Social Media Lead Generation: Try These 3 Organic Tactics

Do you want to boost social media lead generation while reducing ad spend? You’ve come to the right place! Our customers have used creative organic tactics to get leads into Facebook Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp and convert those leads into customers. We’ll show you how you can do it too.

When most people think of social media lead generation, the first thing that comes to mind is ads. While paid ads are essential for growing your business quickly, budgets are limited. In these tough economic times, 75% of marketing leaders report needing to do more with less.

One way to make the best use of your budget is by using new methods to draw leads into a chat organically. When you’re using chat for sales, getting prospects to start a conversation is how opportunities begin. That’s a key part of our conversation-led growth framework, which begins with capturing leads.

Many customers prefer to communicate on WhatsApp, but they typically discover a business through search or social media. One of the most effective methods for social media lead generation is through click-to-chat ads.

However, you can capture leads through social media with organic methods as well. Building excitement with live events or interactive posts and stories along with clearly directing customers how to contact you boosts engagement.

Here are three ways that our customers use organic marketing for social media lead generation to start conversations and maximize conversions.

Social Media Lead Generation: Make It Easy for Prospects to Reach You Through Chat Buttons

The most basic step for social media lead generation is to make it easy for prospects to reach you. Of course people can send you a private message when they visit your social pages, but often visitors need additional prompting.

Add WhatsApp Chat Buttons

With Facebook, you can add a chat button to any post and choose whether it goes to Messenger or to WhatsApp. Both Facebook and Instagram allow you to add a contact button to your profile so followers can message you via WhatsApp if that’s their preferred channel.

screenshot showing how to add a WhatsApp button to Facebook for social media lead generation — Add a WhatsApp button to your Facebook page so it’s easy for leads to contact the business

We recommend using an omnichannel inbox so no matter which channel prospects choose to contact you on, you’ll get all their messages in one place. Customers may use several different channels to contact you throughout their journey.

For example, a prospect may ask a question via Facebook Messenger when they first visit your page. Then later, they might see a post and click on the WhatsApp button. The more ways there are for customers to reach you, the more convenient it is for them to have a conversation.

You’ll want to make sure you can identify these prospects if they come in on a different channel to give them a consistent experience. A conversation management platform like respond.io enables you to keep all your contacts and messages in a single inbox so you don’t need to constantly monitor your social channels.

Social Media Lead Generation: Engage with Facebook Live Shopping

Another method for social media lead generation is through live events on social media. Facebook Live Shopping offers a unique opportunity to engage with viewers in real-time while showcasing your products. This feature allows you to conduct live product demonstrations and answer questions live, creating a dynamic shopping experience.

By providing exclusive deals during these sessions, you can convert live viewers into leads. The interactive nature of live shopping encourages participation and increases the likelihood of viewers sharing the event with friends, broadening your reach organically.

Example: Jewelry Business Reaches Thousands with Live Shopping

One of our customers, a jewelry business, has seen success with this method. They regularly host live shopping sessions and capture contacts through comments and Facebook Messenger. This generates some sales on the spot and gets prospects into their list for retargeting.

The business builds excitement for the event as viewers know they can only see it for a limited time. Their Live Shopping events get over two thousand views and considerable engagement from comments and messages.

photo of a necklace displayed on Facebook Live Shopping for social media lead generation — Use Facebook Live Shopping to showcase products and generate leads

Customer Success Manager Joshua Loo recommends asking viewers to send a comment or private message using a code. The code is a discount code that also serves to identify how leads are coming in.

The jewelry business has seen positive results with this social media lead generation method. Using respond.io, they set up a chat automation Workflow to direct prospects using the code to a specific sales agent.

Social Media Lead Generation: Instagram Story Reply

Another innovative way our customers do social media lead generation is through Instagram story replies. Instagram stories are often more visible than posts, and it’s easy for prospects to directly send you a message through them. When viewers send a message or even a reaction other than a ❤️, it will go to your inbox so you can continue the conversation.

Example: Health and Beauty Business Leverages Influencers and Contests on Instagram

One business in the health and beauty industry leverages influencers in their Instagram stories to get leads into conversations. Influencers attract more attention and boost demand for the product.

They also use other creative methods to engage their followers including asking questions and hosting contests and giveaways. For example, they invited followers to participate in a lucky draw contest and announced the winners one by one in their stories.

The chance to win something builds excitement and looking forward to the announcement of the winners keeps followers watching the stories daily.

Example: Award-Winning Instagram Story Reply Campaign

Here’s another example of a widely successful story reply campaign for social media lead generation. This award-winning initiative was used by Guinness to reach younger audiences on Instagram.

social media lead generation example: phone screens with emojis and photos of the recipes the emojis were used to create — The Emoji-Nation campaign invited Instagram users to send a message with food emojis to get unique recipes. | Source: Kancil Awards

Viewers were asked to reply to the story with emoji to create a unique recipe using Guinness. This generated thousands of replies, and the suggestions were turned into real recipes. Emoji replies are a fun way to get people to interact with different categories of products as well.

Use Respond.io to Manage Your Social Media Lead Generation

When you’re generating leads from social media into WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram, it’s difficult to manage them if you have to constantly switch between channels. A conversation management platform like respond.io brings all your conversations into a unified inbox so you’ll never miss a lead.

Automate your chats to respond instantly when leads come in whether through chat buttons and links, Facebook Live or Instagram story replies. Segment leads for further targeting and send broadcasts to follow up. With a conversation management platform, you can also integrate with a CRM to manage your leads through the customer lifecycle.

See for yourself how respond.io can help manage your social lead generation and convert leads into sales. Try it free today or contact us for a customized demo.