Social Media
B2B Services Marketing Strategy
The focus of your social media program should be on conveying industry expertise and skills, as well as showcasing an inside look at your business. Again, you will want to incorporate your other marketing efforts (communications and sales) in your social media planning. Social media platforms are ideal places to distribute smaller content assets, such as blog articles and videos.
Based on your other marketing programs, develop a strategy to distribute content assets using social media. Then, add other content ideas that focus on your industry, business, team, services, or other unique content ideas. Use social media as a way to inform and engage with prospects, as well as to be a little more informal with them. Show your audience the people behind your business. The foundation of your social media strategy is the combination of your content distribution and an inside look into your business. Once you know what you’re posting, you can determine where you will post.
Social Media Platforms
People search for business solutions on-the-go, which means they not only use search engines to look up your services, but also social media. The best social media platforms for B2B businesses depend on how much your services cost. For higher-ticket services, you should focus your social media efforts on LinkedIn and Twitter as these are commonly used by professionals in a personal and professional manner. This limited presence is ideal for higher-ticket services because your audience is likely more niche.
For lower-ticket services, focus on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook, as well as Instagram if your business is visually-focused. Having a larger presence for services with a smaller price tag will help increase brand awareness and prospect communication.
Publication Schedule
Once you know where you’re posting and what you’re posting, you need a posting schedule. For B2B, less is more. Depending on your audience, you may benefit from posts published once per week or about three times per week. The exact frequency will depend on how often your audience is on those social media platforms, so be sure to test this out and watch the data.
To publish social media content, you can use social media scheduling tools, such as Hootsuite, TweetDeck, and Buffer, which include free plans, as well as Zoho Social, Oktopost, SocialOomph, Sprout Social, and more. We recommend choosing one social media scheduling tool based on your platforms, needs, and budget. This way, you can create posts in one sitting and schedule them to publish in a week, a month, or at a later time. This streamlines the time you spend on social media for your business, but don’t forget to check your pages, too. Alternatively, you can publish directly to each native platform, but this often takes longer, especially if you want to share a similar post on multiple platforms, and most platforms don’t have scheduling options, limiting your publishing times to “now.”
social media content
Promotional posts have their place, but educational and newsworthy posts should be the majority. Depending on your industry and personality, you may be able to showcase a behind-the-scenes look at your business, too. Live video works great for this. You also may be able to entertain your followers with creative posts; B2B customers still enjoy being entertained, though entertainment should not be the primary focus of your social media program.
Use the Data
Social media is always changing just as your customer’s needs are always changing, which is why it’s important to review social media analytics for all of your active pages at least monthly. This will help you review the latest comments, messages, and reviews, as well as see what content received the most engagement (likes and comments).
Engagement isn’t the top priority for B2B businesses (instead, informing your ideal audience is), but it’s still a good practice to see what content your followers like and what content helps reduce common customer questions. Since your social media pages are meant to convey industry expertise and skills, using the data to make changes to your social media program will only benefit your social media program and business all around because you will be helping your customers.
respond
Social media is meant to be “social,” so B2B businesses need at least one dedicated team member to check each social media platform daily, minimum, in order to reply to follower comments and DMs.
Our team works as a fluid extension of each of our member’s businesses by developing strategies and executing projects in whatever capacity is best for their unique needs.
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