The major question that marketers often tend to ask “Is social media meant for B2B purposes”. Considering that most updates across Facebook, Twitter and many major networking sites is used for sharing personal updates, photos, and content that brands sell themselves short when considering social media platforms for B2B business development. In addition, goals for B2B social media campaigns can include attracting top talent, finding investors or receiving press and media coverage.
In order to use all social media channels effectively it is important to craft a comprehensive social media strategy from the beginning that answers most questions like:
Most inbound marketing would prove fruitless without good data analysis, therefore the first thing to do here is to set up a tracking mechanism on your website that utilizes a platform such as Google Analytics and to facilitate the same we can use a contact-form submission to sales via company’s website.
Try to find out where the relevant individuals are active on social media, so if your business sells ERP software to manufacturing companies then look for populated LinkedIn groups that focus on that sector. Maybe people discuss the same in Google+ community or ask about it in Twitter, in short narrow down your focus so that your efforts effectively reach your audience.
Once you decide the social media networks that should be your target create and optimize company profiles on the same outlets:
Quality, original content is the fuel of social media, but before you’re publishing try and build a social media following by:
Measure the conversion rate of each channel, if traffic from LinkedIn “converts” 6% of the time and Facebook traffic converts at only 4%, it is obvious you have to focus more in LinkedIn and less in Facebook. But the equation is more complex Facebook may have a 4% conversion rate but a different content posted on a certain time may lead to a higher conversion rate.
It is obvious that social media strategy can deliver results but only when followed a strategic, logical path, so maintain a strategist perspective and devise social media framework in B2B space.