B2B social media is an important marketing channel that can present significant opportunities for businesses. If your B2B company is inactive on social media over the perceived lack of valuable news or that your target audience is not there then you could be missing out on brand awareness, lead-generation, improved SEO, thought-leadership status and positive ROI. For businesses still on the fence as to whether the channel can work for them, continue reading this blog where we discuss our key reasons for why social media should be used in the B2B market place.
Reach Customers and Future Key Contacts on B2B Social Media Platforms
According to data from Statista, Twitter and LinkedIn have accumulated 590 million active users as of January 2018. Social media is the only marketing channel that has the potential to cost-effectively and efficiently reach an audience of this amount; unlocking many opportunities for your business. Research shows that over 40% of US users that fall into the age 18 to 54 category were active on LinkedIn – so if your target market falls into this age range, can you afford not to have a strong online presence?
Build Your Business Relationships Through B2B Social Media
First and foremost, your B2B social media channel should be for the audience and not solely for your business. Many businesses can forget the ‘social’ element of social media and instead focus on self-promotion. The platforms are a chance to build a business community, connect with your network, share information and join in conversations.
Social media creates an environment to build your brand personality and humanise your brand, connecting to people on a personal level. Connecting to the world has always been a driving force behind social media and is notably one of the reasons why Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook – to connect the world. Although in most situations we deal with LinkedIn and Twitter when it comes to business social media, it is important to consider the world’s biggest social platform, Facebook.
Relationships and connections built are important to your business for developing brand ambassadors. Brand ambassadors instil trust in your brand that engage and build relationships with future prospects. Customer lifetime value is high from brand advocates, as they are loyal customers who are a lot less likely to defect to the competition.
Improve SEO and Drive Website Traffic with B2B Social Media
Where your website ranks on popular search engines is determined by many factors, including the authority your domain provides online. The number of followers and engagement statistics your social profiles have online, present to a search engine such as Google, that your business is a trusted resource or that you have authority in your industry. These elements contribute to your domain authority and can help your website beat out the competition in the race for the top position on the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) .
Potential customers following your posts are likely to click through for further resources and company information. This will help to drive traffic onto your website, which should have focused messaging and clear user journey’s throughout to encourage your desired action of contacting a sales member or downloading a product brochure, for example.
An improved search engine position will help you gain a competitive edge over businesses displaying for similar search terms. Click through rates decline the further down the SERP’s your listing is positioned, with an average 25% decrease in clicks from first and fifth position – so it bodes well for your website traffic if you are within the top 3 results.
Establish Authority in Your Industry
Twitter and LinkedIn are B2B social media platforms that can help launch your brand as a leader in your industry. Become a trusted resource for your target market to source the latest news and industry insights. Gaining a thought-leadership status can take time and requires a clear strategy that identifies the audience you are targeting and considers how social media content can help them and differentiate your brand from the competition.
The positive results that can be achieved by gaining a thought-leadership status can present many opportunities for your business, including; increasing brand affinity, speeding up the sales cycle and increasing sales.
Value for Money Marketing
Traditional marketing campaigns, such as direct mails are good for targeting focused lists, however, they can have large costs attached to them. From the printing of collateral to the postage cost, it can soon add up making it more difficult to achieve a positive monetary ROI (depending on the campaign goal). With B2B social media, there are very low investment costs associated with the channel. Other than the cost of time, where the content creation will be the most time-consuming element, distributing organically on the platform is completely free.
With the new GDPR law coming into effect on 25th May 2018, marketers should be sourcing alternative communication methods to email marketing that are just as efficient and cost-effective for reaching out to potential customers – social media could be the best replacement to achieving this. Why not start building your online brand profile now, so you have the followers acquired for when the time comes to convey an interesting message or announcement to your target audience.
Need help with your B2B social media strategy? Motion Marketing can perform a comprehensive evaluation of your online presence and your competition to deliver a strategy that’s right for your business and will help you achieve your goals. Please contact the Motion Marketing team for more information.
