With platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, social media lead generation isn’t always the first thing that comes to your mind. After all, social media is a place for staying in touch with friends and sharing personal content.
But did you also know that social media is an essential part of marketing? Whatever niche you’re in, or no matter the product or service you’re selling, it’s a great tool for generating quality leads.
This article is a good place to start. Read until the end to discover social media lead generation strategies and ways to increase lead quality.
What Is Social Media Lead Generation?
Lead generation is the process of collecting leads or prospects who are interested in your product or service. Social media lead generation, on the other hand, simply means doing it on a social media platform.
Your content plays an important role in attracting people to your offers. Ideally, you’ll want to provide them with content that’ll warm them up and eventually get them to make a purchase. On social media, this becomes easier since people are naturally in the mood for sharing and engaging in conversations.
Also, check out these interesting stats:
- Over 3.6 billion people have been using social media in 2020. This may increase to almost 4.41 billion in 2025.
- Facebook remains to be the most popular platform (based on the number of active users) worldwide.
- People continue to engage with brands after following them on social media. 91% visit their website or app, 89% will buy, and 85% will recommend a brand to others.
7 Ways To Generate Leads With Social Media
Follow these free and paid strategies to start getting leads today.
1. Create click-worthy content.
To help you come up with compelling content, find out what makes your audience tick. What problems do they need help with? What kinds of posts engage them? Try sourcing ideas from other businesses in your niche.
Great content gets shared naturally, but you have to do the initial work of posting it on your social media page. More importantly, for lead generation, make sure that your content is clickable and has a clear call-to-action.
Here are some examples:
- Blog post with a mailing list form placed strategically on the page
- Swipe-up feature for Instagram stories
- YouTube cards that let you add clickable links
- Different Pinterest boards for your various product categories
Here’s an example of a blog post from Shopify with a newsletter form at the right:
2. Use chatbots
Chatbots are computer programs that can simulate human conversations on apps and websites. While the idea of a chatbot isn’t really new, its use has just started to gain momentum. More and more businesses realize their importance for:
- Answering prospects’ inquiries
- Recommending products and services
- Resolving common complaints
- Guiding customers through the checkout process
- Starting thoughtful conversations
Brands like Sephora, Domino’s Pizza, and Kayak are using Facebook Messenger bots to assist potential customers, guiding them further down the sales funnel. Domino’s chatbot, for example, provides customers with ordering options.
3. Run a contest
Social media contests are an effective means of getting people to engage with your business. People won’t give away their contact information unless they can gain something valuable in return ― which is the point of running contests.
Be sure to pick a prize that attracts your ideal customer. If you already have an existing product, that would be the best incentive to offer.
One of our UpViral users, Michael Winter, did a contest for a client where he gave away a Christmas hamper as the main prize and a condiment + chocolates as a bonus prize. His client was a company in the food industry that sells meal kits, which made the prize highly relevant.
That contest generated over 3,000 leads in just one week.
Need more inspiration? Here are more examples of contests, giveaways, and product launch campaigns that generated hundreds to thousands of leads.
4. Host free workshops
Workshops or webinars are a tried and true tool for driving quality leads. People are more willing to share their information in exchange for free knowledge from an expert.
According to some webinar stats from an OptinMonster post:
- 20-40% of webinar attendees become qualified leads.
- Webinars retain 40% of viewers’ attention.
- Between 2-5% of webinar attendees will make a purchase.
Here at UpViral, we use this strategy to get more people to be interested in our platform. How do we do it? Each week, we hold free co-pilot shows where anyone can get inspiration, ideas, and advice on attracting more leads into their business.
We publish the replays of these co-pilot shows on our Facebook page. You can use the same strategy. In addition, you can also write blog posts with compelling visuals as reminders to check out your upcoming webinar.
5. Add call-to-action buttons (CTA) to your profile
Are you maximizing your social media profile for lead generation? Depending on the platform, you can add CTA buttons on your profile that let people:
- Check out your articles
- Shop your products
- Grab a free copy of your book or PDF
- Start their free trial of your service
- Join your contest or giveaway
The screenshot above shows a brand that added a CTA link on their Instagram bio to shop their coffee products.
6. Run lead ads
Facebook lead ads are ads that simplify the lead generation process.
It works this way: When a user clicks on your lead gen ad, a form pops up that’s already pre-populated with their contact information. Without having to leave the Facebook platform, they can join your mailing list, register for your event, and more.
Instagram leads ads work the same way and are created using Facebook Ads Manager.
7. Design a user-friendly landing page
The goal of every landing page is to make people convert. So, make sure that after a prospect clicks through your CTA link, they arrive on a relevant page. Or else, they’d be confused.
Here are the keys to a high-converting landing page:
- A headline that’s catchy and straightforward
- Easily scannable content
- Simple forms
- High-quality image or video
- Benefit-oriented copy
Read more: 10 Elements That Your Landing Page Should Have
3 Tips To Ensure Lead Quality
In this section, we’ll be going over three ways on how to improve social media lead generation to get quality leads. Regardless of the number of leads you attract, lead quality is important. (Because this translates into more paying customers!)
1. Use double opt-in
“Should I use double opt-in or not?”🤔 A double opt-in works this way: After someone provides their email, they’ll be receiving an email from you with a link to confirm their intention (whether that’s joining your email list, signing up for your webinar, etc.)
This 2-step confirmation tactic effectively weeds out people who aren’t genuinely interested in your product or service.
Pro Tip: Running a contest or giveaway using UpViral? Don’t forget to enable double opt-in to boost the health of your email list!
2. Hone in on your target market
As much as possible, figure out who your customer really is. Identify the kind of content and offers your market best responds to.
If you’re already running a social media lead generation campaign and haven’t been getting good results, perhaps you’re speaking to the wrong audience!
3. Nurture your leads
Just because you’ve successfully captured new leads, doesn’t mean the work is done. Want to know how to convert more customers through social media lead generation? Do lead nurturing.
Lead nurturing accomplishes this by strengthening your relationships with your prospects no matter where they’re at in your sales funnel.
Try these lead nurturing strategies:
- Send them personalized emails depending on their interests.
- Follow-up with them through retargeting campaigns.
- Provide extra value. For example, offer a free trial or consultation!
What's The Best Tool For Social Media Lead Generation?
There are plenty of social media lead generation software options out there, ranging from ESPs to form builders to prospecting and outreach tools.
On the list above, we’ve shared how running contests or giveaways can grow your leads quickly. UpViral makes this possible even for beginners. See how our users have gotten free-flowing traffic, built their email list, and grown their business using UpViral! 🎉
Over To You
If your business is not on social media, you’re missing out on a lot ― especially when it comes to increasing your leads. The techniques we shared should help you start right away. Already doing it? That’s great. Now, make sure you’re getting the highest possible quality of leads!
