Marketing a business on social media is an essential strategy in today's digital world. Otherwise, you won’t be able to drive any sales with no ads. And because ads do cost money, I want to focus on a solely free strategy. Posting on social media with a strong content strategy. To effectively utilize social media for business growth, it's crucial to focus on three core pillars: Lead Generation, Nurture, and Conversion. We’ll take a look at each one of them and take a deeper look at how to implement them in your social media marketing strategy.

Lead Generation

Lead Gen is the first step in attracting potential customers on your social channels. It involves using social media to create awareness and interest in your products or services. Here are some tactics to consider:

Content Marketing: Share valuable, engaging content that resonates with your target audience. This could include blog posts, infographics, videos, and more. This is my favorite one! It helps you, but also your audience, and builds authority, which is important to establish your brand in the community. Of all free marketing strategies, this is the best and most effective one. If you are just starting, I recommend you go with this.

Engagement Strategies: Actively engage with users through comments, direct messages, and community management to build new relationships. The strategy I practiced most in the beginning to reach my first 1K followers, was to make bigger accounts repost my posts on Twitter/X. This helped me to go from 100 to 1K, and from 1K to 10K soon.

Lead Nurturing

Once you've generated leads, it's crucial to nurture them. Lead Nurture involves building relationships with potential customers and keeping them engaged until they're ready to make a purchase.

Did you know, that according to several online studies, a potential customer needs 7–8 touchpoints with your content before he converts? That’s a lot, right? Now imagine the same but with ads. Could be very expensive over time, right? This is why we are going the free route of content marketing.

Now, how can you keep them engaged? Very simple: With Value. We want to give our audience as much free value as possible. This can come in all shapes:

Personalized Communication: Use social media tools to send personalized messages and content that address the specific interests and needs of your customers. Treat your customers as your friends. Help them go to the next level. Build trust.

Regular Updates and Follow-Ups: Keep your business top-of-mind with regular updates about new products, services, or content. I like to give status updates on Twitter regularly. I show what I am working on and build in public. Like this, everybody in my audience knows what I am working on.

Educational Content: Provide information that helps leads understand your products or services better, establishing your brand as a trusted authority. As in Lead Generation, we want to give free value. In Lead Nurturing, we just go deeper and strengthen the connection to our potential customers.

Community Building: Create a community around your brand by encouraging discussions and interactions among your followers. Become a place where your customers can meet, help out to each other, and become better together. Building a community is optional, and also won’t make sense in any business. Also, if you are building an audience on Twitter, for example, you are building a community there at the same time.

Lead Conversion

The final pillar is turning leads into paying customers, also known as Lead Conversion. This step requires a strategic approach to encourage the final purchase decision. In the meantime, your lead should have had 7–8 touchpoints with your content and your brand. Here are a few tactics on how you can turn your lead into a conversion with ease:

Exclusive Offers and Promotions: Use social media to offer exclusive deals or promotions that encourage leads to make a purchase. This can be a no-brainer for potential customers and after their first purchase, they might be happy with the quality and buy more.

Customer Testimonials and Case Studies: Share success stories and testimonials from satisfied customers to build trust and credibility on your social channels and landing page. Trust is the foundation for every purchase. Always keep in mind, that your customers are giving you their hard-earned money. Respect that and hand them over a product that exceeds their expectations.

Clear Call-to-Actions (CTAs): Ensure that your social media posts and landing page have clear CTAs that guide leads toward making a purchase. This is crucial for every sales process. If you mess this up, you won’t sell anything.

Seamless Purchasing Process: Make the buying process as easy as possible with clear links to your online store or detailed instructions on how to purchase. Also, the checkout process needs to be fast and streamlined. No obstacles here!

Wrap up

Effective social media marketing hinges on a robust strategy that needs Lead Generation, Lead Nurture, and Lead Conversion. By implementing these three pillars, your business can not only attract but also retain and convert its social media audience into loyal customers. Remember, consistency and engagement are key to maintaining a dynamic and effective social media presence. If you are not staying consistent and keep engaging with your audience, you are not able to grow.