said about the power of social media marketing versus cold calling and unsolicited email:

An article by digital marketing and automation software firm Marketo states that at least 58% of marketers who have invested in social media marketing for three years or more saw increased sales.

Sales expert and President of Engage Selling Colleen Francis shares on Forbes that she knows of salespeople who generated sales between $30,000 and $250,000 by pursuing leads via social media.

A study by ReachForce, which has been cited in HubSpot’s list of marketing statistics, reports that 44% of marketers generate leads through LinkedIn, 39% through Facebook, and 30% through Twitter. ReachForce is a data and analytics company.
Social media marketing company TopDog reveals that more than 90% of decision-makers won’t buy from an unsolicited email sender or a cold caller.

Also, there’s a stark difference between a visitor who simply likes your blog posts and a prospect that’s ready and willing to buy your product or service. The challenge is how to hook in the latter type.

Here are a few tips:

Facebook

Gamification

Aside from aiming for page likes, encourage follower interest and participation by capitalizing on the addictive effects of gamification. You can do this by hosting contests and giveaways.

Testimonials

You can also put word-of-mouth marketing into action by asking for customer testimonials. These testimonials will serve as a way to attract more clients.

Prospects see exactly how you do your job or how your product works based on what the people you’ve worked with or the customers who’ve tried your product say, which can help alleviate trust issues.

Twitter

Lead generation card

Twitter has a feature called the lead generation card. This is essentially a landing page optimized for Twitter. When clicked, Twitter users see your offer and call to action. If they find your offer interesting, they enter their name, Twitter handle, and email address.

Promoted tweets

Twitter’s paid tweets functionality can help widen your lead generation pipeline because your tweets can be promoted even to non-followers.

For B2B marketers, LinkedIn is the social network to beat at lead generation, driving at least 80% of their sales leads from social media.

Publishing platform

Aside from the site’s professional look and feel, what’s great about LinkedIn is its built-in publishing platform. It lets you push your own content, allowing you to establish your authority within LinkedIn’s professional communities.

In LinkedIn’s parlance, this means you can present yourself as a “thought leader,” making it easier for you to introduce your business or service without the irritating, salesy vibe.

Testimonials and skills endorsement

LinkedIn’s testimonials and skills endorsement features also let prospective clients see other people recognizing your skills and talents in real life.

These endorsements make your resume more powerful, since the skills you enter won’t be things you list out simply to stand out or show off. They are validated by your clients and colleagues because their profiles can also be viewed and cross-referenced to yours.

If the above tips entice you to find out more, the infographic below contains more actionable, straightforward guidelines for generating high-quality sales leads using social media.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.