If you’re a B2B marketing director or social media manager, your week may be split between the following modes:
- Grinding out uninspired but necessary content that you aren’t proud of and don’t imagine will lead to any significant engagement.
- Being told by the “technical” guys that the company’s social media presence is “all fluff” and needs “more substance.”
- Politely receiving suggestions on “how to do it right,” based on something truly frivolous from Snapchat that an executive’s niece showed him over the weekend.
- Getting truly inspired and trying to innovate your company’s social media presence.
- Being told after three days of your new strategy that “This isn’t working; let’s just go back to the old stuff.”
There’s a lot of nuance to social media that's often lost on people who don’t spend their days elbow-deep in it, and for somebody who works hard to achieve a certain mastery of the form – keeping up on best practices, algorithm updates, new platforms and features, etc. – it can be very disheartening to keep having your expertise and your instincts second-guessed.
But perhaps the problem isn’t what you’re doing, but how you’re selling it. In this post, we’ll look at some effective strategies for communicating the value of what you believe will work best for your company’s social media presence, in order to help you secure executive and peer buy-in.
1. Social Media Is a Conversation
Even people who read technical manuals for fun don’t get on Twitter or Facebook to read techspeak. Talk to them like a human being, about the things they like to talk about, and you’re more likely to get a human response.
How to Sell It
Tell the folks who think your social posts are “fluffy” that you want your feed to feel more like the conversations that people in your industry have on their lunch breaks, or at trade show happy hours. Being a fly on the wall in such situations can help you get a better handle on what sorts of issues are truly compelling to the veterans of your industry, and this approach leans more toward that focus.
2. Compromise on More Technical Content
So, okay, maybe you lose the argument about keeping the more “technical” content out of the social feed. But you can still work your magic to make that content as engaging as possible.
How to Sell It
Casting the technical content in a “mentor/apprentice” framework may lead to simpler, more engaging content. For somebody who’s too deep in the industry jargon to realize that they’re speaking gibberish half the time, imagining that they're talking to a new employee may help them to simplify and crystallize their talking points in a way that actually makes them more universal and compelling.
3. Flip the Script
Sometimes, the people who complain the most are the ones who are most guilty of the sin that they’re railing against. So, ask them the questions that they want to know the answers to.
How to Sell It
As satisfying as this may be, make sure you’re tactful. You can pose this as: “You're the expert in this field; you’re exactly our target demographic – what do you love seeing in your social media feeds? What are you most likely to comment on or click like on?”
You may get to see them squirm a little, but you’ll probably also get extremely valuable insights – and you may even get to watch the “Aha” moment where they finally understand what your job is.
4. Cite Your Sources
For many B2B companies (especially the more technical ones), there's an onus on authority and precedent. So, lean into that by showing that your suggestions aren’t just hunches – they have been proven to work.
How to Sell It
Prepare a rationale for each of your suggestions, and come armed with examples of other companies that have successfully implemented these or similar suggestions. When the eyes in the room can see all the way to the other end of the strategy (i.e., success), it will be much harder for them to say no.
These four tips may not completely change the more annoying aspects of your job (or what other people think your job is), but changing your mindset about how you communicate the value of your work can help to reframe the role that you play within your company.