Last updated on February 27th, 2025 at 05:13 am
Are you looking for clever ways to get ahead of your competition?
Do you want to know how you can use Snapchat, Periscope and Facebook Live to drive leads into your sales funnel?
This is a complete guide that will reveal all.
It seems there are new social media platforms and features cropping up almost every day.
This isn’t a bad thing, though.
It provides businesses with plenty of opportunities to snatch that new platform or feature and dominate it over their competitors.
There are currently three social media platforms and features which are growing rapidly in popularity.
These three platforms and features are Snapchat, Periscope and Facebook Live.
While Snapchat and Periscope have been around for a while (in the world of social media), they are still new territory for businesses as Facebook and Twitter were when they first came on the scene.
If you want to find a way to get ahead of your competitors, using any of these three platforms and features will help you to do just that.
Using Snapchat to Generate Leads
Let’s begin with Snapchat. It grew in popularity rapidly since its launch in September 2011 and now receives over 400 million messages a day.
The majority of Snapchat users are aged 13 to 25. If this fits within your target audience, then this will be a great opportunity for you to snap up.
How does Snapchat Work
Before I go into how to use Snapchat to generate leads, let me first explain how it works.
You will take a photo, or ‘snap’ as it is more commonly known, set a time from 1 to 10 seconds and send it to whomever you wish to see it.
The recipients will then be notified the new snap and will be able to view it for 1 to 10 seconds, depending on what time you chose, before it disappears forever.
If you’re a regular reader of my blog, then you will know that I regularly talk about creating urgency to convert visitors into leads or leads into paying customers.
Snapchat fits in which this methodology perfectly. Because each snap can only be seen once and only lasts for 1 to 10 seconds, it automatically creates a sense of urgency.
As well as photos, you can take short 10 seconds videos which when sent to your followers, will work in the same as the photos and disappear once viewed.
Share Discounts & Offers
One of the best ways to use Snapchat to generate leads is to offer followers and discounts.
Incentives will also reach a wider audience and attract new followers who are interested in your product and offers that will eventually surrender and become leads.
For example, you could offer to send discount codes to customers who send you snaps of them using your product.
You can then use these images and repurpose into social or blog posts as well create a buzz around your product.
Their friends, family, business associates and colleagues will be able to see your product when they send the snap.
This will, in turn, generate new leads for your sales funnel.
Using Periscope to Generate Leads
Periscope is a baby compared to Snapchat as it has only been around in March 2015.
The story behind this social media platform came about is so simplistic yet brilliant.
Kayvon Beykpour and Joe Bernstein, the founders, were travelling in 2013 and were in Istanbul when a protest broke out.
They wanted to understand what was going on and headed to Twitter to find out.
The problem they found was that they could see tweets about the protest but could not see it with their own eyes.
This was when they decided that the world is missing a live broadcast social media platform.
How does Periscope Work
Periscope is not a website like Facebook and Twitter; it is a mobile app that lets you broadcast live anytime anywhere.
Because Twitter bought this app in 2015, your live broadcasts will be updated on Twitter, so you get the best of both social media platforms.
While the app may be pretty daunting at first, once you get into the full swing of things you will come to love it.
After you finished your live broadcast, the video will remain on Periscope for 24 hours only and then disappear.
This creates the same sense of urgency as Snapchat and encourages followers to interact in real time.
This does not mean that you will lose your broadcast though as you will be able to save the video to your mobile device for you to share elsewhere.
Hold a Live Q&A Sessions
The one thing that Periscope offers for businesses that not many other social media platforms can offer is the ability to hold live Q&A sessions to interact truly on a personal level with your target audience.
This especially works well if your product is quite complex and also helps to solve customers’ problems.
It is best to test how often to hold these live Q&A sessions to see which generates the most leads for your sales funnel.
You can try doing it weekly, bi-weekly, monthly and even quarterly and review the results.
As your following grows, you will get a lot of questions that you won’t be able to answer them all.
If this is the case, have your viewers submit their questions while you do the introduction and choose which the best to answer are.
Using Facebook Live to Generate Leads
What many people don’t know is that Facebook Live was actually first released in August 2010 however Facebook specifically stated that they didn’t intend to get into the video space and that Facebook Live was only made for Facebook and celebrities to use.
I’m not sure how they got lost down the line but as of December 2015, Facebook made it official that Facebook Live could be used by general users.
I guess they were feeling threatened by the likes of Snapchat and Periscope.
How Facebook Live Works
Facebook Live works in very much the same way as Periscope in that it offers live broadcasting.
You can either broadcast through your personal profile or the mentions app.
As a business, it is more recommended to broadcast through the Mentions app, however, find what works best for you. If you do decide to broadcast through your personal profile, then make sure you add the follow button to your profile if you haven’t already.
This is so that those who are interested in your broadcasts will be notified every time you commence a live broadcast.
Offer Live Training Sessions
A great way to generate leads from Facebook Live is to offer regular training sessions about your product.
You can also offer regular training sessions of any common issues your target audience suffers and subtly use your product as the solution without being promotional.
If your product looks daunting at first, then it can put users off from purchasing or can severely delay the purchase.
Offering product training sessions will make viewers feel more comfortable with it and take away their anxiety about the product.
This will, in turn, generate leads into your sales funnel.
You can even offer training sessions for viewers who are already paying customers to make sure they are getting the most out of your product and to reduce the churn rate.
This is again another advantage point for your sales funnel.
Things You Can do to Generate Leads on All Three Platforms
There are some other great ways of generating leads from Snapchat, Periscope, and Facebook Live such as:
1. Product Demos
The best way for your followers to become familiar with your product is to show them exactly how it works.
With Snapchat, you could show quick tips on how to use your product that will pique the interest of your viewers.
With Periscope and Facebook Live, you can hold live product demonstrations, so it gives your viewers a chance to answer any questions.
Being transparent with your product is what will help to generate leads from these three social media platforms and features.
2. Sneak Peeks of New Products/Features
This one is perfect for Snapchat because of how short the videos are and the fact that viewers can only see it once.
If you have a new product or cool feature that you want to boast about, send a snap video to your followers.
Because they only have up to 10 seconds to see it and only see it once, they will be more tempted to head to your website to find out more.
3. Offer Exclusive Access
This will work great with Periscope and Facebook Live.
Before you start your live broadcast, notify your viewers that if they fill in a small form, then you will grant them exclusive access to your product so they can be more on-hand when learning.
This will make your viewers feel like you’re rewarding them and will also help to generate leads for your sales funnel.
4. Repurpose the Best Videos
Just like with your blog content and social posts, if any particular broadcasts or snaps receive higher levels of leads then you can repurpose them to benefit further from them.
You can do this by creating a blog post around the same topic and embed the video in the blog.
You can then use native advertising to gain further reach on this.
Conclusion
Hopefully, now you have a much greater understanding of the advantages of jumping on these three platforms before your competitors, how they work and how to use them to generate lead into your sales funnel.
Have you tried using Snapchat, Periscope or Facebook Live for your business?
If so, share your experiences or ask me any questions by leaving your comments below.