Who isn’t using Facebook to generate leads nowadays? Brands are wising up by taking their lead generation efforts to where they engage with their market the most—on social media sites. Join the crowd of successful marketers by applying Open Access BPO’s lead generating tips for social networks.

A Hubspot study revealed that 52% of all marketers have used Facebook to source leads in 2013. This proves that the biggest social network is still an effective tool for brand promotion and market engagement despite losing a bit of its appeal to emerging competitors in the social web.

The study also establishes that most businesses are indeed turning to online tools not just to provide customer service but also to widen their consumer base. Another thing that could be inferred, however, is that not all social media marketers are successful in generating leads on Facebook or social media as a whole.

What happened to the 48% that were unable to source successful leads? Did their campaign fail, or did they refuse to include social media in their lead generating activities? Either way, those marketers could use the following tips to successfully source leads on social media:

1. Go visual

If your brand is engaged in social media marketing, then you should deliver your messages visually. This is what Hubspot suggested after their experiment showed that photo posts generate a 128% higher click-through rate and get 53% more Facebook Likes than videos and links.

2. Put links in captions

Of course, uploading attention-grabbing photos alone would be useless if the post doesn t come with a link back to your website. This can be extra effective now that Facebook has removed its clause that prohibits brands from including calls-to-actions in cover photo captions.

3. Tag pages

Tagging another Facebook Page gives you an opportunity to widen your reach. And new brand Pages can benefit from their company Page if it already has a solid following. It works this way: the new Page with fewer followers or Likers can tag a more popular Page, and that post becomes visible to the followers of the bigger Page, allowing the new one to introduce itself to the popular Page’s fans.

4. Conduct Q&As

Question and answer sessions are becoming a popular way for brands to massively engage with their audience. To make the most out of this, include links to an article or study published on your website when trying to explain a complex answer to your fans. This gives the askers relevant resource and gives you a chance to convert visitors into customers.

5. Build forms

Use customizable parts of social networks to your advantage by building forms there. This way, you could collect contact information from interested customers without disrupting their social networking experience, which is a downside of redirecting them to an outside form.

There are many other ways to remove yourself from the 48% of marketers who have yet to harness the full potential of social media as a lead generating tool. Have you tried any of the tips listed above? Do you have methods of your own? Don t hesitate to share which among your strategies did and didn t work to shed light on successful online marketing among fellow marketers.