How To Generate Organic Leads Using Social Media

In this article we take a look at how to generate organic leads using social media.

Social Media Lead Generation : What Is It?

Generally speaking, a lead is someone who expresses an interest in your business products or service. That person has exchanged information with you, for example, their name, contact number or email address because they want to know more from you.

Thus they move from being a member of the public, to a lead, because you now have information that you can use to identify them.

Once you have that contact, you can nurture the lead with compelling and enticing offers or useful information about your business, until they are ready to buy from you instead of your competitors.

Therefore social media lead generation refers to any new leads which you collect through using the different social media platforms.

What Are Organic Leads?

Organic leads are people who find out about your company almost by accident. For example, they could be searching for a specific product, such as a type of car and when they pop it into a search engine, your business shows up as a place to buy quality cars from.

Or they may need an answer to a question. Such as, ‘how do I fix a cracked mobile phone screen?’ Then the search engine lists various companies who can fix phone screens and your business is among them.

When it comes to solving a problem, a search engine usually has the answer. If a person chooses your business over the others, it’s because you have something they are interested in. But the next step is to convert them into qualified leads, and ultimately, paying customers.

In general, organic leads don’t know about your product or service before they do an online search.

Here’s another example.

Perhaps someone is looking for a person to fix their boiler. There are many boiler companies and gas engineers out there. Hence, if your boiler business is high up in the search engine pages and looks interesting to that person, they will click on it and find you. That’s even if they have never heard of you before.

Organic leads are different to paid leads. Part of your lead generation strategy may include targeted advertising such as pay per click ads. But organic leads are generally free. However it takes time and effort to create compelling reasons for organic leads to choose your business instead of others.

What Are The Benefits of Organic Leads?

Clearly, the most obvious benefit of organic leads is the cost advantage. Basically, it’s free!

With pay per click ads, your business is guaranteed to get in front of potential customers. But the amount of cash you spend on click-throughs can soon add up.

Whereas organic leads find you as part of a general unpaid search.

Another benefit to attracting organic leads is that it enhances your online presence and reputation.

For example, a person finds your business through an internet search engine. They like what they see and read and are compelled enough to go further. They may exchange their details for an enticing offer or discount. Or they may want to follow your blog because it’s interesting and entertaining.

Perhaps they are interested in your ‘how to’ videos on your website. Whatever the way in, they are now an organic lead, because you have provided them with valuable content and they have chosen to see more.

Then, they might share it with a friend. Or make a comment or review on your social media sites. Hence in turn, creating new organic leads for your business and raising your online credibility.

Furthermore, if you do it well, organic search traffic can push your competitors away. By improving your organic reach, your business will appear higher in search engine rankings. Therefore, you will be at the forefront of people’s minds instead of your competition.

• Keyword Research

Keywords are basically the main words that people use during an internet search in relation to your business. For example, imagine your business hires out vintage cars for weddings.

Then your keywords will include vintage, car and wedding. However, this is very generic, there are lots of car hire companies of course.

So, how do you narrow it down further so your business appears higher in the search engine rankings when people are searching for something specific.

You could include your location. So when people search for wedding car hire in Norfolk or Norwich, your business appears.

Keyword research is about understanding the words and terms your customers are using while searching online. The goal is that your ideal customers find you easily.

Once you have a list of your keywords, you then need to make sure these appear throughout your social media platforms. Hence, if someone is searching on Facebook for wedding car hire near me, or they ask for a recommendation for wedding car hire in Norfolk, then your business might appear. That’s because you use those keywords across your Facebook business page.

When you start to incorporate relevant keywords across your content, your business will be easier to find by the exact customers you are trying to attract.

• Relevant Content

Providing relevant and useful content on social media is a key factor in generating organic leads. The more interesting, engaging and informative you can make your content, the more places you can share it!

Sharing your posts, blogs, images, articles and videos across social media will increase your chances of engaging with your audience. It will also increase your chances of attracting new organic leads to your business.

Ultimately, you want a potential customer to choose you over anyone else. Even if your business appears high in the search engine rankings, it’s still among several others.

So why will someone who has never heard of your business before, choose you?

Let’s stick with the wedding hire car scenario. Perhaps you have lots of photos you can share of happy couples using your service. Perhaps they gave you some excellent reviews. This could make a good Instagram campaign which attracts potential customers who are searching online about weddings.

