Social Media Lead Generation – 5 Mistakes that Even the Pros Make

Using social media just to stay present and in your customers’ minds is all fine and dandy, but if you want real ROI, you’re probably looking to generate leads from social media. The good news is, it’s really not that difficult. The bad news is, there are many mistakes you can make while generating leads for your business using social media platforms.

Some of these are pretty small, such as not checking your copy for grammar errors, while some are pretty major, such as missing your targeting and blowing your marketing budget on useless clicks.

Here are the most common mistakes you can make when trying to generate leads through social media.

Not using social proof

Did you know that your potential customers are more likely to trust a complete stranger online than your own marketing efforts? Many businesses today invest heavily in outbound and inbound marketing methods, which often miss the mark. Thanks to so much noise and the constant slew of ads we’re being served every day, we’ve become immune to advertising.

On the other hand, we do trust authentic reviews and input from actual people. One of the most effective ways to convince new customers about the quality of your products and services is to simply use the experience of your existing customers and leverage the power of social proof.

There are several ways to do this, but I would definitely start with reviews on Facebook. If you’re not already using this feature, I strongly suggest starting as soon as possible. Moreover, you can encourage your customers to leave a review on Facebook after purchasing an item. While you’re at it, you can ask them to leave a nice comment on Twitter and Instagram as well, tagging you in the process. Note: this won’t work for all businesses, but if you have a decent digital footprint and especially if the client has a good number of followers, it’s definitely worth the effort.

While these platforms don’t have the review feature as Facebook does, it doesn’t mean that they can’t be used for social proof. Screenshot all positive reviews and use them on your website on your homepage and landing pages as social proof – it’s as simple as it gets.

You can do it the other way around as well – showing social proof from your website on your social media profiles for maximum impact. There are several ways to get feedback from your customers – reviews, testimonials, ratings and more. 

You can use the social proof you collected and share it as part of your social media strategy through Facebook posts, Instagram stories and more. Since video works particularly well for Facebook, you can ask your most satisfied customers to record a video testimonial for maximum effect. Video will work really well for small businesses on a tight marketing budget since all you have to do is post a link to your customers’ videos on your relevant pages.

Depending on your industry, you may also want to look into other review websites, such as TripAdvisor, Yelp, Glassdoor, G2Crowd, Capterra, and others. No matter the platform, if you have exceptionally good reviews, it’s prime material to be shared in your social media lead generation campaigns. For example, if you’re launching and marketing a new feature for your SaaS product, it’s beneficial to put up a couple of G2Crowd and Capterra reviews as you present the idea to your audience.

Putting your social media on autopilot 

Some people like to treat social media management tools just like calendars. They schedule a few weeks worth of posts and then recycle them again and again. This way, it might look like you’re active on social media 24/7 but does that make any difference in your lead generation efforts?

I mean, you can schedule ahead to your heart’s content but you’re doing yourself a disservice if you’re only focusing on quantity over quality. If your only aim is to fill up a social media calendar, all is well. It will probably look like you’ve done a good job – your social media calendar is filled up and your followers will have something to look at every day.

Instead of posting a cycle of the same old posts and hoping it does something, try posting less but make it valuable for your audience. That’s where a social media management tool like Kontentino comes in handy. In Kontentino, even big teams can collaborate smoothly. You can really focus on creating high-quality content, making sure it’s up to the brand’s standards and then scheduling it, so you don’t need to keep thinking about it.

Posting fewer but well-thought-out posts will eventually help you with attracting customers more than posting the same posts over and over again with no value added.

Not communicating the problem and the solution properly

You may have heard about the famous Pareto principle. It applies in many things in life, including social media – it states that around 80% of your content should be helpful, while 20% should focus on promoting your products and services. In general, it’s a good rule to follow, but the percentage will vary based on your industry, your needs, and your marketing goals.

The problem is, in that 80% (or whatever your preferred amount is), companies tend to get lost and stray far away from their own business. For example, a company selling sodas that posts social media updates about a recent music festival. What do the customers get from that kind of update? Where is the value for them?

The ideal post would link the fact that you can refresh yourself with that soda on that music festival. Whichever the post is, try to tie a direct solution to it without being overly promotional. Otherwise, you’re missing out on prime space to promote your brand and generate leads through social media.

Not understanding the metrics

A good social media manager will say that they want to generate leads through social media platforms. A great social media manager will state that they want to generate 100 qualified leads per month through paid social media ads with a certain return on ad spend. The difference between the two is that a great social media manager understands the metrics and methods necessary to get the results they want to achieve.

Some of the metrics you want to consider when measuring your efforts include:

• Likes, shares, replies, retweets
• Reach
• Click-throughs
• On-page conversions

If you’re not sure which metrics to track, there are plenty of resources online that you can use. One of those resources will be posted on the Kontentino blog in the upcoming weeks, so keep your eyes peeled.

Your main metrics revolve around conversions and clickthroughs, which allow you to directly track your ROI on social media, whether you’re running ads or going the organic way. Tracking likes, shares and impressions is excellent if your aim is to increase visibility. However, if you want to generate leads, focus on hard metrics such as click-throughs and on-site conversions.

Not integrating social media into your overall lead generation efforts

There are lots of marketing channels nowadays, and it’s possible to tie each of them to social media for maximum impact. For example, if you have a really good, active mailing list that comes from your website, it’s an absolute must to use it for social media as well.

Simply upload the list to Facebook, create a lookalike audience and you will be able to target the people most similar to those who are greatly interested in what you have to offer.

Besides running ads to those audiences, you can also use your website to get people to join your Facebook group. These communities have proven as a valuable resource for companies looking to generate leads and raise awareness without forking out tons of cash for paid ads. You can use groups to talk about your product, help out your users, start and manage discussions and much more. You can drive people to the group from your email campaigns, landing pages, pop-ups and any other method you can come up with.

Moreover, Facebook chatbots have become an increasingly popular way to get ahold of customers on your Facebook posts and ads. Services such as Manychat let you take full advantage of Facebook Messenger for marketing. You can nurture and grow your mailing lists, get new subscribers from Facebook, take orders, answer simple questions and much more. The best part is that Manychat and similar services integrate into your marketing app suite, with apps such as MailChimp, Hubspot, Shopify, and other giants.

Conclusion

Generating leads through social media can feel like a ton of work and at times, you may want to scrap it and just focus on your website and other marketing channels. However, if you avoid some of these mistakes, you’ll see that you can generate leads from social media quickly, easily and without spending a fortune on results you cannot measure.