Social Media is NOT a Lead Generator
That’s right, we said it!
Social media, specifically Instagram, isn’t a lead generating tool for small businesses. If you try to use it as such, you’ll get frustrated and probably give up posting all together. But success can be found on Instagram, as long as you understand how to define what success means when it comes to using socials.
We define social media success by using the following metrics: engagement, reach, and followers (even though, you don’t need as many followers as you might think to be successful). Analyzing these numbers will help you understand what kind of content resonated with your audience, so you’ll have clear direction for future content creation.
Engagement: This means the number of people who like, comment on and share your posts, and like and reply to your comments on other people’s posts. You can find these numbers on your professional dashboard within the app, and can calculate your engagement rate for individual posts by dividing the total number of likes, comments, and saves by your reach, and then multiply by 100, to give you a percentage. The average engagement rates (by follower count) for carousel posts is 3.11%, images is 2.76% .
Reach: The more accounts you reach on Instagram, the better…right? Not always! If you’re reaching a large number of people, but they’re not engaging with your content, that’s an indicator that you may need to rethink your content strategy. It means a lot of people have seen your content but don’t find it valuable enough to engage with it.
Ideally, you want the number of people you’re reaching to be commiserate with your engagement rates. If you’re reaching 2,300 accounts, and your account engagement number is 64, that gives you a 2.7% engagement rate. Most marketers agree that a 1-5% engagement rate is good.
Followers: This is where we have to reiterate the same point we make allllllll the time: you don’t need thousands of followers to be successful on IG! Would you rather have 300 followers that engage with your content (and give you a higher engagement rate) or 3,000 followers that don’t? Those 300 followers will do more for your business marketing efforts than a larger, disengaged audience would. The only reason we consider follower count when we’re determining success, is because it can help you better understand what content performs best for your audience.
Now that you have a better understanding of how to define social media success, let’s talk about why we believe it’s not a lead generator!
Small businesses with limited budgets are often using Instagram organically, meaning they’re not investing money to boost posts or run Meta Ads. This means, as a small business, you’ll have to reframe your mind about what the platform will do for your business instead of getting you new clients.
Instagram does three AWESOME things for your business:
It increases your brand awareness (meaning more people recognize your business)
The more people see your branded content, the more likely they are to remember it. This increases the chance that they’ll engage with your content, organically increasing your reach and engagement rates! When your rates are higher, the IG algorithm rewards you by automatically putting your content in front of more people.
It creates a community of genuine connections, turning followers into brand ambassadors (meaning they share your content and tell others about it)
Brand ambassadors are crucial to your success on IG. These are the people who always comment, always like, and share your content in their Stories. When you make genuine connections with people through engagement, it makes your audience feel like you truly care about them. Then, when you see them in person (maybe at an event you table at), they’ll be excited to see the face behind the account IRL! Your reputation will only benefit from these kinds of relationships.
It sets you up as an expert in your field (and by extension, anyone who works at the business)
Thought leadership can get you a long way towards your journey of success on IG. When you create content that is valuable and expresses your industry knowledge, you increase the chance of your audience engaging with it. They’ll e interested in what you have to say, especially if you’re opening their minds and reaching them on a personal level. Making thoughtful, meaningful comments on other’s posts, and replying to comments on those posts, will also help you reach and impress new people who may not have found your account otherwise.
When you have branded, valuable content, post at least three times a week, plus spend time each day engaging with your audience, these three things will happen for you! (Want to know more about how to engage with your audience? Read this blog!)
Instead of getting you leads, Instagram serves as a strong pillar of your overall marketing strategy. When you’re networking in person and mention your business, anyone who looks it up on IG will be impressed with your consistent content (both on your profile and in your Stories). They will innately have more trust in your business because you are active on social media.
When you do any kind of advertising where people are directed to your IG, again, they will have more trust in your business once seeing your activity. Social media is a way for many people to gauge whether or not they like a business, and when you create an engaging presence, it will get noticed.
So even if you’re not getting direct leads from social media, you will get indirect leads as it supports all your other marketing efforts. So don’t give up on Instagram! And if you still have questions about how social media can improve your business and help it grow, book a call with us!
