lead generation

Social media has grown to become a powerful tool for digital marketers everywhere. When used the right way, it can be a great way to build your brand’s image, nurture relationships with your target audience, and even generate leads. While it may seem like the obvious choice to utilize social media platforms for B2C companies, B2B companies can also benefit from these platforms, with 75% of B2B buyers and 84% of C-level executives using social media to help make purchase decisions.

Through the right channels and proper strategy, B2B companies can enrich lead generation strategies through social media. Here are a few tips on the best practices for maximizing social media lead generation for your B2B brand.

1. Promote gated content

One of the easiest methods to get leads through social media is through promoting your gated content on your profiles. Whatever this content might be—eBooks, comprehensive guides, or whitepapers—it’s worth sharing if you think your audience can find value in it.

The frequency of sharing your content will depend on the platform. For example, it’s recommended to promote on Twitter once a day and once a week for Facebook or LinkedIn.

2. Build up your network

Beyond promoting your products and services, social media can be a great way to nurture relationships with your existing clients. It also serves to build a positive and credible reputation that prospective clients will hear about. This can be done by following and connecting with industry leaders, engaging followers through replies, and participating in forums to offer expert opinions.

3. Target your customers accurately

55% of B2B clients use social media to scope out potential product or vendor information. Take advantage of this by making sure that you’re reaching your clients on the right platforms. Focus on your ideal buyer personas and see which platforms best fit their online behaviors. While LinkedIn can seem like an obvious choice for B2B clients, other platforms may have advantages that better suit your business model.

In addition to this, making use of targeted ads on social media can be more effective, with marketers reporting a 25% increase in conversions for paid social media.

4. Tailor your content to the platform

Social media platforms all have their own quirks. Posting the same copy in the same format across all your social pages can come off as repetitive and uninteresting. Understanding the differences between these social networking sites and how your target audience uses these platforms can make all the difference.

More casual platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are more suited for instant content engagement and multimedia posts. Meanwhile, LinkedIn is good for more technical and professional content.

5. Be consistent

Social media may need different approaches, but your brand should still be consistent across all platforms. Take the time to decide on your company’s social media image and how to best convey it across the various platforms.

Consider this: Your social pages may be the first time potential clients encounter your brand, so it’s important that you make a good impression. By aiming for brand consistency, you are assured that every touch point will eventually lead to conversion.

Aside from posting and sharing content, updating your profiles and making full use of your selected platform’s features can go a long way in promoting your business.

6. Set up a social media contest

Contests or giveaways are a surefire way to get new leads, especially if your contests require participants to sign up or engage with your social pages. However, choosing the prizes for these contests should be done with care.

Giving away the latest gadgets or vacation trips can attract a lot of attention and participants, but they may only be interested in the giveaway and not your brand. To best maximize your leads that will most likely convert to sales, your targeting strategy and prizes must suit the needs of your ideal buyers. Giving away a free trial of your product or a service related to your industry may attract fewer participants, but these leads are of better quality and have a higher chance of converting to paying customers, should they like your product or service.

7. Conduct social media listening and monitoring

It’s important to consider your business’ long-term strategy for digital marketing. Paying attention to the data from your social pages, as well as the data in the industry can help improve your marketing performance.

Social media management tools have monitoring features that help you keep track of the metrics of your various social pages. This makes it easier to find which aspects to focus on, what practices you can do better, and what strategies are more effective. Meanwhile, making use of social media listening tools allow you to find potentially related topics and issues that your business can address through your posts and content.

Turn Your Likes to Leads

There’s no denying that social media is where your potential leads are. A good understanding of who your target audiences are can push you in the right direction in choosing which platforms to use, what kind of content to share, and how to best engage them to generate leads and possibly convert to sales. Keep up with the crowd and stay ahead of the competition by elevating your B2B marketing strategies today!

Content creation is the bread and butter of digital marketing. With the right content, you can attract interest for your business and drive more leads to your page. With up to 63% of digital marketers in the B2B sector using content marketing for lead generation, business blogging has become one of the most effective channels that generated the desired results. As a matter of fact, marketers who prioritize blogging have 13 times more chances of reaching a positive ROI.

The key to generating leads through your blog is utilizing the right elements that compel your readers to take the first step and provide their information, converting from a site visitor to a lead. Below are some of the best practices that can help optimize your blog for lead generation.

1. Always use CTAs

There’s a reason they’re called calls-to-action: they’re active words that compel your reader to do something, like clicking through to landing pages or product lists. Using CTAs gives you the opportunity to promote and translate your traffic into leads. There are two ways you can use CTAs: through banners and other page elements and in-text mentions.

Paged-based CTAs work to grab your audience’s attention with active and exciting language and designs once they’re on the page. With in-text CTAs, you can use language that blends in with your blog post and offers solutions to the reader’s pain points by linking back to a landing page of a relevant content.

2. Offer exclusive content

Exclusive content may seem counterintuitive to the purpose of creating content, but when done right, it can greatly increase your leads. Your blog’s accessible content should provide value to its readers, so that your exclusive content—be it an eBook, webinar, or whitepaper—builds up or adds onto it in exchange for something as simple as their email address. Make sure that the offer is well-written, highlighting the benefits of availing the exclusive content.

3. Start with a Hello bar

A Hello bar is a thin band across the top of your page that features a call-to-action, usually linking to a post-click landing page or squeeze page. As the reader scrolls along or accesses other parts of your website, it stays in place, keeping it in their line of sight. This allows you to reach out to your audience as they browse without being as intrusive as a pop-up.

4. Set up time-delay pop-ups

Another example of a page-based CTA, time delay pop-ups ensure that you can make the offer for your exclusive content or subscription when they’ve stayed on the site for a specific amount of time. The advantage to time-delay pop-ups is that you will be prompting your reader after they’ve demonstrated interest in your content by lingering on your page. This also allows them to spend some time browsing your content before being prompted to sign up or avail of exclusive materials.

5. Provide an email signup

If your reader finds value in your content, make it easier for them to get access to it. Email signups usually lead to a newsletter that provides summaries of valuable content as well as notifications on page updates relevant to your reader. This is especially effective if your target audience doesn’t have the luxury of time to freely browse the internet.

6. Prioritize the comment section

The comment section of your blog can be an opportunity for your brand to further nurture its relationships with visitors. Having a comment section lets your readers better express their thoughts and possible concerns while giving your brand a chance to engage with them, establishing your credibility and expertise.

7. Place social sharing buttons

Once your reader has been satisfied by your content, they may want to share their thoughts on it. Adding social sharing buttons on your content makes it easier for them to promote your content on their chosen social media platforms. This also allows your content to get organically shared to new eyes, driving more potential leads to your blog.

8. Promote content on marketing platforms

It’s important to get your content to your audience and maximize your online platforms by sharing content. Depending on the social platforms your brand already has, you may need to tweak your strategies in order to share your content in a format that works with the platform and best engages your audiences.

9. Be consistent

Marketing strategies work well when you know how to keep them up. Creating content shouldn’t be a one-time thing. Part of your content strategy, aside from the topics for your blog, should consider the frequency and schedule of posting. A blog with good content that posts regular updates is more likely to convince people to share their information.

Create to Convert

Generating leads is exercise of trust. With a well-constructed page and excellent content, your target audience will feel confident that they have nothing to lose and everything to gain when they sign up for your newsletter or provide their details for your exclusive content. More than just products or services, your business can offer valuable knowledge that sets you apart from your competitors. Take your B2B marketing strategies to the next level with content marketing to generate better leads.