Do You Know How to Use Social Media to Generate Leads?

Social media is a powerful force in the business world today. In fact, it has changed everything!  In order to stay competitive, you should make sure that social media plays a role in your marketing strategy. I have found in the last few years that social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram (to name a few) can be a great way to generate leads, especially in the network marketing industry. The internet allows you to share your message with millions and millions of people all around the world. If you are wondering how to use social media to generate leads, you came to the right place! Let’s start with Facebook…

Using Facebook to Generate Leads

Facebook is the most widely used social media platform. (I went into Facebook kicking and screaming and now I love it.) Worldwide, there are over 1.39 billion monthly active Facebook users. Here are some tips on how to use Facebook to speak with those users. I would start by making a business page for your company. You can use your personal Facebook to market your MLM business, but at a certain point it will work against you because of the 5,000 friend limit. Setting up a business page will also allow you to run ads, which I will discuss later in this post. First things first, make sure your Facebook page looks professional and includes all the information your leads will need to reach you. Here is a sample from my Facebook business page. You should be regularly posting to both your personal and business pages. I would suggest posting at least (minimum) one to two times a day. One key way to use social media to generate leads is by giving a natural, soft sell. People are used to seeing many abrasive ads on Facebook. Follow the 80/20 rule: 20 percent business posts, 80 percent personal/value/content.  People love pictures of you and your family and seeing the fun you are having.  Providing value and inspiration in your posts is key!  Keep people informed and entertained so when you do post a pitch for your business, they pay attention. This rule can be applied to Twitter and Instagram as well. Don’t oversell, it’s a turnoff! Also, focus on posting things that show people why they should be interested in teaming up with you. I love posting pictures of my travels around the world so potential leads can see what they can look forward to by signing up! People will start coming to you and asking you what you do and how they can do it to. That’s when you use your building rapport and closing techniques. Boosting your Facebook posts is a great way to use social media to generate leads. I would suggest posting your product/service or even something like your favorite travel picture and boosting it for $5 to your friends and their friends. Big tip:  If you get traction on a particular post that you boosted, keep boosting it every day to keep it going.  I just met a gal that has over 36,000 likes on her Facebook page just because of that one tip.  You can also target the audience to include the countries you want to build in.  Using a message like “I am heading to Italy, love that my business allows me to travel the world!” or “Heading to Hawaii, who’s coming with me!” will generate interest. People will want to know more! You can also post about your product and boost that post. For example, “I absolutely love this product and the fact that it makes me look 10 years younger in one minute!”. Pair that with a video or image of results, boost it and you will see leads rolling in. Commit to reaching out to 5 to 10 people per day on Facebook.  If you will do that for 30 days,  you will be amazed at the conversations you are having with leads and customers!  You can do anything for 30 days.  Make sure you make your messages personal.  Call them by name and comment on something you noticed on their page.  Connect with the people that are liking your posts.  They are already interested – they are there on your page.  Make sure you are responding to any comments on your page.

How to Use Social Media to Generate Leads on Twitter, Instagram and more!

Now that we have Facebook moving in the right track, here are some other ways you can promote your business and generate leads. I would start by making sure you are on Twitter, Instagram, Youtube and Google +. Maybe that sounds overwhelming.  Pick one of these plus Facebook and get these two going and you can add another one later.  Facebook is still the giant in social media for sure but Facebook is getting more particular/difficult about marketing so it is great to branch out.  You can use an online tool like Hootsuite to schedule your social media posts at once on multiple accounts to make things easier for you. Stick to the 80/20 rule for your posts and just stay consistent. You will start to spark interest and get leads naturally. If you want to speed things up, you can also run paid ads on Twitter and Youtube. Once you have amazing content that shows people the value of your business and product, it’s time to focus on bringing more people to your pages so they can see it. By reaching out to people in a very conversational way, you can easily get them interested and then present to them when the time is right.  If you show a genuine interest in people and ask them questions, they will share with you what they like in their life and what they don’t like.  It is so true that people don’t care what you know, until they know you care.  This is true online and offline.  If you are the spammer on your Facebook, people will click off and go away.  Our audiences are much more sophisticated now. One of the best ways to bring traffic to your social media platforms, is to focus and narrow down your audience. I have found one very successful method for this that works with Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram. Think of your audience. What keywords would they tag their posts with? What type of keywords would they use to look articles or images? We can use these keywords to reach out to customers. For example if you promote a weight loss product, then you could search on #weightloss or #weightlosstips on Instagram and start following accounts of people who use that hashtag. Once you follow an account, go to that person’s photos and comment on one. Your comment should not be a sales pitch! Say something like..”I love this picture!” or “You are a talented photographer!”. You will start to see a big increase in follows and likes if you use this method! Target a few keywords each day and set a goal of how many people you reach out to. You can also do this on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. LinkedIn has great advanced search options that can help you target your customers. One tip is to look for people who are already customers and learn about what they like. This will help you reach out to new customers. Use the advanced search options to dial in exactly what your target customer looks like and reach out to people who look like they may be interested in what you have to offer. I would also suggest posting to your LinkedIn profile a few times a week – make sure to follow the 80/20 rule. LinkedIn gives you an option to run an ad for you post. You can use that feature if you want to increase the reach of your message. If you can spend 30 minutes a day developing your presence on social media, it will start to take off for you quickly.  Consistency is the key – just like with all things!]]>