However, it’s important to keep your content consistent and of a high quality. Don’t just put any old photo on or a random blog that you’ve only just thought about. Everything you put online reflects on your business.

If the cars you hire out are expensive, vintage and high quality, and you provide an excellent customer service, you need to reflect this in your brand and all your online content. Don’t forget, if this is the first time a prospective lead has seen your business, you want it make it something to remember.

The more consistent you are with your content, the more you are building your brand. Hence you will attract organic leads over time as your reputation builds.

• Understanding Your Persona

In order to attract new organic social media leads, you should have in mind your ideal customer, this is your buyer’s persona. In other words, who exactly is your content for?

Creating quality consistent content which interests your target audience will have a natural impact on your organic traffic.

For example, someone who is interested in buying a piano will probably be part of a number of musical communities online. Or they may be searching for recommendations or reviews. If you own a business selling a range of pianos from beginner to expert, this person is your ideal customer.

To build up a version of your ideal customer, or buyer persona, you need to ask the following questions:

• What are the characteristics of your ideal customer? For example, where do they live.
• Where do they shop online or what are they interested in? What kind of search are they doing online?
• What problems are they trying to resolve with the search? Such as looking for a beginner piano, or searching for a tuning expert, or sheet music.
• What solutions are they interested in? Should I buy the model AE670 or AE6710 piano for example. Could you offer video comparisons?
• What are their favourite information sources. Online news? Facebook or Twitter?

Once you know exactly WHO you want to target, you can create content more easily. Also, your content will resonate with your ideal customer because it’s exactly what they are looking for.

• Adding Videos To Your Social Media

Generally speaking, search engines care more about quality content over keywords. The algorithms like video. Hence if you can create videos that are educational and informative, you will have a higher chance of answering questions from potential customers. Thus creating more organic interest in your business.

So if you’re taking some photos of your business or creating your content strategy, think about how you can extend this to using video instead.

Back to the piano example.

A potential customer is searching for more information between choosing two pianos. You could take comparison pictures side by side and publish them on your social media sites.

Or, you could take the time to create a video, running through the different settings and giving your expert opinion on the pros and cons of each one. Meanwhile the competitors in your industry haven’t done this.

Hence, by providing useful and relevant content, you stand a better chance of attracting that potential customer.

Of course, the pricing and customer service may make a difference from here. But you have attracted their attention in the first place by providing engaging content.

• Optimise Your Social Media Posts

Now you have your keywords, you can use them throughout your social media content. This is an example of how to optimise your social media posts.

Hence someone who is searching for your exact keywords might come across one of your Instagram or Facebook business posts as well as your website. The more opportunities there are to find your business, the better.

This is also a great opportunity to use hashtags.

A hashtag is a label used on social media sites to make it easier to find information or specific content. Using one or two hashtags in a tweet can increase the engagement by as much as 21%. For example, you could use #norfolkpianos or #grandpiano.

By including hashtags in your posts, you are taking part in a conversation happening on that social media platform. The hashtags make your posts visible in that conversation.

So if someone is searching using one of your hashtags, then you are in that online community. This can lead to greater engagement with your business. It also helps to create new organic leads because the searcher is not looking for you necessarily, but now they know about you thanks to the hashtag.

• Share Testimonials

Another good tip is to share the kind words people have said about you. This needs to be carefully thought out as you don’t want to put people off by continually blowing your own trumpet!

However, some well chosen reviews and testimonials along with images will help to grow and build your brand and reputation. In a similar way to the traditional method of using word of mouth.

Maybe you get a good review from someone important, a brand ambassador or an influencer. Then they will share their positive experience of your business with their friends and followers on social media. Thus you are reaching out to a whole new world of leads.

But wait a minute. Creating lots of engaging and consistent content as well as responding quickly to people seems like a lot of effort. It doesn’t even mean they will convert to loyal customers anyway.

Is using social media to generate organic leads worthwhile? The answer is definitely yes.

How To Generate Organic Leads Using Social Media

• Facebook

Facebook allows you to connect with more customers than any other platform. There are over 45 million Facebook users in the UK alone. Globally, over 98% of Facebook’s active user accounts access it via a mobile phone.

