Social media is a great way to generate leads, but it’s not always easy to know where to start. The first step is to decide what you want your business social presence to say about you and how you plan to use it.
Do you want to focus on a specific audience or niche? Are you trying to reach out specifically to new customers, or do you want existing customers to make more purchases? Do you want your current customers’ friends and family members to feel confident that they’re in good hands?
Once you’ve answered these questions, the next thing is figuring out how much time and effort it will take for your efforts on social media. After all, there are many other things that need attention from your team and from yourself! So make sure that any time spent on social media is worth it. If it doesn’t look like anything else has been done lately because everyone’s been spending too much time on Twitter, then maybe it’s not worth the effort. The best way for me to explain this concept is with an example: A few years ago I started working at a small nonprofit organization where everyone had their own individual roles in addition to working together as a team. We all had our own responsibilities.
Social media marketing is a highly cost-effective way to generate leads and sales for your business. Studies show that 45% of companies reduce their marketing costs by using social media. Furthermore, revenue increases by 24% when business owners use social media in their lead generation campaigns.
Social Media + Leads = Sales
Generating leads is the process by which businesses bring potential customers into their sales range. It’s not entirely like selling, per se. Think of lead generation as getting to know who your target customer is and what they want. You want to find out the following:
- Who your customer
The first step is to figure out who your customers are. This step is crucial because you need to know who you’re talking to and what they want. You can do this by looking at the industry as a whole, asking around in your network of friends or colleagues, or even surveying people online.
- What products and services you can pitch to them
After figuring out who your customers are and what their problems are, it’s time to look at the products and services that can help solve those problems. You don’t have to create all of these things yourself—you can partner with other companies to offer a more comprehensive solution for your customer base.
- What their main problems
Now that we know who our customers are and what products they need, it’s time to dive further into their problems so we can create more compelling offers for them. This is where most businesses fail because they get caught up in the product side without understanding what people really want out of their lives (i.e., how they want to feel).
The Power of Social Media
Social media is a place where users share content around. If you target customers who are eager about your brand, you know they will circulate your posts and videos about your brand or products. Did you know that average people and teens spend about 30% of their time socializing and sharing content on social media? Therefore, social media is the best place to target users and turn their interactions into direct sales leads.
Choose the Right Channel
Once you know your target audience, you’ll know the channels they use most. Using social media platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook when most of your clients use Instagram is not a smart social media marketing move. Business owners often assume they can skip on conducting research. Therefore, they assume that everyone uses LinkedIn. While LinkedIn gains a vast audience, you need to find your exact target demographic. Don’t know how to find your exact target demographic? Franchiseware will help to reach you in every corner of the social media platforms to explore and generate leads.
Use #Hashtags
You might notice on Instagram that a lot of your followers are using that hashtag, and it is often connected to a similar brand, personality or business. When you create individual hashtags for your company’s products or services, you give your followers the opportunity to post about it. You also allow outside users with similar interests or needs to find your account directly because they can click the hashtag.
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