Ryanair, Duolingo, and Wendy’s have one thing in common. Yep, you guessed it right.
These brands might not be the best in the market, but they surely know how to use the power of social media marketing.
Globally, marketing has shifted to digital platforms. More than that, the overall consumer journey has evolved.
Now, most consumers do not rely on search engines. Instead, they rely on social media ads to discover different products. Moreover, before making a purchase, clients now like to research about the brands online.
Statista claims that as of Feb 2025, 63% of the global population is using social media. This means that when your brand fails to make a mark on social media, you end up missing nearly 5.24 billion potential clients.
Now that affordable internet brands like Xfinity Internet have become more affordable for all, customers like to search for businesses and their products before they make a purchase. However, keep in mind that social media marketing is not as simple as most people would like to believe. In fact, the number of likes, comments, and shares has nothing to do with the number of units you sell.
So, if you own a business and want to explore social media marketing as a potential way to drive leads, keep reading. Within this write-up, we will focus on important details about social media marketing, the difference between likes and leads, and ways to convert likes into leads.
What Is Social Media Marketing?
We have all used social media. In fact, I have an Instagram reel playing on my phone right now. When businesses use social media to create awareness about their brand or product, it is called Social Media Marketing (SMM).
In most cases, the success of a post or content is measured in terms of attention. A higher number of likes or comments simply means your content is getting more attention, and so, it is more likely to perform better. However, in terms of branding, attention does not always mean conversion, profit, and sales.
But before we get into the details, here are some of the major benefits related to social media marketing.
Why Do Businesses Need to Work On Social Media Marketing Strategy?
Trust me when I say that running a business in this digital age is nearly impossible, without the help of social media. It is so important that today, online businesses are on the rise. In fact, we see more online businesses compared to physical businesses, and it is expected that most of the brands will shift to online completely.
If you are also a business owner, here are some of the main reasons the online presence of your brand will help you succeed.
Exposure
According to a 2025 Social Media Marketing Industry Report, you can boost business exposure by at least 83% through social media marketing. This means that startups and small businesses that are still in the initial phase can easily reach their potential audience.
Traffic
Online traffic is one of the most important parameters of success for most businesses. Through social media, businesses can boost their overall traffic to more than 73%. This means that when customers land directly on the website, there is a higher chance of a sale.
Leads
Leads are the ultimate goal for most businesses. And with the help of social media, businesses can easily increase their lead generation to up to 65%.
Brand Loyalty
To stand the test of time, businesses invest heavily in customer loyalty. This eventually helps in making sure their clients keep coming and eventually become brand advocates.
Sales Boost
Social media marketing is an excellent way to boost business sales. In fact, most businesses today rely on online ads to generate revenue and boost sales. A study claims a 52% boost in the sales of businesses practicing social media marketing.
How Likes and Leads Are Different?
Social media today is used to gain attention. This is the reason why it is known to be a part of the attention economy.
However, using social media for business is quite different from personal use.
For regular people, the success of any post or content is measured through engagement. This engagement can be likes, comments, shares, or post reactions. In most cases, high quality or fun posts get more engagement. Adding details, transition, trending music, good camera angle can have a huge impact.
On the contrary, likes, comments, and shares become secondary for businesses. This kind of engagement shows that the client is interested or curious about the business, but only the number of generated leads shows that the customer will make a purchase. Moreover, traffic is also a very good indicator of the possible success of a business campaign.
If you are still confused about the difference, let us look at this through an example.
For social media influencers, getting likes and comments means they are getting praised. Since there is no product involved, the overall reach and engagement are the only metrics that can help them understand if their viewers like their content.
To attract attention, these influencers use different tactics, like dancing to trending music, completing different challenges, offering opinions on trending topics, and more. Since the content is more informal, the only goal here is to entertain and get attention.
When it comes to businesses, the main goal is sales or leads. Businesses want to spread more awareness about their services and products, but their ultimate aim is to make more profit. To calculate the leads in this situation, they have to rely on different metrics like the overall online traffic, number of clicks, number of clients filling out the form, and much more.
In this case, marketing campaigns are quite formal and mainly focus on introducing the services and products offered by the business. Moreover, the content is written for the masses, so the message is clear and simple without using fancy words, vocabulary, a lot of transition words, etc.
Elements of a Good Social Media Marketing Strategy
Here are some of the elements that make up a good strategy for Social Media Marketing.
Powerful Content Creation
Content creation sits at the core of marketing, be it digital or otherwise.
Good content is simple and informative, yet it helps in grabbing the attention. For a brand to run a good or successful campaign, powerful content is very important, because it can gain high engagement, go viral, and will be able to get organic results as well.
Establishing a Solid Relationship
Building a relationship between business and client is very important.
So, before you design a campaign or run an ad, it is more important to explore the needs, requirements, and interests of the audience. Learning details like the location, online buying experience, potential buying behaviors, age, and other preferences are all included in this step.
Mix of Organic and Paid
There is no doubt that running paid ads is much better and will bring you more and faster results. In most cases, these results are highly dependent on the dedicated budget.
However, when the content is good and designed while taking the interest of the client into consideration, it is likely to go viral organically. So, ideally, the brand should aim for a campaign that can bring results both organically and through paid media campaigns.
Review and Social Proofs
Social proofs put a verification stamp on the brand. For a potential customer, brand preparation matters a lot.
They want to know if your business will be able to deliver what it promises. In this regard, user-generated content like reviews, testimonials, and pictures matter a lot. Using this, brands can win confidence from the customer.
Tracking Progress and Results
Finally, a good campaign must be trackable. Within social media marketing, every platform has a dashboard that offers detailed analytics.
These analytics eventually help the user to understand the amount of money spent, overall ROI as well as the reach, engagement, or number of generated leads.
Simply put, both likes and leads are equally important in a social media marketing campaign. However, when it comes to business, the ultimate goal is not just approval or a vote of confidence through social media engagement. Instead, businesses should aim to reach the right clients through these platforms.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why are likes important on social media?
Likes are considered as the vote of approval. When someone likes content, it means that it has piqued their interest, and it eventually sends a social signal to the site for a boost.
What is a lead in Social Media Marketing (SMM)?
Leads are mainly considered as the targeted audience or potential customers who show interest in the business i.e. their product or service. Leads can easily be identified via social media interactions, especially by filling up lead forms.
Are likes or leads more important for business Social Media Marketing (SMM)?
Within the social media business context, leads are much more significant than likes. Leads mainly help the business filter out potential clients related to the business.
