What is social media lead generation?

Social media lead generation is when you use social media channels such as Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and more to generate leads for your business on a regular basis.

It doesn’t matter if you’re B2B or B2C, either way, you can use social media to target your ideal clients and start generating high quality leads each month!

How does social media lead generation work?

The best strategy to generate leads on social media is simple, yet powerful. Here’s how it works:

Step 1: Identify the social media channels your potential clients are using

Whether they use it for personal, business or both… Almost everyone these days is on at least one social media. So, ask yourself: What social media channel(s) are my potential clients most likely using?

Go where your potential clients can be found.

In our experience, this is usually either Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and/or YouTube.

Step 2: Solve a BIG painful problem for your potential clients

This step actually has nothing to do with social media, but it’s equally important to generate leads ON social media!

Before you can generate any leads on social media you MUST solve a big painful problem for your potential clients and communicate HOW you solve this problem in a way that gets people excited to learn more about how you can help them.

For example, the big problem we solve for clients is helping business owners get predictable leads and appointments each month (watch this video to learn how we do this).

In your business, make sure you clearly communicate HOW you solve a big problem for your potential clients.

If you don’t do this step correctly, it doesn’t matter what else you do on social media, you will struggle to get any results.

Step 3: Explain how you solve this problem with a video

The next step to generating leads with social media, is to explain how you solve a big painful problem for your clients in a video sales letter (VSL).

Notice I said a VIDEO. Not an eboook, PDF guide, blog post, quiz, etc. Just ONE simple easy to understand video that explains how you help your clients.

Without this video sales letter, many businesses try to generate leads on social media but don’t get any results.

A video will allow you to both attract leads using social media and convert those leads into clients in a way that is automated.

Click here to see the video we use for our own business.

Step 4: Generate leads witih the best social media strategies

Now that you have a video that explains how you solve a big painful problem for your potential clients (steps 2 and 3), you can start promoting that video to generate leads.

There are two primary ways to generate leads on social media: free or low cost ways or by using paid advertising.

It’s important that on social media you only spend your time and money on the strategies that will get the BEST results.

Most people these days are doing “busy work” on social media. These are activities that increase your views, likes, followers and engagement but does very little to grow your business.

Instead, I recommend you focus on the strategies that will get the best results.

Is LinkedIn a good social media channel for generating leads?

LinkedIn is a potential goldmine for business owners right now. The problem is, most people are using LinkedIn in the WRONG way. For example, they are:

• Connecting to random people to increase connections
• Posting social media updates on LinkedIn every day
• Commenting on other people’s posts
• Joining and posting in LinkedIn groups
• Spamming people links to their content
• Direct messaging people asking if they want to schedule a call
• Direct messaging people pitching their business services

The problem with these LinkedIn tactics is that they are old and outdated. They do very little to bring in NEW business.

Instead, you need to focus on a LinkedIn strategy that generate leads.

See also: How to generate leads on LinkedIn

Is Facebook / Instagram a good social media channel for generating leads?

Facebook is the largest social media channel with the most users. A lot of people are struggling to generate any leads on Facebook because they are using very clunky and manual proesses. For example, here is a typical strategy to generate leads on Facebook without using ads:

• Optimize your Facebook profile to generate leads
• Join relevant Facebook groups where your potential clients are hanging out
• Post valuable content on these Facebook groups
• Connect with people that engage with your Facebook post
• Post valuable content on your Facebook news feed
• Direct message and try start conversations with people that engage with your content the most

Although this strategy CAN work, the problem is it’s very time consuming and involves a lot of manual work. In our experience, there are other more effective ways to use your time and generate more leads.

If you want the best results from Facebook, I would recommend simply running Facebook ads.

However, if for budget reasons you can’t use Facebook ads yet, then you acn still use free or low cost social media channels such as LinkedIn & YouTube to generate leads. These channels require less time and are a better – more automated way – for you to get predictable leads and appointments each month from social media.

Is YouTube a good social media channel for generating leads?

A lot people are creating YouTube channels to try to:

• Get lots of views
• Get lots of subscribers
• Get lots of engagement
• Become an influencer
• Earn YouTube revenue from Google Ads

Although there’s nothing wrong with that, if you’re a business owners, there are better ways to use YouTube.

How?

I recommend using YouTube to get high intent leads with people that are actively searching for keywords related to the services you provide.

What about other social media channels like Twitter, Pinterest, etc?

There are so many social media channels that you could use to grow your business. But it’s important not to get distracted with using social media just for the sake of using social media.

Instead, it’s better to focus on the social media channels where you’re most likely to get the best results (which is typical Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and/or YouTube).

Stay focused on one (or a few) social media channels

To avoid spreading yourself too thin, it’s also probably a good idea to focus on using one (or a few) social media channels to grow your business at the start. It’s better to use one social media channel really well, than use lots of social media channels not so well.

So, start with getting great results for your business with ONE social media channel first. You can always add more later on.