How to Use Social Media to Capture and Nurture B2B Leads

6 minute read

Upland Admin

It’s hard to imagine life without social media. Almost everyone you know is on one platform or another. In fact, Statista found that there are about 2.4 billion social media users worldwide, and the number could reach 3 billion by 2021.

Among these billions of users, it’s safe to assume that a significant portion consists of business owners and B2B consumers. This prevalence makes social media an excellent channel for generating leads for B2B organizations. Bizible even found that social media is the second most commonly used channel for acquiring B2B customers.

According to Eloqua, at least 64% of B2B marketers are using social media, and among them, 83% do so to raise brand awareness. But 53% of marketers don’t use social media for demand generation. Why this disconnect? Typically, it’s because marketers dont have a strategy in place or theyre not sure how valuable social media can be to generate demand.

If you have a clear idea of what to do, social media can play an effective role in generating demand and leads for your business. You can even use social media to nurture those leads further in their journey and grow your brand.

Capturing and Nurturing B2B Leads through Social Media

If you want social media to be an effective marketing channel for your business, it’s crucial you develop a strategy. While there’s no single best social media B2B marketing strategy, you can implement the following tips to develop a strategy that works for you.

1. Reach out to Qualified Leads Who Have Visited Your Site

Social media ads are effective for generating leads, but only if you target a highly relevant audience. Enhance your advertising strategy on social media by targeting people who have shown an interest in your company before by visiting your website.

When someone has visited your site, there’s a good chance they’re interested in what you have to sell. But why don’t they come back? Maybe they just haven’t returned because they’ve forgotten about you or they’re dealing with other important tasks. So, recapturing their attention using social media ads is an effective way to turn them into valuable leads.

Tools like Leadfeeder help you see which businesses your viewers work for and which pages they spend the most time viewing. This tool can also send you email notifications when a company that meets your lead qualification criteria visits your site.

 

A screenshot of Leadfeeder's platform to enable your organization to bring in B2B leads with social media.

Using this information, you will be able to execute a social media outreach campaign to target the hottest leads. For example, Leadfeeder can help you identify when a certain visitor lingered much longer on a certain service page. Your sales team can then use this information to reach out to the lead on social media, offering assistance or useful information related to the service.

2. Be an Active Participant in LinkedIn Groups

LinkedIn is popularly known to be the social media channel for B2B marketers and business professionals. That’s why it’s also the perfect place to network with potential leads or engage your existing leads. In fact, a Regalix survey found that LinkedIn continues to be the most effective social media channel for B2B marketing.

Join relevant LinkedIn groups to connect with some of the most on-target prospects. Once you’ve been accepted to the group, use it to share useful information and content that your prospects will value. This is a great way to show them you know what you’re talking about and you can always provide them with valuable information.

To find relevant LinkedIn groups to join, enter a relevant keyword in the search bar. then filter the results by clicking on the “Groups” tab. In the screenshot below, you can see some of the top groups related to startups.

Look up different LinkedIn groups to find sources on social media to bring in B2B leads

3. Share Valuable Content Across All Channels

To nurture your leads, you need to engage them. And in order to engage them, you need to provide them with content that stirs their interest. This could be anything from infographics on the latest industry trends to a detailed guide on how to do something. Whatever the content may be, it needs to have some sort of value for your social media audience.

When you appeal to the interests of your audience, social media becomes a platform to establish value in front of your prospects. Share beneficial content that’s relevant to the industry and use witty, thought-provoking captions your audience will love. The more you engage them, the closer you get to actually converting them.

For example, Raytheon shares a link through which their followers can get useful tips on how to watch the 2017 eclipse safely.

Tweet from Raytheon: "Six facts about watching the sky (safely) during #Eclipse2017"

4. Create the Right Brand Image on Social Media

Your brand’s social media account is an extension of your brand’s identity. How you portray yourself on social media plays a huge role in how people feel about you.

For example, consumer fast food chains like Chipotle and Taco Bell have established themselves as fun and quirky brands by maintaining that persona on Twitter. Similarly, you can establish your company as one that’s helpful, knowledgeable, and friendly through the way you interact with your social media followers.

The goal here is to create an image that will make you more likable among your prospects and leads. And this can be crucial if you want to create and nurture more leads through social media.

An excellent tactic for popularity on social media is to associate your brand name with the faces of real people. Share photos of your employees or founders every once in a while. You can even share a short story about what they bring to your company and why they love your organization.

An excellent example is how Oracle regularly shares the stories of their employees through short videos on Twitter.

Orale tweet: "Principal Applications Engineer & black belt, Leor Checik shares how there's no better place to be a #developer than Oracle. #lifeatOracle"

Think also of building a better brand image by responding to your followers. If there are any questions, make sure you provide a useful and relevant answer. And if there are any issues raised by your social media followers, make sure you acknowledge them publicly and offer to help them further by phone, email, or messaging.

Final Thoughts

These are some of the best tactics that will help you create and nurture your B2B leads using social media. As you can see, some of these tactics will result in direct results but others are more about building an image that will make your prospects want to do business with you.

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get the latest news, tips, and tricks in B2B marketing.

Reliable products. Real results.

Every day, thousands of companies rely on Upland to get their jobs done simply and effectively. See how brands are putting Upland to work.

View Success Stories