Still, even if B2B marketers "do" social media, they often just stick to the platform of business, LinkedIn. All this will help you build up a detailed understanding of your target audience, enabling you to create content, paid ads, and even your branding according to their expectations and preferences, which will help generate those sought-after leads! There are two ways you can handle social media: You can hire a professional third-party social media marketing agency, or you can create an in-house team. Companies with bigger budgets and expansive marketing campaigns often create in-house marketing teams to carry out the various aspects of marketing. While you need to choose which option works better, you need a professional team to run successful campaigns. So the content you create should, above all, be useful.
If you think about the brands crushing it on social media, it’s usually B2C rather than B2B brands that immediately spring to mind. That may be why many B2B companies have not fully embraced the challenge of social media marketing, instead sticking to more traditional marketing techniques, such as cold-calling or print advertising.
That said, around 79% of B2B marketers surveyed by Omobono agreed that social media marketing is a worthwhile investment and offers good results.
Still, even if B2B marketers “do” social media, they often just stick to the platform of business, LinkedIn. They’ve fallen into the trap of thinking their industry is “too dull” to be a social media success. Which is a shame, because the opportunity is huge!
So how do you stand out from the crowd as a B2B social media marketer?
Here’s the advice you need to ensure your company engages with potential customers and develops a social media following that converts into what you really want—sales!
1. Create a good strategy
What do you want to achieve with your social media marketing campaign? The answer is probably “lead generation”—the ultimate goal of B2B marketing, and where it differs from B2C marketing, which has different goals.
Some of the ways you can generate leads are as follows:
- Drawing organic traffic through content and interaction on various social media platforms
- Drawing paid traffic through social media ads and promotional posts
- Connecting with influencers in your industry to spread your name
In this sense, B2B social media marketing is no different from B2C social media marketing. In fact, it’s a good idea to use many B2C social media marketing tactics in your strategy—such as using employee quotes and photos to humanize your business. Sharing brand messages through employees builds up the word-of-mouth buzz that is the lifeblood of social media marketing.
Brand-building is central to any social strategy, whether B2B or B2C. Without the trust this generates, you won’t convert any leads to sales. So put this at the heart of your strategy—and think outside the box. You don’t have to be restricted by the notion of maintaining a professional distance from your clients; in fact, doing so is impossible on social media. You have new ways of reaching out to potential customers now. Embrace them!
2. Target your audience and create buyer personas
Once you have your goals in mind, you need to consider your target audience. To determine where your target audiences are, and then determine their preferences, you could try the following:
- Conduct surveys on a platform where you’re most likely to find B2B clients. For example, you can conduct the survey on LinkedIn because it’s a professional platform with several people entrenched in the B2B community.
- You can ask these people for their opinions on different social media platforms and how they use it. Doing so will help you understand their preferences and design a proper approach to marketing.
- You can also study your competitors and determine where they’re active. For example, if you find your competitors focusing on Twitter more than Facebook or other platforms, it’s likely that most of your target audiences are active on Twitter.
Next, create personas for your customers, which includes their age, gender,…
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