It’s not true that social media does a poor job of generating sales leads for the B2B market. In fact, social media is where you’ll find 76% of leads that you can nurture as you move them through the sales funnel.

It’s just a matter of coming up with a well-planned social media strategy that you can integrate with other tested lead gen methods such as content marketing and search engine marketing (SEM).

Here are some ideas to help you increase your B2B leads using social media:

1. Choose the right channel.

Different marketing strategies cater to different audiences, so it’s important to know which platform caters to your target audience.

For the B2B space, LinkedIn is your top source of sales leads since this platform gathers together industry experts and business leaders. However, Facebook and Twitter also have tools such as Facebook ads and Twitter cards that can help you with your lead gen efforts.

Other tactics that you can use to generate leads on three of social media’s major players include:

Contests – This strategy is very popular on Facebook, and it’s in sync with your goal of collecting as many leads as possible. You’ll also be glad to note that there are third-party tools that help you set up contests on Facebook and integrate them with your email marketing services.

Brand mentions – One way to gain leads is to keep track of what Twitter users are saying about your brand or competitors using social media monitoring tools.

SlideShare – SlideShare lets you create and share content through slideshows, which can generate traffic from your potential customers.

2. Share gated content.

If you have valuable content up your sleeves, bringing it to social media can be an effective way to generate new leads. Gate the content so that you’ll only be providing snippets or previews of the text, and readers would only be able to access the entire content by sharing their personal information with you.

When sharing gated content, remember the following:

Make sure your content is interesting to your followers or relevant to your industry. This will make your target audience eager enough to view your content but not before they share their contact details with you.

Keep your landing page, the page on your website where a visitor lands after clicking the link to your content and which contains your opt-in form, simple. Use short forms instead of long forms that require your visitors to give more information than what is necessary.

3. Host live streams.

Live streams are the perfect venue to engage your audience in real time and in a more up-close and personal manner. These live video events enable you to address questions from your audience or gather market feedback from people who actually use your products or services.

Some of those in your audience might leave comments as well, giving you another opportunity to generate more leads as you follow up with them after the video contact.

4. Use geotargeted social search.

Although marketers are mostly using geolocation tracking to present ads, you could also use geo-targeting to unlock leads, especially for your local business.

The key is to leverage local search among your geo-targeted leads and lead them to any of your marketing channels by giving them access to your content, landing pages, or special promotions.

Social media has come a long way—from being a place on the internet where people can make friends to becoming a platform for image branding, and now as a tool to help businesses find sales leads.

Make sure your B2B lead generation strategy includes social media to help you fill the sales funnel for your team.