Social media has become huge lead generation tool for many businesses and online entrepreneurs, but there is more than one way to generate leads through social channels. There may be as many ways as there are marketers. The following five methods of generating leads through social media channels are popular and growing more so every day.
- Driving Traffic to Websites – Let’s get the obvious one out of the way right off the bat. Twitter has especially been effective, as has Pinterest, for driving traffic to websites and landing pages. All you do is write a great call to action with an effective link and watch your stats.
- Free Downloads – A variation of the traffic generation method is to offer something of value for free. You can then capture the name of your visitor in exchange for that something of value. It can be a video, an e-book, a special report, or anything at all that your site visitor downloads. But you must make it valuable. Then you promote it on all of your channels.
- Newsletter Opt-in – Similar to the free download tactic is the newsletter opt-in tactic. Just like the driving traffic method mentioned above, you use your social channels to send traffic to your landing page, but in this case you are getting them to sign up for your newsletter. You can offer a freebie as an incentive or let your information be the incentive. Either way, you’re capturing names and contact information.
- Groups – Affinity groups are a great way to generate leads. By getting people to join your group on LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+, or another social media site, you are essentially inviting them into your circle. They don’t have to give you any personal information to be a lead. The fact that they joined your group means they are interested in your topic.
- Lists – On Twitter, you can create a list of people for any reason. Why not generate a list of people who have @mentioned you? Or maybe create a list of people who have replied to your tweets at some point? Maybe your list is of anyone who has expressed an interest in your topic in some way. Lists are a great way to keep tabs on specific people of a particular interest.
When it comes to generating leads, be creative. Expand your definition of what is a lead.