Reaching your B2B target group via social media
Outsource B2B social media to an experienced party
Getting the attention of leads and prospects: B2B social media is often the basis for the first contact and you can choose to have this outsourced. You scroll a bit on your phone and before you know it, you've bought new socks! Social media are therefore an ideal tool to easily reach a large audience and incite them to action. Super fun if your name is H&M, Bol.com or HEMA.
But does that also apply to a small business audience? Does social media for B2B also work for products that are a bit more expensive? Say, a 1 million machine: does a B2B customer throw it in his shopping cart on a rainy Sunday afternoon? No, of course not.
So how do you use social media effectively for B2B? What choices do you make and through which channels do you best reach your target group? Voxx investigated what works and what does not.
Is the DMU even on social media?
What do you do with social media if B2B is your target market?
Leveraging social media for B2B: it's pretty challenging. Because the DMUs you most want to reach are often C-level. Precisely those are not on social media all day. So what is actually the value of social media for B2B? And how do you deploy it effectively?
Tip of the day
With us creative communication agency we believe that social media for B2B is not an end in itself when outsourcing. This is because the original 'social' aspect of these media (real direct contact with your customer) is often incredibly difficult to achieve. Especially since many people in B2B, and certainly at C-level, have little or no (professional) exposure to social media. This makes direct interaction with your customer difficult: few CEOs will use social media to communicate with potential suppliers.
Additional advertising column or content expert?
Social media are often used as an (additional) advertising column. This is certainly not necessarily a bad thing: after all, you don't want to keep people on your social media channels, but mainly refer them to your website! So use social media for B2B smartly, have it outsourced and don't see it as your end goal. Gaining' followers for the sake of gaining followers, aiming only for more reach or sending a tsunami of chest-beating into the world: this will not help you much.
So use social media as your company's signboard. Think of it as the old-fashioned billboard or - as content guru Cor Hospes says - the village pump. It is an excellent basis for reaching your audience, but make sure they then move on to your content platform, such as your website. Because that's where the real information can be found.
Figures: which social media for B2B?
70%
B2B marketers use social media
More than 70% of B2B marketers distribute company information through one of the "Big 4": LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. 54% say they generate leads through social media. The average B2B company has about six social media networks. 80% of B2B marketers have a specific social media strategy, but 32% have actually established it as a basis to work from.
71%
Twitter for product launch
77% of B2B marketers use Twitter to distribute content. 71% of B2B technology marketers say they use this medium as their main social media platform for product launch. Twitter is mainly used for PR purposes and is still the most important news platform among journalists.
59%
YouTube for B2B
59% of B2B marketers use YouTube to distribute content. It is currently the second search engine after Google and the fourth most effective B2B channel used by marketers after email, LinkedIn and print. 73% of B2B marketers say video has a positive impact on ROI. Especially for webinars, YouTube is an interesting channel that customers are waiting for.
91%
Linkedin is the B2B source
91% of B2B executives choose LinkedIn as their primary source for news and relevant content (64% choose online news sources and 29% choose Twitter). It is second only to email. Some 80% of relevant leads come from LinkedIn, it is 227% more effective for lead generation from ads than other social media, and B2B marketers rate LinkedIn as the most important social media platform for content marketing. LinkedIn users visit a B2B website 4x more often than Facebook users and LinkedIn generates the highest visitor conversion rate (3x higher than Twitter and Facebook). 49% researches suppliers through LinkedIn profiles and 44% says it found potential suppliers through 'shared connections' on LinkedIn. In short ... social media for B2B starts with LinkedIn.
conclusion_
How do you become a stayer?
Want to engage people on social media? Then first set up a platform or channel that people come back to. Be clear about what they can find with you and offer information by means of storytelling.
The important thing is to use social media especially to highlight your expertise to a broad target audience. After all, expertise is what you ultimately sell, right?
So check out a content strategy that you base on your expertise. Some call it Thought Leadership, and this can apply to a product or service, a person with a vision or a company with a mission.
Either way: social media outsourcing for B2B is also about a consistent story tell others something that is of real use to them. Otherwise, it may be much better to leave the tweeting and twittering to others and focus on channels, where your customers do have the peace and interest to absorb your information.
That is our experience.
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Contact us for content and copy
Would you like to outsource your social media for B2B to our seniors in Amsterdam? Then get in touch with us! With us, you have direct and personal contact without unnecessary extra layers of communication. As a result, we switch quickly and create truly substantive content. Call us at +31 (0) 20 427 44 33 or send an e-mail to info@voxx.nl and discuss the possibilities for your business.