Business to Business B2B
We’ve all heard the stories of how social media effectively connects brands & consumers. Most of us can understand that very easily. The case studies speak for themselves. But what about Business to Business B2B companies? These companies need to talk to customers in the business space – they know they should be on social media platforms – the “fish” are there – but how do they hook them? They don’t need a million followers – or want them. A social media presence is still of huge importance to them. Why?
B2B users on social media
Because in the same way that the numbers show that “all the people” are on social media platforms – Twitter accounts are being registered at the rate of 460,000 per day if you believe some reports, YouTube has 8.9 million followers on Google+ and LinkedIn announced that it had 15 million members in the UK in March this year – the reality is that business customers and consumers are there too.
The principles don’t change as much as you may think. The social media rules that have been followed by successful B2C brands apply to B2B, as well. It’s the content we need to think about, isn’t it?
Content marketing B2B
First, though, it’s vital to figure out exactly what the business wants to achieve by using Facebook, Twitter et al. Frequently, businesses get onto Twitter or stick a page up on Facebook, just for the sake of having a presence online -but without direction or a defined set of goals, they and their social media managers are almost certainly on a road to disappointment, and their pages languish in the grey no-man’s land of dormant accounts. The key to success in your digital marketing is content marketing for B2B users – content that exudes relevance, interest and lands in your B2B consumer’s lap at just the right moment in their buying cycle.
Social media B2B marketing
Achievable & sensible goals for a social media B2B marketing campaign can be geared around improving customer service and reputation enhancement, for instance. Increasing customer loyalty & engagement, and, as a result, driving sales. That’s got to be music to their ears!
Strategy and planning is the next step – to be done by an expert social media manager or agency who have the time to research the best way forward and the ways in which to implement it. Social media requires considerable time and effort. Sometimes outside help is necessary.
Most importantly we need to define the measure of success for our clients. Metrics can include a target number for a membership or subscription service. a number of click throughs or perhaps a target revenue. Social Media success comes from delivering some sort of value to members and followers. This can only happen once the conversations have been started and the contributors listened to.
There’s a great article here on what our business clients should be asking us http://bit.ly/saucyhorsebHrjor .
