Keep reading to find out more Facebook post ideas for lead generation.
3) Include links to landing pages in your image captions.
Most marketers understand the importance of using visuals like images and videos in your Facebook strategy. For example, Facebook posts with images see 2.3X more engagement than those without images. To turn these higher engagement rates into lead generation opportunities by using Facebook post, consider including links to your website in the descriptions for your images — especially your profile picture and cover photo descriptions.
Whether it’s to a blog post, a piece of lead gen content, or just an “About Us” page, links are opportunities for interested folks to get to know your company better, and the descriptions of your profile picture and cover photo are prime real estate to do it. That way, any time people view your cover photo directly, they can access the download link.
Make sure you shorten your links and add UTM codes so you can track clicks on them. Shortening and tracking features are available in the HubSpot Marketing Platform and in tools like bitly.
Here’s this practice in action on HubSpot’s Facebook Page:
4) Use videos to promote lead gen offers.
Facebook’s organic reach has dropped to 52% so far in 2016, thanks to the tweaks in Facebook’s algorithm to help mitigate the increasing amount of content on its platform. But videos are the big exception here. In fact, posting videos has actually helped neutralize some of that pain for marketers.
Why? To start, Facebook’s algorithm favors video content. As a result, video posts have 135% greater organic reach than photo posts. So if you’re trying to increase your lead gen efforts on Facebook, you’ll want to start using videos to help introduce and promote those lead-generating content, whether they’re offers, events, courses, or something else.
In addition to the text CTA you can add in the video’s description, remember to add a verbal CTA to the video to “register” or “download,” both earlier in the video and at the very end.
Check out how L.L. Bean used a video to encourage sign-ups for their course:
Here’s another example from us here at HubSpot, in which we used a how-to video to introduce a gated offer:
We’ve also created videos specifically to promote lead-generating content, like we did here for our career assessment called The Next Five:
5) Use Facebook Live videos to remind people to register.
Videos can be pretty time-intensive to create. (Not to mention intimidating.) But you don’t necessarily have to pull together the time and resources to create a perfectly scripted and edited marketing video to leverage the power of video on Facebook.
Facebook Live is Facebook’s live video platform that lets anyone broadcast live videos from their mobile device straight to their Facebook News Feed. The best part about these live videos is that they’re meant to be a little scrappier and more spontaneous than normal marketing videos — that’s what makes live videos special.
What’s more, Facebook Live has proven itself pretty incredible for engagement rates. Facebook’s initial data revealed that people comment 10X more on Facebook Live videos than on regular videos.
So get the conversation going about your lead gen offers by creating a live video to promote them. You might promote an event by showing the setup live, for example. Or, you might promote an offer by hosting an open Q&A on live video where you actually interact with Facebook commenters live and on camera.
Just like you’d do with your normal videos, add a verbal CTA to the video in addition to the text CTA. In a live video, though, you’ll want to repeat that CTA even more than you would with a pre-recorded CTA. Why? Because when you first start live streaming, you may have zero people watching. Even a few seconds in, you could only have a handful of viewers.
As people find your video on their News Feeds, they’ll join in — but that means you’ll want to repeat the CTA a few times to catch people up. You can also add a text CTA in the video’s description.
6) Pin posts that link to lead gen offers to the top of your feed.
Pinning a post to the top of your Page’s Timeline allows you to highlight what would otherwise be a typical post. It’ll stay at the top of your Timeline for up to seven days, after which it’ll return to the date it was published on your Page’s Timeline. A pinned post is signified by a small blue-and-white pushpin icon on the top right of the post.
Here’s an example from Apttus’ Facebook Page:
You can pin any type of post, from text to images to videos; even live videos. If you pin a Facebook Live video, that video will simply show up at the top of your profile with the whole recording, indicating that the Page “was live” at a certain point. Here’s an example of what that looks like from Refinery29’s Facebook Page:
7) Add a call-to-action button to your Facebook Page.
Alright, this one isn’t technically a type of Facebook post, but it’s a pretty crucial lead generation tactic that no marketers will want to miss out on. Back in late 2014, Facebook added a feature to its business Pages allowing users to place a simple call-to-action button at the top of their Facebook Pages. This button is simple but powerful, and it can help drive more traffic from your Facebook Page to your website — including landing pages, contact sheets, and other lead generation forms.
You’ll find you have seven pre-made button options to choose from: “Sign Up,” “Shop Now,” “Contact Us,” “Book Now,” “Use App,” Watch Video,” and “Play Game.” Once you choose a button and link it to a page your website, the button you chose will appear up at a fixed location right below your cover photo and to the right.
While some marketers choose a CTA and keep it the same for weeks and months at a time, consider taking your marketing game a step further and switching up that button — and the web page it links to — to match your team’s and business’ goals and the campaigns you’re running at the time. For example, you might align the CTA both with your cover photo design and a pinned post around a single campaign.