Table of Contents
- The Role of Social Media
- What Do I Stand to Gain From B2B Social Media Marketing?
- B2B Social Media Marketing Challenges and Problem Areas
- Stop Saying “No” to Low Hanging Fruit
- Embrace and Seek to Understand Social Media in Relation to Your Business
- Utilize Available Social Media Tools
- Pay Attention to Industry Trends for B2B Social Media Marketing
- Make a Human Connection
- Best practices and FAQ
- “How Can I Spark Excitement and Get People Talking About My Brand?”
- “Should I Be Present on Every Platform?”
- “Should I Be Utilizing LinkedIn Over Other Social Channels?”
- Open the Door of Opportunity with B2B Social Media Marketing Expertise
Searching the internet late at night or even in the office trying to find a solution to your B2B sales problems?
Not hitting the right spot with your target market or not sure who to target?
A well-known Italian author named Dante Alighieri once said “The secret of getting things done is to act” and in this instance, he definitely couldn’t be more right.
B2B social media marketing and sales takes a lot of hustle. If you’re here, we’re going to assume you’re prepared to hustle and are ready for the inside scoop about what to expect when it comes to B2B social media marketing.
So what are you waiting for? Let’s get started and put money back in your business.
B2B Social Media Marketing: The Role of Social Media
B2B sales representatives and B2C sales representatives have similar reasons for being on social media. Both are looking to achieve the same thing: sales and business growth.
You could even say that B2B marketers are more effective on social media due to the fact that the buying journey for B2B transactions is significantly longer.
What’s the reason for this? B2B clients require more convincing than B2C prospects do. Whereas B2C prospects might see an ad and be convinced after reading a few reviews and seeing the product more than a few times, B2B prospects want to read white papers, blogs, hear feedback from their peers and third parties, forums, LinkedIn, seminars and more.
In some ways, this healthy skepticism plays into the B2B marketers hands. And this is because with so many available options in which to provide information and reassure your prospects, you’ll be able to achieve bigger and better results from a variety of different platforms.
Let’s take LinkedIn for example. The majority of the people using LinkedIn are there to make connections in the B2B world and expand their reach. Our company takes advantage of this platform every single day for our customers through social selling on LinkedIn. Let me explain.
We have a service we call “the social selling assistant” which is a service that provides a real human that can manage and interact with your prospects and gain new prospects without you having to do a thing.
This is an extremely beneficial service for our customers because they don’t always know how to utilize LinkedIn for B2B sales, which can become a significant waste of money and time with such a vast audience at their fingertips.
B2B social media marketing, especially on LinkedIn, is a great place to start your journey, but also not where it should stop.
In 2014, it was estimated in a study that nearly 57% of the buying process was finished by the time a prospective customer reached out to a business.
If you’re not on social media, where are you going? B2B social media marketing is the future of business growth and opportunity. Now it’s time to learn how to utilize it.
RELATED: Your Guide to Social Media Content Creation That Sells
What Do I Stand to Gain From B2B Social Media Marketing?
What is the point of B2B social media marketing?
B2B social media marketing is all about nurturing relationships, growing your following, building brand loyalty and increasing brand advocacy.
Social media doesn’t directly drive B2B sales in most cases, but it does increase businesses interest in your brand and can push them closer to the idea of making a purchase from your company.
In essence, social media is a tool that B2B marketing professionals can utilize to give their brand an opportunity to support the hard metrics, including sales and customer retention, among other things.
A few things you can stand to gain from B2B social media marketing will include:
- Increase in brand awareness
- Increase your brand visibility
- A platform for your company content (This could include blogs, podcasts, books, white papers and more)
- More PR opportunities thanks to brand advocates.
- SEO benefits
- Better brand loyalty
- Drive sales through content and paid advertising.
- Educate buyers and sellers about your products and services
- Customer care and customer loyalty benefits
- Find out what others are saying about your brand online
- Give your company a chance to respond to the conversations happening around your brand
- ...and more!
For B2B social media marketers, understanding the role of social media in your business endeavors is crucial.
