Social Selling to Build Leads

Social selling has been defined by LinkedIn as “leveraging your social network to find the right prospects, build trusted relationships, and ultimately, achieve your sales goals”. With the onslaught of company participation in social media activities the bar has been risen to never-before-seen heights when it comes to selling your products online. In 2017 LinkedIn and Facebook have introduced Lead Generation Tools as part of their advertising platforms. This article will discuss what this means for Irish SMEs.

Facebook Lead Generation Tools

Facebook Lead Generation tool is where you can show an ad to a particular audience e.g. engaged women living in Kilkenny could be targeted by hotels in the area as a way of presenting that hotel as a potential host for her wedding. Facebook can display beautiful images of the hotel and text about the hotel too. The best part about Lead Generation ads is that the advertiser can specify the details that would be most important to them e.g. the person’s name, where they live, their phone number, their email address etc. What’s fantastic about this is that the person reading the ad does not need to type in this detail, it autofills from Facebook and all the reader needs to do is click submit and then you have their details.

Pros

• Facebook offers the best targeting capabilities of any platform.
• It can be done at scheduled dates or times of day. Times that will suit your potential buyers most.
• It works across all devices e.g. tablet, mobile or desktop.
• You can pick the exact profile of person you want to target. There is large scope to filter.

Cons

• Can be expensive if done poorly.

LinkedIn Lead Generation Tools    

LinkedIn Lead Generation Tools was also created by LinkedIn in 2017. It offers a great chance for companies involved in B2B selling to present their products in a beautiful way to a relevant and targeted audience. Like Facebook LinkedIn allows companies to present their products in a way that shows their strengths, what it can do for its users but most importantly it allows you to filter down to exactly the types of companies, industries, roles and experience you are trying to target.

Pros

• The best lead building tool for companies selling in a B2B context.
• Exceptional targeting capabilities.

Cons

• Can be expensive if used incorrectly.
• Ireland has a small population and it can be difficult to target specific segments because of its size. LinkedIn needs there to be a certain number of people to be in a category before they are targeted. For example. Last week I was unable to target HR Managers in the south-east counties as there was not enough of them. Instead I needed to do conduct All-Ireland campaign targeting HR Managers where a population of 2,000 people displayed.

If you like to know more about building leads through social when call us today on 051 834118.