Do you want to generate B2B leads using social media?
Well, that’s a great idea and I hope you’ve already been using social media for your marketing communication because you can’t really avoid it if you want to grow your business in the 21st century.
In this article, I will share some of the most effective tips for social media B2B lead generation that you can put to work easily and generate quality leads for your business.
But, before that let me show you some of the reasons why social media can be a powerful lead-generation platform for B2B businesses.
Is Social media effective for B2B lead generation?
B2B marketers are proactively trying to figure out ways to include social media for lead generation like their B2C counterparts. In fact, according to eMarketer, over 59% of B2B marketers find Social media marketing effective for improving lead generation.
But, we also can’t ignore the fact that more than 40% of B2B marketer still don’t find social media that effective for lead generation, and one of the reasons might be because of the presence and behavior of their target audience on these platforms.
Social media marketing for B2B brands may not seem to be as cheap as it is for B2C brands but it cannot be a reason for not using them because –
- 54% of B2B marketers said they have generated leads from social media. (source)
- 79% of B2B Marketers believe social media is an effective marketing channel. (source)
- Social media is preferred by 44% of B2B marketers for sourcing high-quality leads. (source)
- 85% of B2B buyers believe companies should present information via social networks. (source)
- 78% of marketers said they saw increased traffic with as little as 6 hours a week invested in Social Media Marketing. (source)
- 80% of B2B social media leads come from LinkedIn. (source)
Now that you believe that social media can bring value to your business, let’s look into some of the effective social media lead-generation tips for B2B businesses.
7 Tips to Generate B2B Leads on Social Media
In this section, you’ll discover some of the best and proven marketing tips to generate B2B leads that most successful B2B businesses and startups use and keep growing.
If you are ready, let’s get started.
1. Find where your target audience spends time on social platforms.
First things first, you will not be able to generate quality B2B leads if you don’t know where your target audience spends most of their time and where they look for industry-related information.
Remember, not every social platform is relevant to your business and even if your target audience overlaps on several channels then you must understand that there’s a reason why there are tons of social channels. People use different social platforms for different purposes and with different mindsets.
So, you need to identify the platform where your target audience is available and would like to engage in content like yours.
For B2B lead generation, I always recommend marketers try LinkedIn and Twitter because these are the channels where decision-makers spend most of their time staying updated with industry-related updates. However, this may differ in your case but it is worth trying if your target audiences are CXOs, Founders, and senior-level managers.
Guides you should refer to –
2. Align social channels with your customer journey map.
The next step is to align the primary marketing channels with your customer journey map.
The B2B lead generation process is not just about running paid campaigns on social media and people would submit the form to share their contact information. B2B customers do a lot of research before getting in touch with a company. That’s why it is very important to make sure that the prospects are getting relevant content and marketing communications at every touchpoint.
For example, if a visitor lands on your website and explores a specific service page but doesn’t submit a contact form or sign-up demo then you should use social media to retarget them with relevant case studies, testimonials, or ebooks based on their past behavior and bring them back to your site.
Similarly, you want to keep your marketing communication consistent across all channels to avoid any confusion and create a strong brand recall factor among your prospects and leads.
3. Optimize your social pages.
By social page optimization, I mean to make it more compelling and informative for your audience. If a prospect visits your company page, you want to make sure that they understand what your company offers and how they can connect with you for more information.
Here are a few tips to optimize your business pages which is quite common for almost every social media channel –
- Add relevant background or cover picture
- Update page URL
- Add a link to your website.
- Create a call-to-action button.
- Add contact information.
- Make your value proposition clear in the description section.
- Add keywords in the company description.
4. Share posts regularly.
Consistency is the key to success on social media. The more you share posts on social media, the more you’ll be visible, and the more you will generate leads from the platform.
B2B audiences are more interested in informative posts rather than artsy and creative ones. They strive for information and your social pages can be the one-stop-shop for them to find industry-relevant updates.
Now, creating informative posts regularly can be an overwhelming task for your marketing team but you don’t have to create your own blog posts, videos, or anything to share on social media. Instead, you can outsource most of the content from trusted and reliable sources like industry blogs, news, etc.
So while creating your social media content calendar, make sure you apply the 80-20 rule according to which 80% of the posts can be outsourced and the rest from your blog.
5. Promote your gated content
Gated content is the resources like case studies, ebooks, and webinars which people can access only after submitting a download form. These types of resources are proven to be very effective in grabbing the attention of target audiences by offering something they might be interested in and willing to share contact info in exchange.
So, you can promote this content across social channels, and start with, make sure that you’ve multiple contents in place to offer each of the customer personas at different touchpoints in the marketing funnel.
6. Offer free trials or demo
The objective of this strategy is to let your prospects use your product or get a demo of your services for free with limited access to give them an idea of how your solutions can bring value to their business.
Since these users already have seen the benefits of your solutions and what they can bring to the table for their business, it becomes easier for the sales team to convert them into paid customers.
With creative ad copy, marketing communication, and relevant targeting, social media websites like LinkedIn can help reach such potential customers and get more signups and thus nurture them for conversion.
7. Join discussions in Industry-specific groups.
Social media platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook allow users to create and join groups. These groups are like small communities of like-minded people where people share content and discuss specific topics.
These groups can be a great place for B2B brands to create a presence among target audiences by sharing quality content and engaging in discussions. Such groups may not help you generate leads directly but they can be effective to build thought leadership in the industry which may attract several referrals from fellow group members.
Wrapping up
It’s never like social media isn’t effective for B2B lead generation but it is more about choosing the right platform for your business and targeting the right audience in the best possible ways.
There are many ways to utilize social media to generate B2B leads and the above-listed tips are some of the ways that I find effective for the brands I work with – you have to be creative and explore different ways to find what works for your business and execute it on a larger scale.