Social media can be just as effective for B2B lead generation as it is for sharing photos of your kids with Grandma. With your buyer personas in place, here are three ways to use social media to turn strangers into visitors into leads into customers into promoters.

1. Attract with gated content

One of the most important tools for using social media for lead generation is to have a solid content strategy that is supported, not driven, by social posts. Develop and gate compelling content on your website—then share links to the content on social media with brief yet attention-grabbing benefit-driven messaging, and support those posts with targeted advertising that matches your target audience personas. Once they click the link to access content, require visitors to complete a short form before downloading so that you can capture information about prospects and add them to your sales funnel. Then nurture those leads with emails and other offers. Gated content can include: eGuides, live or recorded webinars, customer success stories, product demos, and more.

2. Convert with free trials

On average, around 25 percent of SaaS trial users convert to subscribers, but many companies see numbers below that. One of the reasons why free trial customers don’t convert is that they aren’t the right audiences in the first place. With the help of your customer personas, using targeted social media to drive prospects to free trials can help you drastically drive up your conversion rates.

3. Delight with mindful posts

Encourage existing customers to follow you on social media through opportunities on your website, blog, and emailers. Then delight them by posting content that helps them use your product or service, and by allowing them to easily get questions answered through social media. Post product demo videos, trending articles that are relevant to the industries you serve, and links to helpful information like product updates and bug fixes. Share news from customers so that they feel like you are in it together. Keep your events page current with events relevant to your customers, such as webinars that explain how to use specific product features. Poll customers regarding features and functionality. Finally, tap salespeople to respond quickly to customer inquires received through social media.

Companies who meet customers where they are—no matter the forum—are having better success with customer retention, which is cheaper than attracting new customers. In fact, Gartner predicts that by 2020, 90 percent of companies will be using social media for customer service.