How to Build a Social Media Marketing Funnel that Converts?

Social media is no longer just a place to be. It is a battlefield where brands thrive or vanish. And building a strategic social media marketing funnel is the thriving secret for brands that succeed.

With over 5.22 billion social media users globally, your target audience is bigger than ever, but so is your competition. Just posting and hoping will not turn your followers into customers. 

Clearly, what’s the point of posting on social media if it’s not actually going to work for you? Because without a funnel strategy, your social media campaign will just waste time, effort, and resources. 

We are not sugarcoating it for you; building a funnel that converts takes strategy, precision, and a deep understanding of your audience and social media. You are about to get it all right here.

From grabbing attention to making your campaign an unstoppable conversion machine. We have packed everything in this guide.

But, setting some groundwork is essential before diving into the social media funnel. Ask yourself these questions:

• Who will you service?
• What problem are you solving?
• What is the expected outcome?

Have these answers in mind?

Now, let’s dive into the only social funnel you’ll ever need.

1. Awareness

Capturing Attention and Sparking Interest

The first stage of building a social media marketing funnel is setting awareness. This is the stage where potential customers first learn about your brand.

You have to be massively relatable, talk to people on a surface level, and have a broad stroke of who might be interested in your brand. This top-of-the-funnel stage is the foundation of your strategy: no awareness, no conversions.

It’s all about grabbing attention and introducing your business as a solution to a problem. This is vital, especially for the audience who are researching and are not familiar with your product or services.

Why Creating Awareness Is Important:

Conversion is impossible when your potential customer is unaware of your brand and product. Without awareness, your brand remains invisible to customers.

Where 31% of online shoppers are using social media to browse for new items to buy and 4 out of 10 Americans shop because they saw it on social media, you are missing out on a lot without having a brand awareness strategy,

**Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, once said, ‘Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.‘ 

This highlights that brand awareness is responsible for how people perceive your company and reputation. Hence, only a good awareness strategy sets the foundation for building trust and interest.

Actionable Strategies for the Awareness Stage:

Awareness Focused Social Media Platforms:

Identify where your audience hangs out most:

• Visual Brands: Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, and Pinterest
• B2B Brands: LinkedIn and Twitter
• Young Audiences: TikTok and Snapchat
• Communities: BlueSky, Reddit, Broadcast Channels, and Facebook Groups.

Awareness Focused Metrics and KPIs:

• Reach
• Impression
• Followers gained
• Engagement rate

More Sharing = More Awareness:

Optimizing your content for shareability with engaging, fun, and easy-to-share content like short videos, memes, Reels, and infographics.

Trends-Jacking:

Leverage current events, challenges, or viral trends to align your brand with people’s opinions. Take a trend or audio, tap into what people are saying or doing, and mirror that for your business by being relatable.

In 2020, when DreamsChallenge was trending on TikTok, a TikToker went viral by making a skateboarding video while drinking Ocean Spray cranberry juice and lipsyncing to Fleetwood Mac’s Dreamer song.

How did Ocean Spray take advantage of this?

They discovered that the TikToker was skateboarding, drinking their juice because his car broke down. So, in response to the craze, the CEO of Ocean Spray teamed up with Nissan and gifted him a Red Nissan truck filled with cranberry juice.

This campaign creates a perfect example of hitting the hammer when the rod is hot and tapping in every possible direction to create brand awareness.

Run Paid Ads:

Use targeted awareness-focused ad campaigns like Facebook ads, YouTube ads, TikTok ads, and Instagram promotions to reach the right demographics.

Below is a sponsored Facebook post by Project Repat that reaches niche audiences even when they haven’t heard about you and generates brand awareness for you.

Leverage Storytelling: 

Share your brand’s journey or mission through social media storytelling with behind-the-scene content, extended captions, and stories. Highlight real people, whether they are customers or teams. 

Creating a narrative will connect your target audience emotionally, showing them how your products improve their lives.

Influencer Collaboration:

Partner with micro-influencers in your niche for more engagement and higher ROI. Create sponsored content or co-branded giveaways showcasing your products with their unique voice for relatability.

Danial Wellington collaborated with several influencers to promote the last day of their pop-up book store in Sydney. They aimed to create brand awareness and invite more people to the pop-up with collaboration and its high reach.

It Doesn’t have to be Perfect; Just have to be Done:

Posting consistently is crucial to the social media marketing funnel’s awareness stage. Even if your content is not polished, share it. Imperfect but authentic posts often perform better because they feel real.

– SocialPilot Marketing Team.

2. Consideration

Nurturing Interest and Building Trust

This is the stage of the social media marketing funnel when your audience evaluates your product or service and considers it a possible solution to their needs. 

Your potential buyer compares you to alternatives and decides if you are worth their time or money. It’s about answering the “why you” question. 

