If your marketing plan focuses on lead generation, then social media should be utilized as part of your strategy. Social media sites act as a resource to provide information to those who are actively seeking information about your brand’s products and services.

Engage Your Audience

In order for lead generation to be successful with social media sites, you should engage with your audience on a daily basis. To do this remember these four key points:

• Be Polite: Even when people don’t necessarily deserve it, still kill them with kindness. This helps build long-lasting relationships with your audience, and shows that you’re pleasant to deal with.
• Share Information: Provide useful content that your audience simply can’t resist. The more helpful your information, the better your chances become at getting leads. Provide relevant, engaging content they can use, appreciate and most of all, share.
• Answer Questions: Provide your audience with a chance to ask you questions. Frequently check your sites and respond to their questions in a timely fashion.
• Address Issues: Address current issues that consumers are facing. People buy products based on the belief that they will get what they paid for. If that is not the case, address the issues head on and explain what happened as sincerely and apologetically as you can.

Create Quality Content

Having quality content on social media sites allows you to connect with customers on a more personal level. It also makes you an authority on a certain topic, adding to your trustworthiness which is crucial for reeling in new leads:

• Include Links: Place buttons on your website that link to your social sites. When filling out your social profiles, add website links where applicable. Place links within your content to encourage people to explore more of your website content.
• Call-to-Action: Adding a call-to-action encourages people to take another step. After reading your content, they will be interested in finding out more information, and will therefore click on the button or link to buy, share, enroll, etc.
• Keywords: Include keywords in your content. When engaging on social media sites include these keywords when you engage with followers to make it easier for them to remember your brand offerings.
• Promote Offers: Promote offers to encourage prospects to visit your site. Advertise these offers on your social media pages to aid in lead generation.
• Helpful Information: Do not just provide content about a product or your services. Provide interesting content that covers helpful information that consumers can use. This gives you the upper hand in becoming an authoritative voice in your industry.

Utilize these quick tips to maximize your lead generation efforts on social media sites.

• Follow-up: Follow up on leads that you do generate in a timely manner. Don’t hesitate and don’t put it off. Make contacting new leads a priority before anything else.
• Networking Events: Take full advantage of networking events. They provide you the chance to meet others and gain valuable referrals.
• Videos: Develop a video which engages your customers while promoting your business. Link your website back on these videos and share the video link on your social media sites.
• Webinars: Utilize a webinar to share your message with potential customers. Make it a short webinar that introduces your product or services and what needs it provides for consumers. Promote your webinar through your social networks to generate leads. Have prospects fill out a form to collect their contact information.
• Q & A Session: Host a question and answer session after your webinar. This allows potential prospects to better understand your business and how it can help them. Encourage followers to participate by asking questions.

A major part of lead generation includes gathering contact and location information. This helps you pinpoint where your potential prospects are and what they are interested in. Learning these insights allows you to generate content that is relevant to their specific wants or needs.

• Gated Content: This method is common on social media. Users must input specific information in order to gain access to the content they want to see. Promoting content on your social media pages is a great way to gain potential prospects.
• Contests: Make the incentive something that relates to your product or service. Hosting a contest is a great way to gather valuable information and reach targeted prospects.
• Customer Referrals: Offer a special promotion for referring other friends. Make it an upgrade to an existing product or an extended free trial. Discounts are also great ways to gain referrals from customers.
• Live Chats: Offer live chat sessions on your web page. Gather contact information before the live chat can start. This gives you excellent candidates to market your products or services to and shows you are committed to your customers’ satisfaction.

If you are looking for a proven way to gain lead generation, then your focus should be on going where the people are. This day and age, everyone is on social media sites which makes lead generation easier than ever. Not only is there an overwhelming number of users on social networks, but they are also more willing to share information. Since more and more people socialize digitally rather than face-to-face, it only makes sense to target those users for lead generation.