As a business owner, you need clients; to get clients, you need to generate leads.

To generate high-quality leads you need a social media lead generation strategy that gets results.

So, to help you out…

In this article, we will cut through the noise and explain the best social media platforms for lead-generation.

Let’s get started!

Quick Summary 

In a hurry? Here is a quick rundown of the 9 best lead generation channels for your business:

  • YouTube (best overall)
  • TikTok (best for paid ads)
  • Instagram (largest social media channel)
  • Facebook (best for local ads)
  • LinkedIn (best for B2B social media leads)
  • X – previously Twitter (Best for engaging with new leads)

And here are the best social media lead generation strategies to grow your business:

  • Have a plan
  • Optimize your social media profiles
  • Create high-quality content
  • Use social media ads the right way
  • Make the most of ad retargeting
  • Lean into social listening
  • Practice social media lead nurturing
  • Consider a referral campaign
  • Reflect and revise your strategy

Social media lead generation can seem daunting, convoluted, and messy at first glance, and I know the feeling. That is why I have created a free masterclass that cuts straight to the chase and shows you exactly what to do to get leads, appointments and clients on social media.

Be sure to check it out!

What are the best social media platforms for generating leads?

This will largely depend on your specific set of goals. With that being said, here are three leading platforms you should consider:

1. YouTube

YouTube VSL

YouTube is an amazing social media platform for business owners to get leads for free each month.

With a business YouTube channel, you can be found through Google search, YouTube search and even on the YouTube homepage (through the YouTube recommendation algorithm).

YouTube key benefits:

  • Get leads for free
  • Build a business community on social media
  • Video builds trust faster than other social media platforms
  • Showcase your expertise
  • It’s easy for your videos to be found
  • YouTube business channels don’t need a lot of subscribers or views to get results

Want to learn more about YouTube lead generation?

Click here to watch a video I recorded on how to generate leads for your business using YouTube (as explained in ‘Step 4’ of the video).

2. TikTok

Tik Tok

As a social media platform that has gained significant popularity over the past few years, TikTok is an excellent social media channel to generate leads.

With its short-form video format, TikTok provides a unique opportunity to showcase your products or services creatively and engagingly. And in my experience, it works well both for B2B and B2C lead generation.

TikTok has a phenomenal organic reach, and it’s arguably easier to grow a following on TikTok when compared to other social media channels such as Instagram or Facebook.

However, if you don’t have time to post TikTok content, that’s okay too!

Instead, you can run TikTok ads to get leads and see fast results without needing to create content regularly.

TikTok key benefits:

  • Less competition compared to other social media channels
  • See results faster than other channels
  • TikTok ads cost less compared to other social media channels
  • Works surprisingly well both for B2B and B2C leads
  • Ads on TikTok have less restrictions compared to using Facebook ads

Want to learn more about TikTok lead generation?

Click here to watch a video I recorded on generating leads for your business using TikTok ads (this is explained in ‘Step 4’ of the video).

3. Meta’s Facebook & Instagram

Facebook

Facebook & Instagram are the world’s largest social media channels and have some of the best targeting options when running ads.

TikTok and Facebook ads work similarly, so if you master one, you master the other.

It’s worth mentioning that to get the best results on Facebook, you will need to invest in paid advertising. Organic reach won’t get you as far, unlike TikTok.

Facebook key benefits:

  • Largest social media channel
  • Has a very large older audience demographic
  • Facebook groups can be a good way to get free leads and build a business community
  • Facebook owns Instagram so you can run ads on both channels at the click of a button

Watch this video for a demonstration of how you would use Facebook and Instagram in your strategy. This is explained in ‘Step 4’ of the free training video.

4. LinkedIn

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a social media platform designed for professionals, making it an excellent place for business to business (b2b) lead generation.

With over 875 million members, LinkedIn offers an excellent opportunity to connect with potential clients and strategic partners.

LinkedIn Ads can also target your audience based on job title, industry, and other demographics. However, LinkedIn ads are more expensive compared to Facebook or TikTok ads.