When you have their attention, you have to give them a reason to take action eventually. Demonstrate your value and differentiate from competitors to build trust and increase the likelihood of conversion. 

Why Consideration Stage Is Important:

According to Edelman’s Trust Barometer, 81% of consumers need to trust a brand to make a purchase. 

This proves that building credibility and rapport during this stage ensures your target audience sees your product as a viable and valuable solution.

Actionable Strategies for the Consideration Stage:

Where Should You Focus?

Identify where your audience is going after knowing about your brand or product:

• Website: Optimize landing pages with clear CTAs and compelling content.
• Social Media: Post customer reviews, stories, and tutorial videos.
• Email: Build nurture sequences to guide users further into the funnel.

Consideration Focused Metrics and KPIs:

• Click-through rate (CTR)
• Time spent on content
• Comments
• Mentions
• Leads generated

Share More Educational Content:

Create content that shares knowledge and educates the interested audience in more detail about your product. Share more:

• FAQs
• Live sessions
• How-to content
• Case studies
• Carousals
• Long caption posts

Sephora often shares skincare tips and make-up tutorials to showcase the best products on Instagram, creating engagement and nurturing trust among potential customers. 

Retargeting Social Media Ads:

Identify the people who interacted with your social media ads during the awareness stage and retarget your future ads for them.

Give them more information about your brand that is relevant to their needs.

Share Proof of Value 

Sharing social proof is the most critical part of building trust among potential customers. To build trust, share:

• Customer testimonials
• Review
• Encourage employee-generate content
• Product demo

Glossier’s UGC-focused Instagram posts showcase real user experience that creates a sense of trust and credibility among the target audience.

Promote Lead Magnets:

To get more leads and sign-ups, offer something valuable like a free guide, discounts, or webinar in exchange.

SocialPilot ran a campaign to promote more leads by offering the audience a free Instagram trends report 2025. It became a perfect lead magnet with a win-win situation for the audience and us.

Tip:During the consideration phase, people want to know more about you, and they often send messages. Add a chatbot to your social media profiles to answer FAQs instantly. A quick response can make all the difference in pushing a user further down the funnel.

3. Conversion

Turning Interest into Action

This is a very critical stage of the social media marketing funnel where interest turns into action. Here is when you must encourage your target audience to take the next step, whether purchasing, signing up for a newsletter, or requesting more information.

This stage requires precise CTAs, optimized landing pages, and the removal of any friction points in the user journey. Social media can be a powerful tool here, using targeted ads, retargeting strategies, and promotional campaigns to nudge leads over the finish line.

Why This Stage is Vital:

Conversion is the ultimate goal; this is where your marketing efforts generate ROI. This is where we are selling and where the hot leads are happening. The conversion stage of the funnel is where your perfect customer has the most time during the customer journey.

WordStream says the average conversion rate for Facebook ads is 9.21%, and B2B, especially, sees an average conversion of 10.63%. 

This is considered very high compared to other search engines.

Optimizing this stage ensures that all previous efforts, awareness, and consideration translate into tangible results.

Actionable Tips to Get Conversion:

Where Should You Focus:

Your focus area depends upon what type of conversion you expect. 

• Conversion-Friendly Landing Pages: If you want them to buy it through your website, prepare a landing page with a short and intense copy with testimonials in a simple form with a strong CTA.
• Social Media Ads: With social media ads, you can promote offers and discounts with exclusive incentives.
• Emails: Send regular reminders (but not too many) for cart abandonment and exclusive offers.

Metric and KIPs to Track for Conversions:

• Conversion rates
• Cost-per-click (CPC)
• Cost per acquisition (CPA)
• Cart abandonment rates

Use Strong and Compelling CTA:

Have clear and concise CTA like  “Buy Now,” “Sign Up Today,” or “Claim Your Free Trial” on posts, stories, landing pages, and ads.

Always link the place of conversion on stories and posts and keep it in the profile bio.

Offer Intensives:

Give incentives to the buyers with free shipping, discounts, bonuses, and offers.

Leverage Urgency and Scarcity:

Use limited-time offers, countdown, or low-stock alerts to nudge decision-making quickly.

Can you spot the CTA in the below Facebook ads? It doesn’t just have one, but seven. 

This Shaw Academy ad leverages many elements to hit customers and make them take action immediately. 

• First, it has a color-splashing graphic with the alarm emoji, creating a sense of urgency and scarcity to take action.
• Second, multiple CTAs are distributed through the post with exclamation marks that stand out.
• Third, it offers intensives in the form of a 4-week free course to the customers.

Tip:Make the social media funnel conversion stage frictionless by optimizing it for mobile. Keep it as short as possible, and always do A/B testing of your CTAs to resonate with your target audience.

4. Loyalty

Building Long-Term Relationship

During this social media marketing funnel stage, you must turn a one-time customer into a repeat buyer by consistently providing value, support, and reasons to stay connected.

