Do you believe that social media won’t benefit your B2B company? While it’s true many B2C companies may come to mind when you think of a large social media presence, B2B companies can reap valuable benefits from social media as well. Learn more about the benefits of implementing a social media marketing plan for your B2B company below.
According to research conducted by IDC, 75% of B2B buyers browse social media before making a purchase decision. Professional networking sites like LinkedIn are the preferred sources for finding information in the final stages of the decision. Not being present on social media would mean missing out on valuable networking opportunities with these potential buyers.
According to research conducted by IDC, 75% of B2B buyers browse social media before making a purchase decision. Share on XThe sales cycle of B2B businesses is usually more complex. The target consumers are usually professionals who are experts in their own domain. To lead such a group of audience to your website and achieve conversion you must demonstrate your authority within the industry.
Social media offers a platform where you can showcase your business without disrupting the experiences of your target audience. By consistently sharing relevant industry-related content, press releases, product launches, and your achievements, you will not only increase your visibility in front of your target group of customers but position your company as a frontrunner in your industry as well.
In a survey by Stelzner, 91% of marketers reported that social media has helped them increase exposure to their B2B business. 70% found that social media increased their web traffic.
You have a great product and your website hosts some very interesting content. Do you just want to sit around and wait for people to visit your website or search online to find out about you? No, you don’t! You want to let people know how great your product and how useful the content on your website is. And, a great way to do that is through social media.
Now that you are aware of the benefits of social media marketing for your B2B business, here are five strategies to create a space for yourself on social media and stand out as a brand.
First and foremost, set clear expectations from your social medial marketing strategy. Do you want to increase the traffic to your website? Do you want to reach potential customers and generate leads? Or, do you want to create brand awareness? All of these can be achieved through social media strategy but the measure of your success would depend on your goals.
For instance, if brand awareness is your main agenda, the metrics you should look at are engagement on your posts and number of followers, whereas if you are looking to acquire leads the determining metrics are the number of clicks on your posts CTA and the traffic from social media directed to your website.
Understand that social media is primarily a place for socializing. Being dull and boring is a sure shot way to fail on social media. Only posting content and promoting your business will not attract followers to your page.
As a B2B company, it is imperative that you stick to using a professional tone but don’t forget the human touch. Your posts should have a distinct voice that users can recognize just like your logo.
One of the best examples of distinguished brand voice and personality is Wendy’s on social media. Their humorous and snarky remarks, posts, and comments sure make them stand out. Wendy’s social media personality is so popular that they have followers from places where they don’t even have a physical presence.
Not everyone can be like Wendy’s but here are tips to help you create your own brand personality and voice on social media:
The trick is to not appear robotic and artificial with your posts. Social media should be a place to engage with your audience and the best way to do so is be as human as possible and just be your own self.
Include employee advocacy in your social media strategy to increase reach as well as create employer branding for yourself.
A simple strategy of posting pictures of employees once in a while would help to increase your engagement manifolds because it gives the opportunity to your employees to champion the brand. Furthermore, it will also give a face to your business and humanize it.
There are other more tangible perks too. Just imagine, instead of posting the picture of a new product, you share a post about the team behind creating the product and applaud them publicly. Every person in the team will be proud to share such a post on their network, thus exponentially increasing the reach of your brand through just one single post. If you still need convincing, consider this study that shows an employee’s post receives eight times more engagement than an employer’s post. People are more likely to trust a brand more when they hear about it from their friends or acquaintances.
There you have it, the reason you should definitely include employee advocacy in your social media strategies.
According to Statista, most marketers find LinkedIn to be the most effective social media platform for B2B businesses. But that doesn’t mean you should limit yourself to promoting your brand on just this one platform.
LinkedIn can be a great place to reach potential customers and generate leads. But if you restrict yourself to using social media for just these two reasons, you are making a mistake. Social media has great potential as a platform to create brand awareness and multiple other platforms serve this purpose better than LinkedIn.
Some great examples of how B2B companies can leverage on social media platforms other than LinkedIn to increase engagement and brand awareness are, Oracle and Intel on Instagram, Salesforce, Cisco and GE on Facebook, and Adobe and Deloitte on Twitter. Go check out their pages on these social platforms and see how they are killing it.
It takes strategy to create a social media following and a brand image. It is not just about posting every day it is more about sharing relevant and interesting content consistently. In fact, maintaining consistency in the timing as well as in your posts is the key to succeeding on social media.
Here are pointers to understand why consistency is essential and how to achieve it:
The statistics have already proven how effective social media is as a marketing tool for B2B businesses. It is time you utilize its potential to take your business ahead. If your business isn’t on social media already, it is time to get started. Hopefully, the strategies we share here will help you to create a plan that is consistent with your brand values. OneIMS is here to guide you should you need further assistance with your social media marketing strategies. Contact us today!