Even though B2B firms seek to sell products to other businesses, B2B marketing is still based on human relationships. Social media has long been used to aid in the development of these relationships, but its significance increased last year.
B2B marketers needed a way to connect with prospects and partners in the absence of in-person events. They discovered that social media platforms were the most effective way to accomplish this.
1. Increase Brand Awareness
Companies can tell their story, explain why they provide the services they do and keep audiences up to date with customer and employee stories across multiple platforms.
If B2B leaders can leverage their employees’ voices, they can expand their brand’s reach even further. Every employee has a personal network, which may contain hundreds of contacts. Each of those contacts is then linked to hundreds of other people. When your employees are in sync with their networks, they can accomplish a lot not only on social media but also in real life (e.g., create flyers, send direct mail, network at events, etc).
2. Create Leads
By posting videos, news, data, and interesting trends, they can spark meaningful conversations and engagement within their target industry. Not only will you gain credibility with potential customers, but these strategies may also result in lead generation.
3. Lead Development
Sales professionals can use social selling to develop relationships with leads. They can help potential customers solve problems by leveraging their thought leadership pieces, social proofing, and other content. As a result, your sales team can gain trust and credibility.
4. Introduce Social Listening
Pay attention to what customers are saying about their company. This allows you to get honest feedback on how others perceive your brand. It provides a window into improving your company’s weaker areas while reinforcing aspects that are already popular with customers.
5. Link Social Media Posts to Opportunities
Leaders can drive customer posts to their CRM with the right enterprise solution to better understand their customers.
6. Track Marketing Efforts
Key performance metrics can be tracked using social media platforms and management tools (KPIs). Organic social media engagement can even be monetary valued. Earned media value (EMV) estimates how much organic social engagement and reach would have cost if paid for through advertising.
7. Increase Brand Authenticity
Brands can build trust with potential customers, partners, and talent/employees by engaging on social media. This is particularly true if others are promoting your brand or products/services to others. People trust advice or recommendations from family and friends nearly three times more than official brand channels.
8. Encourage Thought Leadership
Social media is an excellent way to learn about people’s problems and interests. In turn, being on social media allows brands to drive thought leadership by solving problems. Create how-to guides, webinars, and other content to assist people, and people may come to trust your brand as their source of guidance as a result.
9. Expand Your Audience
Social media will be used by 4.48 billion people in 2021. Not only does social give you access to the largest addressable market online, but it also shows you what real people are talking about and liking. You can build an audience that believes in your brand, products, and services once you learn how to solve this market’s problems with thought leadership content.
10. Create a Community
You can create an active social community around your brand with careful planning and engagement. You can use both employees and customers to generate immediate Likes and Shares for your content, allowing it to reach new audiences.
