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There’s no hiding it. Social media marketing has become an essential component of any successful B2B marketing strategy.
If you’re reading this article you probably know the benefits exist. We're going to run through some of the transformative benefits social media has in store for your business.
We've divided them into four categories:
Awareness
Perception
Relationships
Action.
Awareness
Brand Awareness
AKA knowing you exist.
If you’re not active on social, nobody is going to discover you, and the people you already work with could forget you. Okay that might be a bit dramatic but it’s not far off the mark.
With the right approach you can reach new audiences and become known by more people than ever before.
Do it well and you could punch well above your weight, driving brand awareness far exceeding what you’d expect from a business of your size. There are plenty of solopreneurs out there with many thousands of followers, all because they understand the principles of an effective social media strategy.
Hand in hand with awareness is brand recognition. Using your brand assets in the right way ensures anyone who sees your content also registers who produced it. They see your name, your logo, your designs. They associate it with your content and the services you provide, the pay more attention to what you have to say in future and they know where to go when they need your services.
Products & Services Awareness
AKA knowing what you sell.
It’s all well and good being known for compelling content, but unless you’re trying to become an influencer there’s no inherent value in that to your business. What transforms compelling content into material benefit is when people connect the positive impact your content has on them, with the products and services that you provide.
Understanding how to bring your products and services into your content in a balanced way is key to getting as much reach as possible without losing sight of such a key benefit.
Bonus: Personal Awareness
Particularly on Linkedin, the interplay between business pages and personal profiles is a huge opportunity.
Building a personal brand can be hugely beneficial to your own career and the success of your business. Each amplifies the other.
As a business leader you can say things your company can’t, but it can still help to build your brand. On the other hand, your brand can say things in a way that no self-aware individual can, but it can reflect well on your own, personal brand.
Perception
Think of awareness as the what, and perception as the why.
Credibility
Many B2B businesses are built on a vast amount of expertise, knowledge and innovation. Your business will no doubt be the same, perhaps more than you give yourself credit for.
Establishing yourself as thought leaders in your industry can make a huge impact on how your audience sees you. It has a remarkable effect on your credibility.
Become the go to brand for industry expertise and it’s a short step to a qualified lead.
Be seen as busy
Hear me out.
You’re on holiday, out for dinner. You pass a quiet restaurant, waiters at the ready. Two doors down, a queue forms outside a bustling restaurant. Where do you go? If you’re like the rest of us you make a snap decision to join the queue.
Being seen to be busy isn’t just for show. It provides social proof that you’re worth doing business with.
Personality
B2B audiences might be, generally, more rational than people in a consumer mindset. But don’t forget they’re the exact same people.
No matter how logical we might see ourselves, at heart we all make emotional decisions in our business lives.
Showing a bit of personality can go a long way to making people feel comfortable with you, to feel good about engaging with your content and ultimately to feel like they could do business with you.
Relationships
Build relationships with potential customers
LinkedIn in particular offers a great opportunity for B2B businesses to network with other professionals in their field. Connect with potential partners, suppliers, investors, and customers who could help you grow your business.
You can also join industry conversations and actively participate in discussions about topics that are related to your field of expertise, helping to build valuable connections that could lead to long-term success.
Gather valuable insights
Social media is a two way street, and understanding customer preferences and behaviour can inform future marketing efforts.
Most platforms provide insights into what kinds of content resonates with users, so you can tailor your posts to target your ideal audiences.
This helps ensure that the content you share is engaging and relevant, increases the chances of gaining more followers and building a larger presence on the platform, and helps you to build increasingly stronger relationships with your followers.
Build trust
All strong relationships are built on trust.
Sharing your expertise, showing your credentials, providing insights and opinions and interacting with people and other brands on social media all help to build a sense of trust between your business and your followers.
Action
This is what a lot of us hope to achieve from our social media efforts, meaningful and measurable actions.
Increase website traffic
By building a community around your business on social media, engaging with followers and providing valuable content, you massively increase the chances of people clicking through to your website when, at the right times, you link out to it.
Improve search engine rankings
While social media is not a direct ranking factor, it can still be an important part of a comprehensive SEO strategy.
Helping to drive more traffic to your website.
Having social media accounts and actively using them can improve the perceived authority and trustworthiness of your website.
Social media can also help you build high-quality backlinks to your website which is hugely valuable in improving rankings.
Sharing your web content, for example a blog or case study pages, on social media can help increase the number of people who see and interact with it, which can help improve its ranking in the search results.
Generate leads
By running targeted ad campaigns that reach potential customers who are likely interested in their products or services. Through this kind of targeted marketing, businesses can reach a larger audience and increase leads, revenue, and overall profits.
This article is more about organic social, but the opportunities for paid media and the leads this can generate are enticing. Get in touch if you’d like to learn more about this.