Facebook is an open platform and many different people will visit your page. Hence, before you start a Facebook business page, it’s worth coming back to the buyer persona.

With so many people on Facebook, you will only make your page stand out if you are providing relevant and engaging content to attract your target audience.

Your Facebook page should provide glimpses of your services and what your business offers. This helps your visitors to have a clear idea of why they should choose you.

Another top tip is to make your page more interactive. It should be really easy for visitors to your page to ask you questions.

This could be via the messenger inbox or in the comments sections. You must try to answer all queries in a timely manner. This will build a rapport with visitors and a level of trust in your business.

Don’t forget to always include a link or button to take your Facebook visitors to your business website directly from the platform. This could be through a Facebook advert or blog.

After all, even if they are not ready to buy from you yet, they can see more of the products you offer and more of your excellent content. It also helps to boost your website traffic.

• Instagram

Instagram is a useful social media platform for organic lead generation. This is because it creates high quality social media leads. Basically, Instagram users have to carry out three or four steps to become leads. Therefore, they are actively interested in what you have to offer.

Instead of giving up after the first step, they carry on to view your blog or download the article or watch the video. Hence they have a genuine interest in your product.

As an image sharing platform, Instagram users may find you firstly because they like your photo. Then, they read the caption. If this is engaging, they may click on the link in the bio, which finally leads them to the destination, such as your website, shop, blog or video.

As that person has made the effort so far, they are more likely to exchange their details in return for a webinar, offer or download and they become high quality organic leads.

• LinkedIn

Originally, LinkedIn was a job platform allowing job seekers to post their CVs and employers to post jobs. However, as well as this, it can be an excellent platform for professional networking.

Essentially, you can put your content in front of ideal clients for free. So if you are an expert in your industry, you can write articles about your business and then publish them on LinkedIn. Other people in your network might comment or share with professionals in their networks.

Hence your business is reaching people organically across the LinkedIn platform. Your content may also appear in news feeds and notifications, which then alerts more people and raises awareness of your business.

Furthermore, you can publish an article and not have to navigate away from the site. LinkedIn users can read your content right there, instead of clicking away to another website or platform.

• Twitter

Twitter is another useful tool to increase organic social media leads. A top Twitter tip is to maintain an active presence. Twitter is suited to fast pace interaction. Which means that the conversation is active and ongoing.

You can’t just post a tweet and then disappear for a while. If you are using Twitter as part of your lead generation strategy, then you must commit to an active presence on it.

Furthermore, it’s a great way to engage potential customers. Perhaps they have found you through a retweet or a comment or relevant hashtag.

Now you have their interest, you can engage with them in an online conversation. You can also join trends and topics that are relevant to your business, collecting good Twitter habits and ideas along the way.

With this in mind, don’t forget there is also Snapchat, Tik Tok, YouTube and Pinterest. However, you don’t have to use every social media platform for your business.

Which Is The Best Social Media Platform For Generating Organic Leads?

This is the big question!

Go back to your buyer’s persona. What platform is your ideal customer most likely to use? It also helps to gather any data analysis from your website traffic. How do people currently find your website through social media? If most of your traffic comes from Facebook, then you know you need to invest time in make that even better.

Meanwhile, if you are trying to reach a particular demographic or group who are not yet engaging with your business, then find out what social media platforms they are using. Then, you need to create content that will attract them to your business via that platform.

Choosing an Expert Lead Generation Service for Support

In conclusion, the area of social media might be a minefield to you. Indeed, the technology changes rapidly, and one wrong move could be detrimental to your reputation.

But the benefits of using social media for business far outweigh any reasons for not using it. Ultimately, if you want to grow your business, it’s essential that you use social media.

Creating useful and engaging content can take time and effort. You should be able to share it across different social media platforms in the style each one requires. For example, you can fit a lengthy article post on LinkedIn, but you can’t squeeze the same amount of words in a tweet.

You could publish the most beautiful image of your product on Instagram, but unless you follow it up with a call to action, it won’t bring customers to your business.

Therefore, it’s worth investing in an expert lead generation service to create a strategy for you which you can then run with.

Lead Genera is a company which provides many services, including web development, marketing consultancy and lead generation.

You can contact them today at leadgenera.com and start receiving new leads 48 hours later.