Let's talk about the nuances of B2B social media marketing: common mistakes, expectations and...
In the last article, we talked about common mistakes of B2B social media marketing. Now we will focus on the right promotion strategy for B2B businesses.
Table of Contents:
- B2B social media for lead generation
- How to increase reach and conversion on Facebook
- Social media B2B content
- Practical Promotion Tips
- Content Plan
- Analytics tools to evaluate performance
Businesses often make the mistake of applying the same strategies used to promote their products or services in B2C markets when marketing on social media for a B2B audience. For starters, it's important to remember that most B2B buyers have very specific needs and preferences. To ensure that you're creating content tailored to this audience, use language that is both industry-specific and comprehensive. This can help establish yourself as an expert in the field while providing valuable insights that your potential customers can act upon.
THE BEST B2B SOCIAL MEDIA FOR LEAD GENERATION EFFORTS
Powerful social tool. Here you will find lots of industry groups and a huge audience, among which you will find many of your potential customers. Additionally, Facebook users are considered to be one of the most solvent audience compare to other social platforms.
LinkedIn Marketing is good for B2B companies since they can create highly targeted campaigns to reach their prospects. Even on a free basis you can promote your content. Build your professional network, share helpful information, interact and post in industry and business groups.
- Youtube
The expert-based B2B video content will contribute a lot to your content marketing strategy and to building an expert image.
While Twitter is frequently used by B2C brands, two of three B2B marketers find Twitter very efficient social network.
Is not great for B2B companies, but really good for B2C promotion.
TIPS TO INCREASE ENGAGEMENT AND IMPROVE CONVERSIONS ON FACEBOOK
- Publish content on your social business page and promote your page with Facebook ads. Target your posts.
In fact, Facebook organic posts reach just 5% of page followers. Moreover, your next posts will be viewed by the same people.
- Get more organic traffic from Facebook groups by interacting with audience and sharing engaging content. Nurture new relationships. Stop spamming and avoid selling behavior.
The thoughtful interactions in social groups create brand loyalty and lead to increased engagement on your Facebook page. Your posts will be taken more seriously if you post on behalf of an individual rather than on behalf of a company. Content published by companies is more likely to be seen as advertising and may be removed by the group administrator. Also, in this case, the Facebook algorithm will reduce your post’s visibility. People trust people.
- Avoid back-to-back posting in social groups
Avoid simultaneous posting in social business groups. Wait at least a few minutes. Your posts will have higher engagement, and you will not look like a spammer.
- Look like an expert when interacting in Facebook groups
Building the professional communication with your prospects will help you promote you brand organically.
- Use targeted ads to promote advertising content
- Set up the Facebook Pixel on your website. With Google Tag Manager, you can add it yourself. It's simple.
This as an analytics tool that lets you measure the effectiveness of your advertising campaigns by monitoring the actions users take on your website. It’s also essential for creating website custom audiences and launching retargeting campaigns. You can retarget website users who have visited a specific page or taken a desired action. A custom audience is a defined group of people who have interacted with your website. With Pixel Facebook will find a more relevant audience for your ads, since he will gradually find out who is really interested in your web and your content.
- Make an audit of your content on social networks
Use built-in social media analytics and adjust your content plan accordingly. A content audit will help you understand what is working well. See which posts performed well, which are not. Focus on the kind and types of content which convert best. Your content should be diverse but engaging. Some people like reading, some prefer infographics or watching videos. Going back to Facebook, it loves videos and high-quality visuals.
B2B CONTENT GO GENERATE QUALITY LEADS
When posting expert content, include links going to your website or blog. This will drive more targeted traffic. Your site should have selling content and lead-magnets that encourage visitors to take action (like sending a request). Types of B2B content types could be as follows:
- Company's news
- Expert articles, notes and comments
- Market and product overviews
- Interviews (with clients, internal and external experts)
- Case-studies with outstanding performance results
- Reviews from top customers
- Events (invitations, videos, pictures)
- Entertainment industry-related content
- Podcasts - show your expertise
- Professional tips and helpful materials. Share your experience.
What else?
Post graphic visuals, infographics and videos.
Use graphic design platforms with templates to create visuals without designing skills. I like the free-to-use online graphic design tool Canva. The app provides plenty of quality templates. By customizing the templates, you will be able to create social media posts, presentations, infographics, marketing units, animation videos, and more.
Infographics ideas: Product overview, case-studies and reviews
Video ideas: Product video (product overview highlighting customer benefits, product upgrades, product demos, etc.), project video, training video, customer video review, video comments, events (invitations, streams, records), and more.
- Most of your videos shouldn’t be more than 5 minutes in length.
- Note that it’s better to use a phone to shoot videos regularly than to create professional-level video every six months.
- Make live streams, but your streams should be helpful.
SOCIAL MEDIA PROMOTION TIPS
- Write expert engaging content (start with two times a week and test, test, test)
- Interact with industry and business communities and groups
- Analyze competitors' pages, adopt their successful strategies
- Promote events through social networks
- Promote landing pages in industry groups and use targeted ads
- You can create your own social professional community but it requires a lot of effort.
WHERE TO CREATE A SOCIAL MEDIA PLAN
Schedule your social content. Create a monthly/weekly content plan.
It’s easy. You can find dozens of Google Sheets social media calendar templates to create your own content plan. You can also use Trello task management platform as a content calendar or some other tool.
ANALYTICS TOOLS TO TRACK SOCIAL MEDIA CONTENT PERFORMANCE
Finally, don't forget about using analytics tools to gain insight into how well your campaigns are performing.
- Use the built-in social media analytics. The most important metrics are reach and engagement rates.
- Use Google Analytics to track website traffic, its sources and social media conversion rate
- Add UTM tags to the end of regular URL's, in order to give Google Analytics valuable information about the clicks on the link. It will track site traffic coming from external sources. These tags will help you understand which marketing campaigns, channels and even which type / kind of content are driving the most traffic and conversions to your website. Use free UTM tag builders to create UTM tags.
- HubSpot or similar on-in-one platforms that let you track social media performance in one place.
Following the tips above will help you develop better strategies and engage your target audiences. Gathering data from various sources such as website visits and social media interactions can allow you to identify which social media tactics are proving most successful so you can adjust accordingly. Don't trust someone’s subjective judgment. Track which channels and campaigns traffic is coming from and which efforts increase your conversions. In short, success in the B2B world depends on careful planning and execution; there is no shortcut for creating campaigns that resonate with your target audiences. Investing time and effort into optimizing content for social networks is the only way to reach your prospects. I wish you create content that always converts!
Read about Common Mistakes of B2B Social Media Marketing here >>>