Digital marketing has helped businesses, large or small, reach a broad audience via various digital channels. These digital channels range from email, mobile applications, search engines, and also social media. Companies have come to rely on it for broadcasting about their products and services and for research purposes. 

Consumers, too, rely on digital sources when researching for newer brands and their reviews. The most popular of the digital channels are social media and has grown to be a platform where the companies heavily advertise themselves. As per the article on the clutch. There are three top digital marketing channels, and social media tops the list with 81% votes. 

This percentage can be justified by the simple fact that over 55% of people spend browsing through social media! It generates a massive amount of data that is best for lead generation. Let’s give you an example to help you understand the reach social media has- 

Chipotle, the Mexican restaurant chain from the United States, started the TikTok #ChipotleLidFlip challenge. It won many hearts and managed to generate 240 million views! The investment was expensive, but it paid off for them as they became successfully relevant to its younger audience/consumer. 

The company reported phenomenal growth of 88% in digital sales and revenue growth of 14.6% in 2019. This was through just their creative and quirky content on TikTok alone! 

What is Lead Generation?

Lead generation is attracting leads or potential customers to a marketing software system or contact management. What does it do? Lead generation will ensure the customer is nurtured throughout the buying procedure to convince them to make a purchase. Now, there must to strategies used to generate leads while also making sure they are of quality. 

Moreover, the generation of leads is the equivalent of building trust with the customer/buyer/audience. 

Why is lead generation important? How can it improve your business? Read below the top 4 reasons for jumping onboard to utilizing lead generation- 

• Reach out to the desired customers: Lead generation will help you target customers who reside in different locations. By this, you will be able to collect information regarding their likings and requirements. This information will allow you and your company to tailor the product/service to its needs/requirements. 
• Creating brand awareness: Brand awareness generally is a measure of your brand’s popularity within its target market. Lead generation will teach the target audience more about your brand through word of mouth. It will help generate sales while nurturing prospective clients before they finally make a purchase. Ensuring the customer stays interested in your product/service. 
• Key Takeaway: The usage of Lead Generation has grown in recent times, mainly with service-oriented business. A total of 60% of marketers call lead generation an essential part of their companies workings, as per an article on market.com. 
• Leads, customers and profits, go hand in hand: It works perfectly for companies/businesses regardless of their size or even the spaces (whether B2C or B2B). Over 55% of the B2B marketers splurge their marketing budgets on the generation of leads. This is because it alone can increase the sales that the company can benefit from, it could also increase the profit margins. 

Now that we have established that Lead Generation is something you must let’s find out how Social media 

Can Social Media Help Generate Leads?

We have successfully explained how the generation of leads can help your business profit in a short span of time. Now let’s understand how social media can effectively help to generate these leads for your respective businesses. 

There are over 3 billion internet users, out of which 2 billion of us spend time browsing social media. Social media usage has increased by 70% over the years, telling us about its popularity even though its trends keep changing. The world interacts and engages with brands/businesses and people through it. 

Hence yes, social media can be effectively used in the generation of leads for businesses. When social media and its tools are strategized, and appropriate parameters are established, a business can receive more engagement, conversions, and retention apart from visitors. 

All activities that the business takes up for acquiring leads fall under Social media lead generation. So, let’s discuss the role social media plays in digital marketing in the generation of leads- 

It can Improve Brand Recognition

This is one of the top priorities for any business, as the more popular your brand will rake in more business. The social media platform is stress-free and profitable, which will increase the visibility of the company. For this, you must set up your social media page (on Facebook, Instagram, etc.) and apply a set of strategies. 

Along with that, you must also spend some quality time on the social media page by posting related images/videos. Regular postings will help you branch by reaching a broader audience much quicker than traditional means. This increases engagement on the pages while also generating new leads. 

Cost-effectiveness

Digital marketing through social media will be a cost-effective method, as all you have to do is sign up for free and create your profile. The making of all social media profiles is free. However, if you plan to do paid advertisements or campaigns, we suggest you spend smaller before going all out. 

In the initial stages of exploring the social media market, cost-effective strategies are essential as they could help attain a considerable return on the investment. This method will help you allocate the bigger budget to marketing or payments for businesses. You will generate the desired amount of leads by spending some time and money on your social media page. 

Improves Brand Loyalty

Your social media presence makes the customers find and connect with you with ease. Customer retention and customer loyalty will see an upsurge as the customer will see a personal connection. The development of a loyal customer base is one of the significant priorities of any business. 

Do not forget that customer loyalty is directly connected to customer satisfaction; go hand in hand. This is why it is essential to develop meaningful bonds with customers. You can run paid campaigns that will attract a new set of customers that don’t directly fall into your target range. 

Improves Customer Satisfaction

Social media acts like a 2-way communication channel that allows you to hear what the audience has to say, thereby perfecting your customer services. How do you do this? By reading the messages and comments, they leave and respond to them as soon as possible. As per research, it is said that customers connect better if you resolve their queries quicker. 

It is connected to generating leads as the happier the customer with the business services, the longer they are bound to stay associated with you. 

Increase of Traffic on the Website

Continuous sharing of your content on social media gives the customers or followers a reason to click and check out your business website. For this, you must, at all times, attach a link in the description of your social media pages. The customers visit the site because they want to know more about your brand and see what else you have to offer.

This will ensure the customers open your business site and increase the organic traffic to it, and the more conversions will take place. 

Increased SEO Rankings

Social media is not directly connected with the rankings in search engines, but can indirectly increase searches’ ranking. As your business website receives social signals, you will connect with brand integrity, loyalty, and validity. This will result in your business website ranking higher in search engines and improving your company’s online presence. 

You must keep in mind that you must maintain the quality of leads as the higher the rate, the more they are to become your loyal customers. The lead quality usually depends on the method you have used to generate them, but how do we measure the lead quality?

You can follow 3 top ways to check on that- 

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• Visitors to leads: It is quite similar to the conversion rate. You will be checking how many lands on your website and how many of them turn into leads. It will provide you with insights such as which marketing activity garnered the traffic to your site. Install Monster insights and track all that the users do on your site. 
• Leads to opportunities: Each lead that is generated by your website, how many stick around to become sales-ready leads? To find that out, this metric will help you contextualize how qualified the original leads are and ensure the quality lead holds up. 
• Time to convert: Lead quality not just about the development of a customer but also about all the time and effort that the ad campaign/sales rep spent in making the conversion of lead happen. 

Most marketers struggle with generating quality lead as their traffic usually has low quality. Following the metrics mentioned above could help you narrow in on the problem, so you can take measures to fix it. Don’t you agree? 

Conclusion

This article has discussed in detail the role of social media in digital marketing in leading leads. It is a cost-effective way that many established companies have adopted in recent times. It would help if you also kept in mind that keeping track of your leads to increase your conversion rates to be successful is equally important. 

Author Bio:

Name: Bhavik Soni

Bio: Bhavik Soni is a Creative Writer at Auto Monkey. We provide an original analysis of the latest happenings in the social media industry. Connect with Latest Social Media Trends and News plus tips on Twitter, Facebook and other social tools on the web.