As an inbound marketer, I work hard to squeeze every ounce of value out of our B2B social media marketing clients’ investments. While at the end of the day, we simply want to deliver results to our clients, it’s important when investing in a B2B social media strategy that they clearly see the influence of social media on attaining their business goals, whether that’s brand awareness, lead generation or customer acquisition. B2B Social Media Marketing
Having proven the value of social media for B2B companies time and time again, I love to sing the praises of social media for business. But if you want to sing this song, you have to put in the work. I’ll spare the extensive “social media for business” lowdown as you can download a guide from the popular social media channels for that (and they provide some great information, especially for those companies just getting started). Instead, I want to share some easily executable and repetitive tactics that I’ve found to help foster more impressive social media results on Facebook specifically.
Here are the 5 must-do Facebook tactics to incorporate into your B2B social media marketing strategy to help improve the ROI of your efforts:
1. Reconsider your opinion: “B2B Professionals Don’t Use Facebook”
I get it, everyone assumes that their B2B target audience only uses LinkedIn because it’s the most obvious and business-y of the social media platforms. And they do use LinkedIn, but I love sharing this statistic with our clients: 74% of people say they use Facebook for professional purposes*. So, should Facebook be part of a B2B company’s social mix? Absolutely. If you’re making the investment to leverage social media, it’s a mistake not to include Facebook given that your audience is there waiting for you.
2. Don’t bother posting on Facebook if you’re not going to boost your posts
With over 2 billion total Facebook accounts, it is incredibly difficult to have your posts get visibility with so much content vying for top billing in the newsfeed. There are numerous ways to fare better with Facebook’s newsfeed algorithm, but at the end of the day, money talks. Even if you’re not ready to start with a Facebook advertising campaign, we recommend boosting any post that drives value for the business. Boosting doesn’t have it make a huge dent in your wallet, you can start small and see what results that investment brings. If you like what you see, you can always allocate more money to your Facebook budget. Click here for some guidelines on how to measure the success of boosted Facebook posts.
3. The More Facebook Custom Audiences, the Merrier
While paying for increased visibility of your post, you’re also benefiting greatly by the ability to target your boosted post to your ideal customer. This is huge. When boosting you have to choose who you want your content served up to – yay for targeted content!
Instead of simply sending your post out into Facebook oblivion, you can select from a myriad of criteria to build a custom audience of which your content would be relevant. Taking the time and care to build out your custom audiences (your ideal customers) increases the chance of your content reaching users who fit within your general targeting parameters. WordStream published this helpful infographic listing all of Facebook’s targeting options. These are the basic categories, and there are still more on top of this that can be added (like Page fans, lookalike audiences, etc.), but it provides a helpful overview of the many ways in which you can reach your potential Facebook audience.
4. Don’t Snub Your Facebook Engagements, Invite Them to the Party
If you’re spending the time and money to make a name for your company on Facebook, then you would be stopping short of reaching your full Facebook potential if you didn’t do this – invite people who have reacted to your posts to become fans of your Facebook page. Remember, you’ve boosted your posts to reach your ideal customers, which means that they are not necessarily already following your business page. So, if you’ve seen that they have engaged with your posts, don’t leave them hanging, invite them to like your business page! This pool of people has shown interest and are good candidates to help grow your Facebook audience and future reach. Here’s the best way to invite engaged contacts to the party:
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- Go to your business page
- Click on the Insights tab
- Find a post with high reach and engagement. Click on the # of people who have reacted to the post. This will bring up a list of contacts who have engages with your post, including current and non-current fans of your Facebook page. For those who are not fans, you can invite them to follow your page by simply clicking the “invite” button.
5. Talk WITH your audience, not at them
If you want to have people engage with your B2B company on Facebook, then you have to give them something to talk about. That’s the end marketing game, right, to engage in conversation with your prospects throughout the buyer’s journey? Simply posting “updates” alone doesn’t exactly ignite the fires of conversation. Why not accompany a post with a question that asks them what they think about an industry topic, business scenario, latest trend, etc.? If I have learned one lesson in life, it’s that it doesn’t hurt to ask. Here’s an example:
A B2B Facebook post that is non-conversational:
Alternatively, a B2B Facebook that invites conversation:
And when you do get a comment, please respond. Just like you would respond to a colleague or friend in a face-to-face scenario, you need to offer a personal response on Facebook to set the foundation for future engagement (and to be polite.)
How’s Your B2B Social Media Marketing Strategy?
B2B social media marketing is a combination of art and science, and as with any B2B inbound marketing initiative, it takes time to develop a strategy, execute on the plan, analyze results and revise for optimal ROI. Whether you’re going full speed with social media marketing or just barely dipping your toes in the water to give the appearance that you’re socially present, I bet you could be squeezing more value out of your investment. Contact us for a social media marketing consultation and let’s see what we can do together.
