Love it or hate it, you cannot ignore the social media beast: Facebook. If you have diligently maintained a good brand presence on Facebook, created an engaged community through campaigns and branding, and have created a steady content calendar for your social media publishing with high quality informational content, you can utilize the power of this platform in ways that will set your brand miles apart from your competition.
Going for the ask:
In his book “Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook”, social media personality and bestselling author Gary Vaynerchuk explains how one should reel in audiences on social media. Companies spend months patiently creating a relationship with their audience – the ‘jabbing’ if you may, until the right moment arises and they land the perfect ‘right hook’ with campaigns or offers that they hope will get the cash registers ringing. Except everyone is in on this trick now, and it doesn’t always work the way you expect it to.
But with careful planning, you can “go for the ask” by squeezing in some promotional content between your informational content calendars in innovative ways to generate more Facebook leads than before. This video effectively distills Vaynerchuk’s philosophies in under ten minutes.
10 new ways to generate Facebook leads:
Based on Vaynerchuk’s expertise and our own experience in the industry, we have collated a list of ways in which marketers can generate Facebook leads without being repetitive and boring. Keep in mind these strategies will work only if you’ve already given enough to your audience and are now going for the right hook.
1. Post links to your offer landing pages directly on your page
Sometimes, nothing works as well as a direct marketing strategy. So, if you have an e-book to share or an enticing offer for your audience, it is nice to give them a sneak peek on your Facebook page with links that take them directly to the offer page. Be clear on the communication though, so that you and your customers both get what they want. For instance, IBM did a great job of publishing their corporate responsibility report for 2015 on their Facebook page, with a simple headline that said ‘Explore..’. Click and bait, that’s how it’s done!
2. Repost the blogs that generate the most leads
If some have loved it, then chances are that some more will love it too. Do not hesitate to push old blog posts that got you good traction before, a second or even a third time around. Better for you if the blogs have anchor text CTAs like the HubSpot blogs we see posted on their page. Go a step further and optimise your blogs based on HubSpot’s Inbound guidelines before posting them on Facebook to add fuel to your organic lead generation engine.
3. Upload photos with links to landing pages and blogs
We all know images work as hooks on social media. A great way to leverage this is by using images from your blog posts and landing pages while publishing them on Facebook, which take the reader back to the original blog post or landing page when clicked on. The key here is not to share the blog as a link on your page’s timeline but to share the photo instead, and link to the blog or page within the photo’s description.
Here’s an example showing a link share of a news post through a creative:
4. Upload photo albums with a common theme and link to the consolidated blog
Another engaging way to use content for generatiing Facebook leads is by converting your blogs into a photo album with a link to the original post. If a reader likes a particular image, they can follow the links to the consolidated article and share their details to access the full blog. We did this with our blog-turned-FB-album ’10 commandments of Social Media Marketing’ and the results were tremendous!
5. Upload a photo album based on the landing page and link back to the page
You can do the same with your landing pages as well – turn them into good-looking albums with a clear CTA and linkbacks to the main page. You are sure to get good traction this way by turning informational content into a visual hook.
6. Upload a video that summarizes an offer and add a link to the offer landing page in the video description
Why go with the age old landing page style when you can do something fun by creating a video about it? Need users to sign up, or have an offer to promote – videos are an engaging way of doing the same. Facebook’s algorithm favours videos as well, so take a page from Maine based adventure and sports gear company L.L.Bean who post frequent videos on their page to announce causes or just promote their new range.
7. Create a Facebook Live video describing an offer and direct users to the landing page through the video and the live interactions
Talking of videos, Facebook Live chats are also a great way to promote offers. Create a live session on a topic that interests your audience. From there, direct the viewers to your landing page while creating fun informational content. You will need to add the CTA in your text description, as well as ensure that you repeat it a few times during the video for it to sink in.
8. Run Facebook contests through posts and link them to a related offer or download page
Use your Facebook page as a teaser site for contests and giveaways but ensure that your audience participation is guaranteed only after they fill in the contest forms on the linked offer page. For giveaways, you can roll out free downloads of e-books or videos, but only after the lead gen forms have been filled out. Canva’s #CanvaLove giveaway for their new app is a great example of this strategy.
9. Add a track-able CTA on your Facebook page
Facebook has had a CTA button option for a while now, but most marketers use the same old buttons like ‘Sign Up’ or ‘Contact Us’ even now. You can up the ante by switching your CTA buttons with every campaign and customise it for better promotion. Since it’s one of the first things a viewer sees on your page, any change will be easily visible and may have huge rewards. A great way to track the effect of a CTA change is by using UTM links and adding it to the custom url on your CTA button. You can then use Google Analytics to track the effect of the CTA experimentation.
10. Use Facebook Events to promote an event or even a time-bound offer and link the event tickets to the landing page
Time bound events on social media usually create a great buzz, and you can use this generate Facebook leads effectively. Use the ‘Events’ option to create a time bound offer or giveaway and keep updating throughout the day to create a sense of urgency. Link the event tickets to the main landing page where the lead gen form is, and grant entry only to those users who fill out the form.
BONUS: Analyze posts that generate the most leads and pin them to the top of the page feed
Pinned posts stay at the top of your timeline for seven days and that’s more than enough time to generate Facebook leads. For this, you will need to know and understand your audience personas and keep a record of the kind of posts that work wonders for your brand. And then, use the pinned post feature to keep these posts right where they can grab maximum attention. Brands like Refinery29 and Apptus do this regularly, and so can you.
So tweak you strategy just a little and enjoy all those Facebook leads that come pouring in for free. If you have more ideas, and you did something different that worked well for your brand then mention it in the comment section below or write to us at connect@mapplinks.com and share your story!
