A robust social media following is fantastic — if it’s driving results. But if you have 100,000 social followers who will never buy anything from you, then you’re wasting a lot of time and not making any money.
That’s why you should always be thinking about what you can do to bring more leads into your online social circle, and how you can turn those leads into paying customers. So I’m going to show you five simple steps you can take on your social media profiles to bring in more leads, and get more conversions.
1. Link to a lead magnet
A social media user that checks out your feed once and then disappears is no good to you. Even if they follow one of your social accounts, it’s very possible that the dreaded algorithms will hide your content from a large portion of your followers.
But if you had an email address for that person, you’d be able to reach them anytime you want, building that relationship and encouraging them to work with you in the future.
To get that valuable contact info, link to a freebie in your social bios. This could be an ebook, white paper, webinar — something that would be attractive to one of your future customers. And all they have to do to get it is hand over that email address.
2. Use the right keywords
Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn bios and posts are all searchable. So make sure to pepper in relevant keywords in your industry. To figure out the right keywords, you’ll have to do a little keyword research. Just like with any SEO, you want a keyword with a high search volume and not too much competition.
But what about Instagram? On IG, your username and actual name are the only “searchable” fields. To get around this, consider using the name field as an opportunity to use a relevant keyword, instead of your name or company name. You can always put your name below in the description box.
3. Use Calls to Action
Copywriting 101 — you need a call to action. Your call to action is the step that you want a person to take next. It could be the step that turns a prospect into a lead (“Download our free ebook”) or the step that turns a lead into a customer (“Click here to order”).
A good CTA will usually start with a verb like Click, Learn, Buy, or Download.
On Facebook, you can add a call to action right to your page. Just click “Add Page Button” under your header image, and select the button you’d like to add. Options include Contact Us, Sign Up (great for a mailing list!), and Shop Now. There are plenty more.
LinkedIn also offers pre-set CTA buttons, like Contact Us, Register, and Visit Website.
On Twitter, here are no set Call to Action buttons, but you can add CTAs with links in your bio or in your posts.
And on Instagram, Business or Creator accounts have action buttons that you can add right to your profile, like Email, Book Now, and Buy Tickets. With a link to a site like Eventbrite, you could make a sale right from your IG profile.
Make sure not to “set and forget” your CTA. Experiment with different options to see what gets you the best result.
4. Geolocate your profiles
If your business is brick and mortar or provides a location-specific service, where do you want leads to come from? Should they be from the three states away? Or should they be in your immediate area?
To get discovered by qualified, local leads, you have to focus on local prospects. To start, tag your location in everything you post. Not only do you want your posts to be associated with your location, but posts with a tagged location also tend to perform better on social media. We’re talking 79% higher engagement on Instagram over posts that don’t have a tagged location!
You should also use location hashtags. These could include your city, neighborhood, or even your street name if it’s well-known. Influencers are big on local hashtags, so you could catch the eye of someone that you’d like to work with in the future.
5. Link to your content (the right way)
Image Source: interestingpagestofollowoninstagram.blogspot.com
Linking to your personal or company blog on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn is easy. But linking to third-party sites on Instagram is a bit tricker.
You only get one link on Instagram (unless you have over 10,000 followers), so you want to use it well. Just linking to your website means if someone is looking for a blog post, they’ll have to do a lot of hunting to find it. You could update your one link to go directly to that blog post every time you publish one, but who has time for that?
Instead, you can use your one link to send leads to a landing page. From that landing page, you can post links to your blogs, lead magnets, or sales pages. There are third-party services like Linktree that will let you do this. Or you can set up your own landing page on your website. If you put it on your own site, you can easily track the traffic from Instagram in your site’s analytics, making it easy to figure out what your Instagram leads are the most interested in.
Get Optimized!
There is a lot more traffic going to your social profile than you may realize, making it a great tool to get more leads and customers. Start out with these five, and make sure to experiment. You should always be testing and tweaking, figuring out what works best for you and your business.
Remember, social media is a tool, and if it’s not driving leads or customers, then all those followers are just a vanity number.