The key to generating quality leads through social media is to cohesively integrate your efforts with a valuable content marketing plan. Sounds easy enough right? Well, you’d be surprised by how many businesses are still using social media to do the following:
- Only curate content without a clear CTA
- Push out content for the sake of pushing out content
- Acquire immediate sales (and if sales aren’t made then ‘social media doesn’t work’)
I get it – these all seem reasonable as a starting point, but they can also wear you down especially if you don’t see any return on your investment. Before I dive in deeper, let me start off with some quick tips on the differentiation of what social media success is and is not…
Often the approach to making some quick wins and also letting the public know who you are is to self-promote and include a hard sell. Sure, these tactics may work in some instances, but they’re outmoded when it comes to social media and content marketing. Know that making meaningful connections goes beyond immediate transactions. As such, you have to find a way to tap into the types of conversations your target audience is having and use these conversations to build valuable (as well as free) educational content.
Here are some clear wins to how you can start generating quality leads with content marketing through social media today:
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Webinars: I’m talking free webinars here… These are a great way to funnel in engagement. But don’t stop there – at the end of your webinars, have a special offer (whitepaper download, follow up webinar, one-on-one help, etc.) to keep attendees engaged so they don’t fall out of your conversion process.
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Whitepapers and eBooks: Provide free whitepapers and eBooks around relevant topics in exchange for information like name, email, company name, phone number, etc. HubSpot does an excellent job of continually pushing out valuable content to help their customers and reel in prospects. Plus, you can easily turn these whitepapers and eBooks into additional blog posts, webinars, video tutorials, etc.
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Blogging: Be as consistent as you possibly can. If you have the time and/or resources, then blog anywhere between 1-5 times per day; if you’re low on time and/or resources, then try to push for 1 blog post per week or 2 blog posts per month. The goal is to not disappear for months at a time.
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Video Tutorials: Use popular conversations within your industry to create instructional and educational videos. Leverage LinkedIn groups, Quora, forums and like-minded blogs for ideas. Don’t forget to embed these videos onto your website or blog and have a CTA for a free whitepaper download, enewsletter sign up or webinar sign up!
What are you doing to generate leads with social media and content marketing? Share them in the comments section below.
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