A strong social presence is crucial to the success of online marketing, and social media is one of the best ways to build that online strength. If you’ve already been publishing content Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or other social platforms, you’ve completed the first step. Perhaps you’ve begun building up a decent following and your audience is starting to engage. What’s next? How can you use this engagement to drive leads for you business?

With these few tips, you can use social media to grow lead conversion.

Identify the Proper Channels.

There are so many different social media platform businesses can choose from, however that does not mean you should necessarily be using them all. Take some time to figure out what networks your audience is hanging out. It’s much more important to invest your time on platforms that work, instead of spreading your efforts across the board. You may need to start out with the trial and error method. If you are spending a lot of time on one platform with little results, it might be time to move your efforts elsewhere.

Grow Your Following.

If you don’t have many followers on your social platforms, there’s not much of a chance you will see lead conversion. Take the time to grow your following. This will not happen overnight so patience is key. It’s important you know the persona you are targeting and share content relevant to that audience.

Hubspot allows businesses to create “streams”, a feature that allows you to monitor conversations happening around a keyword of geographical region. This can help you keep track of what’s going on and engage in these relevant conversations. More times than not, you will end up with a new follower and a potential lead.

Optimize Your Profile.

Often times, businesses create social media profiles that offer visitors no opportunity to become a customer. A short blurb and a link to your website is not enough. Just like your website, your social media profiles should have a clear call-to-action and an easy way for leads to complete that specific action.

There are many different ways you can use your social media profile to make it easy for visitors to connect with your business. Drive your followers to contact you by provided a link to your “contact us” page and a phone number. Social media is widely used on mobile devices today so you are giving your customer an easy way to connect. Facebook also has a “custom tab” feature that gives users a way to showcase custom content alongside the default tabs. For example, if you are looking to gain more blog subscribers, you can create a tab that invites leads to sign up and directs them to a form on your site.

Publish Gated Content.

When publishing a new piece of content, place it behind a “gate”, or landing page with a form. Social media is great for promoted gated content because once a user reaches your form, you know you’ve already caught their interest. When you post content to Twitter of Facebook for example, anyone who clicks your link has already decided they want to view the content. Although some leads will be put off by filling out a form, many will be happy to provide information if the content is presented well and your business has a decent reputation.

More Than an RSS Feed.

Linking to your content through internal links is important to your social media strategy, however it should not be the only thing you do. A lot of companies are using their social media channels as RSS feeds and not much else. By only publishing your own content, you are missing out on many of the benefits of these platforms.

Social media is a great opportunity for businesses to engage with their customers. Businesses should mix up their posts with relevant news articles from other industry influencers or questions to their audience. Twitter is a powerful tool for connecting with influencers, and you can do so by sharing their content and engaging in conversation with them.
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