Loyal customers are likelier to make repeat purchases, engage with your content, and recommend your brand to others (advocacy). 

Building loyalty requires consistent engagement, providing ongoing value, and creating a sense of community. Social media plays a huge role here by offering exclusive updates, rewards programs, and personalized interactions to keep customers returning.

Why Retaining Loyal Customers Is Important:

An average B2B brand experiences at least a 17% churn rate annually. Loyal customers reduce churn and increase customer lifetime value. 

Patrick, an expert in pricing and retention, discovers that the cost to get a customer through sales and marketing is up 108.9%!

This deeply emphasizes the importance of customer retention, which is way cheaper than acquisition. According to Harvard Business Review, acquiring a new customer is 5-25 times more expensive than retaining an existing one.

Actionable Tips to Retain Customers:

Where Should You Focus:

• Facebook: Build community groups
• Instagram: Start broadcast channel
• YouTube: Share community posts
• BlueSky: Spark conversation with your niche audience
• Reddit: Share more niche-driven content and conversation

Metrics to Track:

• Customer retention rate
• Repeat purchase rate
• Average order value (AOV)
• Customer lifetime value (CLV)

Provide Exceptional Customer Experience:

• Highlight the importance of responsiveness on social media.
• Share tips using DMs and comments, and provide support for issue resolution.

Exclusive Rewards and Content:

• Leverage Instagram broadcast channels and Facebook groups to share tips, usage guides, or resources to help them get the most out of your product/service.
• Build loyalty programs with points, perks, or exclusive benefits.

Sephora Beauty Insider Program, launched in 2024, is the perfect example of offering exclusive rewards to loyal customers to retain them further.

They also capitalized on community-exclusive content by building a Reddit community.

Sephora’s tiered loyalty program provides members with exclusive rewards such as early access to products, special promotions, and invitations to exclusive events, encouraging repeat purchases and deeper brand engagement.

Engage Consistently and Stay Connected:

• Respond to comments, messages, and reviews on social media. 
• Keep in touch via newsletters, social updates, or exclusive product launches for loyal customers. 
• Celebrate milestones with your customers (e.g., birthdays or anniversaries), yours and theirs both. 

Feedback Loops:

Regularly survey customers to ensure their needs are met and identify areas for improvement.

Brands like Amazon use social media to interact with users, address their concerns, and gather feedback to enhance the user experience.

Amazon customer support Twitter handles engages with users to resolve issues, and collects feedback for service improvement.

Tip:Consistency is key. Keep delivering value to customers even after they’ve converted. Social media makes it easy to stay top-of-mind without being intrusive.

5. Advocacy

Turning Loyal Customers into Brand Ambassadors

Advocacy is when satisfied customers promote your brand to others, generating word-of-mouth marketing. 

Customer advocacy is word-mouth-marketing which happens when your customers are loyal and love your brand so much that they actively promote it to others, becoming your best marketers.

Why Encouraging Customer Advocacy is Vital:

Word-of-mouth marketing is one of the most powerful mediums for promoting your products without paying anything.

It’s a known fact that 92% of consumers trust recommendations from friends and family over any other form of advertising.

Brand advocacy reduces marking costs and builds credibility faster than traditional ads.

Actionable Tip to Encourage Customer Advocacy:

Metrics to Track:

• Number of Referrals
• UGC Shares
• Brand Mentions
• Track Branded Hashtags

Leverage User Generated Content:

• Encourage customers to share photos, reviews, and experiences on social media.
• Run contests or campaigns that prompt customers to share their experiences with your product/service.

Apple’s #ShotOniPhone campaign is an excellent example of how you can leverage customer advocacy through UGC. It was a very cost-effective customer advocacy campaign.

Promote Referal Programs:

Create referral programs that reward both the referrer and the referee.

Spotlight Your Advocates:

Feature loyal customers on your social media channels, website, or email campaigns.

Ask for Reviews:

Prompt happy customers to leave reviews on platforms like Google, Yelp, or Trustpilot.

Tip:Give your advocates the tools they need to share their experiences. Whether branded hashtags or easy-to-share referral links, simplify the process for them.

These were the five stages of the marketing funnel social media that converts for every brand, marketer, or social media manager. Every stage of the social media funnel is vital to get you loyal customers.

Build a Funnel, Build a Powerhouse

The brands that dominate today aren’t just posting and praying; they’re guiding their audience through a well-oiled social media marketing funnel that builds trust, drives conversions, and creates loyal advocates.

The best part? You don’t need a million-dollar ad budget, just the five key stages this blog explains. 

But managing a funnel manually? Overwhelming.

That’s where SocialPilot comes in to help you effortlessly maintain your social media funnel. It automates your scheduling, reporting, engagement, and much more.

With the right strategy and tools in place, your social media funnel will scale. It builds a brand people trust.