Top Social Media Strategies for B2B

 

Even now in mid 2015, some companies aren't harvesting the full potential of social media channels. The question remains, which social media sites should be a priority for your personal branding efforts and which one should be a focus for your business? Some social media channels are more B2B friendly. Some channels are better suited to technology, or education or retail. 

To give you a feel for how it went in 2014 go here thanks to a report done by the Content Marketing Institute & MarketingProfs. If you happened to follow the link, you'll notice it's a report hosted on Slideshare, one of the best tools generating traffic for B2B brands and gaining a competitive edge as a knowledge influencer in your respective field. Do this right now, go to slideshare and search for keywords in your field. In B2B, studying the competition enables you to get a handle on how you can do your social media channels and optimize them according to industry standards. 

Unlike the old days where competitors were seen as stark rivals, the internet and social media of B2B allows you to build bridges and partnerships, which are essential to your B2B business development & marketing strategies. Collaborative campaigns are quite popular, shared webinars on different apps and SaaS products for example. There is now a host of conferences for different fields, even the most obscure fields have their specialized annual conferences. 

Strategy & Planning 

With the increase in content, move towards video content and complexity of device types of the audience and responsive design dillemmas, it's more important now than ever to document your marketing strategey in great detail. This is also improtant, since in the Marketing field there is a lot of turnover. 

Social media for B2B should definately be part of this strategy and marketing plan. With the prolifferation of content consider asigns a score to each piece of content you post, such as measuring content effectiveness, this will help you determine which content topics, type and channels are working best for you. 

Here are my picks for the best social media channels for B2B: 

B2B Social Channels 

1 - LinkedIn

2 - Twitter 

3 - Google + 

4 - Slideshare 

5 - Youtube

6 - Facebook 

7 - Pinterest

8 - Instagram 

9 - Vimeo

10 - Flickr

11 - StumbleUpon

12 - Foursquare 

13 - Tumblr

14 - Vine 

15 - Reddit 

* Important note, blogging must be an important node or hub in relation to your social media channels. Also don't forget the groups related to your industry called "Groups" in LinkedIn and Facebook and "communities" in Google +. 

Benefits

Naturally, you may be wondering about the benefits of using social media for B2B? 

Think of it like free advertising: 

• Increased Exposure
• Increased Traffic
• Develop loyal fans and social media 'advocates' & 'influencers' 
• Provide marketplace insights 
• Generate leads
• Improve search rankings 
• Grown business partnerships 
• Reduced marketing expenses 

Being able to show a bit of authentic personality about your company and brand can have an humanizing aspect and give your audience something to identify with that can increase their loyalty to your brand. 

Social media channels offer a great chance to share promotions, plug into current geographiacl ans seasonal events and show that you care about your community and that your company is a great place to work! 

Content used by B2B on Social Media 

In B2B the curation of other people's content is common, however due to competition to be knowledge leaders in respective field there is a large push for original written and original video content. Consider this an investment in your brand and your company's future. If you can prodce original infographics that are valuable to your field, it's really a bonus. 

While B2B is more likely to use other people's content than B2C, we in B2B place more weight on original written content. Ironic isn't it?

What do B2B Audiences want to See?

When surveyed, B2B audiences not surprisngly mention the following as of keen importance in terms of content that most impresses them on social channels and a corporate or product blog:

• Case studies & Sucess stories 
• Detailed technology guides
• White papers
• Podcasts/audio files
• Video & Multimedia presentations 

If you're catoring to a specialized audience with a certain level of technical knowledge in the domain, don't be afraid to get technial on them and give them the kind of data that they deal with on a daily basis.

Key Challanges 

There are any number of challenges facing B2B companies to adopt social media, some of the most cited ones are: 

1) Difficulty proving ROI

2) Lack of specialized staff

3) Lack of Time

4) No strategic planning 

5) Poor organizational understanding of social media channels 

6) Insufficient audience or knowledge of how to increase audience

Companies sometimes complain of having small networks on their social media channels, but must realize it takes time and quality content for this to grow. It also requires promotions, special campaigns and perhaps even the integration of gamification concepts to stimulate participation by the target customers and general public.  

One of the goals of social media IS to increase this audience. 

B2B Tractics 

Infographics had the greatest increase in usage from 51% to 62% in 2014. 

Seriously consider Video blogging & Podcasting for your mobile audience

Strongly consider social media paid advertising, test it out per channel and see if it works for you! 

Make sure your personal LinkedIn network reflects the industry of the audience you are targeting 

On twitter, make sure you tag appropriate #hashtags of your target topics to increase reach of tweets

Create lists on Twitter to make segements of your contacts that are useful to you

Spend some time on expanding the reach of each channel, otherwise your hard work will be for naught. 

Content B2B Marketing Goals 

When you are conducting your B2B Digital marketing efforts on your social media channels, always think of the bottom line. These should be your top priourities: 

1 - Brand & Image Awareness

2 - Lead Generation, this includes motivating customers to generate (UGC) user-generated content. 

3 - Engagement with your existing customers and prospective public consumers

4 - Sales, conversions, moving customers up the funnel

5 - Lead nurturing, networking, creating partnerships, etc...

6 - Customer retention & loyalty, responding to comments, etc...

7 - Upsell/Cross-Sell

Non-Social B2B Digital Marketing 

While this article has been on social B2B Channel, don't forget that in B2B you have plenty of other options to optimize the digital marketing tactics you employ. While socal channels should be your first priourity! Others can include: 

• eNewsletters
• Articles and pages on your corporate website
• Blog
• In-person events and geo-targeting 
• Case studies & testimonials 
• Videos
• Illustrations & photos
• White papers
• Online presentations like webinars, demos, etc...
• Free audits in your field 
• Research reports
• Microsites and educational portals 

Closing Thoughts

• Don't be afraid to ditch social media channels that aren't working for you and your business (after a 1 year trial) 
• Manage your content assets in such a way that blog articles and parts of them are reusable and omni-channel ready 
• Have an appealing image to text ratio to stimulate the senses; mix in videos and audio (podcasts) liberally 
• Spend time every month researching trending social media tools or useful sites like Soundcloud (for podcast hosting). 
• Pick your top 3 social media channels and really invest and shine on them! 
• Educate your social media team and try to get all employees active as social advocates for your brand 
• Create industry surveys for your B2B network via surveymonkey 
• Use social channels for Call to Actions, like subscribing to your Newsletter (easily done on facebook), or pinning the tweet on your twitter page home. 
• Only 45% of marketers think their facebook is effective. If you don't have awesome photos or video to share there, don't even bother. 
• If you didn't invest, create and educate yourself on video content in 2014, you are behind the curve, don't worry though you can always start now. 
• In 2014, Instagram saw the most growth as a viable social channel in the opinion of Digital Marketers. 
• Consider sponsoring an influener, artist or a popular figure that could help give your brand some awareness and reach into fresh networks. 

Here is some more literature to point you in the right direction. 

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