Technology Tip
Dave Pelland has extensive experience covering the business use of technology, networking and communications tools by companies of all sizes. Dave's editorial and corporate experience includes more than 10 years editing an electronic technology and communications industry newsletter for a global professional services firm.

Improving Your Small Business Social Media Lead Generation

Improving Your Small Business Social Media Lead Generation

With a relatively modest investment of time and effort, social media can provide a powerful lead generation platform for small business owners.

Although not a short-term fix, lead generation provides a framework for attracting customers by posting educational and engaging with customers and prospects on a consistent basis.

Lead generation helps your small business expand its pipeline by helping you grow your audience. By increasing the number of prospects who know, like and trust your company, you create awareness that helps you increase sales over time.

Know Your Audience

Determining the best platform for your lead generation efforts depends, in part, on understanding where your audience interacts online. Because you can’t post everywhere, it’s important to target your efforts. For a business-to-consumer company, Facebook and Instagram are likely to be the most effective platforms. A business-to-business-focused company will have better luck concentrating on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Don’t overlook niche audiences on smaller sites, such as online groups dedicated to your customers’ industry, or a local and regional group. You may find less competition here.

Serve as a Resource

One of the keys to effective lead generation is producing content that helps position your company as a resource while highlighting your knowledge and experience.

Content that helps customers answer their questions, save time money and effort, or understand emerging industry trends will raise awareness of your company and, more importantly, increase your traffic (online and/or on foot, depending on your business model).

Common forms of lead generation content include:

  • Blogs and articles
  • Videos
  • eBooks (which can be used as lead magnets)
  • Webinars
  • Checklists, infographics and other resources

Live videos offer, in addition to the content you’re sharing, the benefit of allowing customers to ask questions during the live session. This can increase interaction significantly. Recording a live video also lets you share and repost that content on your website and other social platforms.

Regardless of the format, it’s important to remember the value of making sure your content is useful to readers and viewers. People will tune out content that is strictly promotional, which offers little benefit to your lead generation efforts.

Develop a Lead Magnet

An important tool in an effective lead generation strategy is creating and offering a lead magnet. This is a gift - typically in the form of a white paper, report or similar resource - that a prospect will receive after sharing his or her contact information with you.

For instance, you can package a series of articles on a given topic and hire a designer to create a PDF document that can serve as an effective lead magnet. The customer or prospect gains instant access to your insights on a given topic, and you gain their contact information so they can be added to your email list and CRM system.

An effective process in leveraging the power of lead magnet is directing visitors to a landing page where they can enter their information to receive their download. This is easier for the prospect than having to navigate your company website, and also gives you the ability to measure the effectiveness of your lead generation efforts.

By setting up separate landing pages for your different social media platforms, you can measure which sites are the most effective at generating visitors and lead magnet downloads.


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