The best way to use LinkedIn to generate leads is by using LinkedIn automation software to automatically connect and message potential clients.

LinkedIn key benefits:

  • Great for targeting B2B leads
  • The only channel where you can effectively target people by job title & experience
  • It’s similar to cold email but better!
  • Only works well if you have the right LinkedIn strategy

Want to learn more about using LinkedIn to generate leads?

Click here to watch a video I recorded on how to generate leads for your business using YouTube (as explained in ‘Step 4’ of the video).

5. X (formerly Twitter)

X is a unique social media channel where you can generate leads by targeting people who are searching for your services.

For example, let’s imagine someone tweets that they are looking for a video spokesperson or they want to hire a video production company.

If your business provides these services, you can reply back to the tweet offering to help.

X key benefits:

  • Good way to generate leads in real-time
  • Requires you to be active on the social media platform for best results
  • Social media channel is not as large as other platforms on this list

If you’re looking for more ways to generate leads using social media ads, check out this article on the best paid advertising platforms.

Why is a social media strategy important for my business? 

Having a social media strategy for your business differs from just having social media for your business. 

I know the word strategy is overused, but it holds great importance when utilizing social media for generating leads. To be successful, you need to have an effective plan in place

Many businesses fail to capitalize on massive growth with their social platforms because they don’t have a strategy; they post content and then leave the rest up to the algorithm, hoping it reaches their target audience.

However, with the right strategy, you can control who your content gets ahead of and what leads you wish to generate.

What are the 7 best social media lead generation strategies?

1. Have a plan

have a plan

Having a specific set of goals will help you focus on what matters and where to focus your energy

Do you want to get more sales leads, build a stronger brand, provide more value, and win more customers, or is it a combination of all these?

Most importantly, who is your ideal customer?

You can begin to dig deeper when you know more about your ideal customer (target audience).

How old is your ideal customer? Where are they located? What industry are they in? Are they business owners? What type of business do they own? How big is their business?

All of these are the types of questions you want to ask yourself. The more you know about your target audience, the easier it will be to form the rest of your social media strategy.

Check out ‘Step 1’ of my free masterclass training for a more detailed guide on how you can do this.

2. Optimize your social media profiles

Make a good first impresssion

As in real life, your first impression matters online too. 

Picture this: You come across a fascinating social media post that piques your interest. It’s so intriguing that you can’t help but click on the profile of its origin. However, what you find on their page is a sight for sore eyes – outdated content, low-quality graphics, and inconsistent posting.

However, optimizing your profiles means more than just making them look pretty. Aim also to include relevant calls-to-actions (CTAs) where you can.

For example, you can add a lead generation form to your profile with Facebook. What is more, you can also link your landing page and sales funnel.

3. Create/share high-quality content

The secret sauce to generating leads on social media is providing value, building trust, and being at the forefront of your prospect’s mind. You achieve this by both creating and sharing high-quality content. 

Creating high-quality and educational social media content establishes yourself as an authority within your niche. It shows your potential leads that you are knowledgeable, passionate, and, most of all, understand their pain points. 

When creating your content, use video where you can. And, if you have a business blog, you can recycle content from there to use on your social media. 

Additionally, sharing high-quality video content is also a great way to stay at the forefront of your prospect’s mind. You can use an AI-powered text-to-video converter that will turn your words into videos in the most effortless way. Thus you can easily create engaging video content for social media ads, promotions, or for your YouTube channel.

Creating unique content for your business also includes taking and editing your own photos. Using a photo editor, you can put your own spin on images and make them more engaging for your audience.

4. Use social media advertising the right way

Socila media advertising

As you may have already discovered, there is a right and wrong way to run lead-generation ads on social media.

Instead of generating leads, you see your ad spend climb with no return. The only engagement you see are likes, likes are nice, but they don’t pay the bills.

Prevent this by running paid ads the right way by targeting potential customers likely to be interested in what you are offering.