B2B Social Media Marketing Challenges and Problem Areas
There is a world of potential possibility waiting within the realm of B2B social media marketing. However, B2B social media marketers often find it difficult or frustrating to keep up with the demands of their online presence and thus create new challenges and lose opportunities in the midst of the process.
The struggle often comes along with the planning, integration, measurement and optimization of social media marketing efforts, and an inability to know how to adjust for bigger and better results in the future.
So what are the solutions to this challenge?
- Stop Saying “No” to Low Hanging Fruit
- Embrace and Seek to Understand Social Media in Relation to Your Business
- Utilize Available Social Media Tools
- Pay Attention to Industry Trends for B2B Social Media Marketing
- Make a Human Connection
Stop Saying “No” to Low Hanging Fruit
If you don’t create content to nurture leads along your buyer’s journey, it’s time to step up your game. If you have a blog, create a game plan that allow you to publish good, quality content as often as you can manage that speaks directly to specific prospects in the different stages of your funnel.
Embrace and Seek to Understand Social Media in Relation to Your Business
It can be difficult at times to realize just how important social media is to your success as a company, but if you can come to terms with it, you’ll have a much easier time setting goals and sticking to them.
Utilize Available Social Media Tools
There are plenty of tools like Sprout Social and Hootsuite that allow you to monitor your social media presence and efforts with relative ease.
You’ll be able to measure the results of your efforts, compare past numbers, find out what might be holding you back and in addition, listen to the conversations that are happening around your brand.
Pay Attention to Industry Trends for B2B Social Media Marketing
The top five highest ranking social media platforms for B2B selling and marketing in 2020 include LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Youtube and TikTok.
Being successful on social media means being where your target audience is, so find out where your competitors are, how they’re utilizing their platform and what strategy they seem to be using on social. Then make it better. The main take-away: BE WHERE YOUR CUSTOMERS ARE!
Make a Human Connection
Nobody wants to spend their time talking to a computer. Especially in an age when a human connection is vitally important to customers, it’s imperative that you make all of your interaction personable, fun, creative and engaging.
It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in. Getting a CEO interested in your product enough to invest can be hard work. Make sure you’re cultivating the relationship in the right way and aim for success. Be understanding, be transparent and be human!
B2B Social Media Marketing Best practices and FAQ
Remember: when it comes to B2B social media marketing, you want to optimize effort instead of a particular platform or channel. Forget the volume. The important thing is to draw your customers attention to something more. It’s the depth and quality of the connection that will eventually get other brands talking, not the amount of time you’re spending creating ways to connect.
“How Can I Spark Excitement and Get People Talking About My Brand?”
What’s the best way to start a conversation? TALK! Ask questions! Draw people in by tagging them for their thoughts, commenting on their work, giving compliments and being informative.
“Should I Be Present on Every Platform?”
The short answer: no.
Why? Because your target audience isn’t on every platform and trying to stretch yourself out between more than a few platforms is going to waste a lot of time without much result.
And the reason for this is because pouring yourself and your time into a platform that doesn’t hold any success for you means wasted opportunity where you could have been focusing your efforts and attention, not to mention a lack of response or results just because when you don’t get much results, you often change your approach even if it would’ve worked elsewhere.
In the end, experimentation is key. Take a hint from your competitors. Where are they putting the bulk of their effort?
“Should I Be Utilizing LinkedIn Over Other Social Channels?”
This is tricky because a lot of this depends on what industry you associate with. However, there’s a lot of potential on other platforms, including Facebook and Instagram for business professionals, and more specifically, B2B brands. So don’t turn a blind eye and miss out on the opportunities!
RELATED: THE QUICK-STARTER GUIDE TO B2B MARKETING ON FACEBOOK
Open the Door of Opportunity with B2B Social Media Marketing Expertise
As a company that specializes in assisting B2B brands find their way on social media, we’re well equipped to give your brand the opportunity to grow and thrive in the social media world.
From zero followers to thousands in a matter of months, we’ll take your social media profiles, pages, groups and followers to new heights with our social media expertise in social media management, social paid advertising, influencer marketing and more.
Need to move up in the LinkedIn social selling index? We have you covered.
Are you ready to level up your social media and start experiencing epic success across platforms? Let’s chat!
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