We know how difficult it can be to generate leads. We also know how daunting social media can be. However, social media, especially right now, can be an extremely useful tool in digital marketing. The problem is understanding how to use social media to your advantage for lead generation. These six steps will provide a basic guide for using social media to generate leads and grow your practice.
Know Your Audience
First, know your audience. If you are a financial professional selling annuities, you know your audience will be in the 50+ age range and planning for their retirement. What do those individuals want? This question can seem simple, but it is actually quite complex. Not every person who is 50+ and planning to retire is looking to purchase an annuity. That’s where you, the financial professional, come in. Take time to really think about what you have to offer this target audience. How can you sell them on you and your products?
Create Unique Content
Second, content is king in social media, and everyone is trying to be the king of content. How can you set yourself apart from your competition? Unique content!
Financial services are everywhere, but you and your practice are different than others. The goal here is creating unique content that not only represents your practice, but who you are as a person and business owner. Users are weary of trusting brands, and they need to know you are just like them – so show them you are!
Most importantly, any content you create needs to have a call to action, such as “Click the link below” or “Subscribe to our blog!” When the user is directed to your website, you need to offer an incentive in exchange for their information — for example, a financial tips brochure download accessed when they provide their email address. From that point on, they’re a part of your email list and a lead!
Content Formats
- Images: These will grab the user’s attention more than text. The types of images can range from a headshot of a new employee, an informational graphic, or maybe even a selfie of you and the team in a meeting.
- Videos: A video will hold the user’s attention for much longer, so be sure this is educational or relatable content. It’s always a good idea to make the video view worth their time, since you’ve used your time to create it.
- Polls: This a great way to drive engagement from your audience and also provides insight into their needs or wants.
- Go Live: Recently, the ability to go live on various platforms has become popular. This is the ultimate way to engage in real-time with your audience and allow them to see you as a person, rather than just your brand.
Social Media Marketing Strategy
Now that you have an idea of the content and format you want to create, you’ll need to develop a content strategy. A content strategy is a weekly or monthly plan for your social media posts across all your social platforms. It will include the day, time, social platform, and content. This will save time if you plan for these posts in advance. However, you need to stay as current as possible, so changes may occur.
Schedule Your Content
If you like to save time, you’ll love the innovative tools for scheduling your social media posts. Since social media has become a powerhouse for many businesses, programs that schedule your posts have been developed. Now that you have developed your content strategy, you can research the best scheduling tool for you.
Some of the top social media scheduling tools offer the capability to not just schedule your posts, but to collaborate with teammates on social media campaigns, generate post reports to see how your campaigns are doing, and even create content for you. Another benefit some tools include is recommended post times. These recommended post times monitor and adjust to social media traffic and suggests optimal times to deliver your content.
Engage with Your Audience
Once you’ve scheduled your posts and they’ve been posted, you need to maintain engagement with your audience. Respond to messages and comments, hitting “like” on comments, and sharing posts that you’ve been tagged in. By engaging with your audience, you can show an authenticity and real person behind your brand.
Listen, Report, and Refine
The advantage of digital marketing is you can see what’s working and what’s not by viewing performance reports about your social media. Platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn allow you to view some of your analytics, but you can only view them separately. If you use a social media scheduling tool, you should have the capability to view a cross-platform report. This will include whether you’ve gained new followers, user engagement, post clicks, and much more. Try to view this data on a weekly or monthly basis so you can see trends occurring with your social media and what you should do next.
There’s one more step you can take to help generate leads — subscribe to Impact’s YouTube channel, which is full of great advice and tips to take your practice to the next level!