When you have a good idea of your target audience, you can target their interests, buying behaviors, location, income level, and more.

For example, suppose you want to target high-net-worth individuals using paid ads. In that case, create targeted ads that pinpoint behaviors such as frequent flying, interests such as luxury items, and wealthy postcodes.

Furthermore, your ads should call out your audience, offer value, and contain a clear CTA.

For more on how to get leads and appointments on-demand using social media ads, click here.

5. Make the most of ad retargeting

Ad retargeting

Once you set up your paid ads the right way, you will generate a lot of interest.

Given that your call-to-action is on point, people will be directed to your website from here. However, you may notice that they disappear after that point.

It is worth noting that, often, people are distracted from taking action or need a little more time to think about making a purchase.

Enter ad retargeting.

With retargeted ads, you can target people interested in your website. You can even target people who tend to read and engage with your content but have yet to subscribe to what you’re offering.

As mentioned in my article on losing leads, it is essential to remember that a potential customer goes through a series of stages in what’s called the buyer’s journey.

There’s an awareness stage, a consideration stage, a decision stage, and a purchasing stage.

Try to design your retargeted ads for each stage of this journey to ensure you stay fresh within your prospect’s minds.

6. Lean into social listening

Feedback

What is social listening you ask?

To sell on social media, you must understand how people interact with your brand.

You can do this by collecting engagement data. Paying attention to this data and using it to guide your social media lead-generation efforts is called social listening.

With numbers and stats, you’re eavesdropping on what your qualified leads do and don’t like about your brand. This is invaluable information. From here, you can determine what is working and what isn’t—ultimately leading to more leads.

To do this effectively, consider an all-in-one marketing platform such as Kartra. This will allow you to track such data in one place, saving you the headache of juggling multiple different platforms simultaneously.

7. Practice social media lead nurturing

Lead nurturing sales funnel

Unless you are listed on the Forbes 100, chances are people are yet to hear of your business, which means they need to build familiarity and trust with your brand before investing their hard-earned money.

Instead of pitching them for a sale immediately, adopt lead nurturing as your best friend.

But what is the next step if I don’t pitch a lead for a sale as soon as they are generated?

Well, why should a lead buy from you? Is it because you are knowledgeable within your niche? Or is it because you offer something your competitors don’t?

Instead of telling them, show them. There are a few ways you can do this.

For example, with educational content, you can show your leads you are knowledgeable.

By first focusing on developing rapport with your new leads, you will see tremendous success in your content marketing – to learn more about nurturing your leads into paying clients, click here to watch my free Masterclass training.

Note: You can use various lead generation AI tools to help you nurture leads into customers automatically.

8. Consider a referral campaign

Referral leads double

Consider a referral campaign if you want to double your sales leads.

Incentivize qualified leads and converted customers to refer you to like-minded individuals on their network.

You can do this by offering an attractive one-time offer for a referral.

For example, if you’re a financial advisor looking to get leads, you could offer a free financial planning book on retirement in exchange for a referral. You can then promote this idea with targeted paid advertising and organic posts.

9. Reflect and revise your strategy

Reflect and revise

Take some time to reflect on your social media lead-generation strategy.

Have tracking and analytics set up so you can review your numbers to understand your return on investment (ROI).

Comb through everything from conversion rates, engagement rates, and lead quality to your campaign’s highest-performing social media platform.

Here you can also look closely at what kind of leads are converting; this will help you better understand how to target leads with your paid ads moving forward.

In Conclusion

By leveraging social media platforms effectively, businesses can build brand awareness, engage with potential customers, and generate quality leads that can become loyal customers.

Although simple in theory, generating leads with social media can be confusing. Using these 9 strategies, you can rest assured that you are heading in the right direction. 

Each platform has unique features and audiences, making it essential to choose the right platforms that align with your business goals and target audience.

Remember to track your results and adjust your strategy to maximize your lead generation efforts.

You can watch my free masterclass here for more lead-generation strategies that expand beyond just social media.

FAQS