There’s no denying that social media has become an effective channel for B2B customer engagement and lead gen—roughly 95% of B2B marketers utilize social media as part of their marketing strategy.¹ A staggering 4.2 billion people around the globe currently utilize social media,² spending an average of 2.5 hours each day scrolling social media sites.³ With an audience this enormous, no business wants to miss out on the visibility and engagement potential that social media provides. Yet the reality is, many don’t have the budget flexibility to deploy a paid social ad strategy.

The good news is that—while it may deliver a little less lead volume and reach than a paid approach— you can still take advantage of an organic (or unpaid) social media marketing strategy to increase brand awareness and drive lead gen. In fact, 55% of B2B buyers say they look for information on social media prior to making a purchase and actually prefer to learn about a product or service through content versus an advertisement.⁴  Leveraging original content—whether a blog, case study, video, webinar, etc.—is a great starting place for driving organic leads. While you don’t need to pay to share content in an organic post, you do at least need an audience. So in order to get a return here make sure you have a decent amount of followers, or invest some time to first build your following.