Social Media Strategy For B2B – What Does It Entail?
It is fair to say that when most people think of social media marketing for companies they think of large consumer facing corporations. Any social media strategy for these campaigns will be targeted towards large numbers of consumers and as a result marketing teams will opt for large exposure and brand awareness. However what may be less well known is the fact that marketing through social media channels can also be used to open up areas of opportunity to companies who operate solely in the business to business sector.
Using social media platforms for any B2B company can open up a whole window of opportunity such as:
- Marketing – Having the ability to engage with a whole myriad of other companies and prospects, no matter how niche your business is.
- Reputation management – Social media platforms give you the ability to grow and control how other businesses and potential customers see your brand/company so it can be portrayed in the right light.
- Market Research – Social Technologies and related tools provide a very cost effective way to monitor information in the marketplace and gather industry intelligence.
- Operational improvements – Using Social Technologies, there are opportunities to improve internal performance through improved communication and information sharing, but also opens new avenues that allow you to cost-effectively outsource.
For any B2B company undergoing a social media strategy it’s important to be able to make sure that it can be implemented easily and efficiently and communicated down through the organisation. Here are some key points to take into consideration…
- Identification and training – Any organisation needs a designated social media team and these individuals need to be identified and then trained in order to carry out the social media strategy to its full potential.
- Establishment of targets and goals – By clearly defining goals and establishing targets your B2B Social Media Strategy is likely to have a benchmark to aim for. Whether that be achieving 5000 Facebook likes within a certain time period of whether it means obtaining 10,000 website views every month, targets and goals should be measured and achievable.
- Selecting the most valuable platforms and implementation – It’s always prudent to select only those platforms that are going to help your business. Fundamentally based on your goals you should be able to determine which channels your clients will be engaging and which channels will be rich sources of information. YourSocial Media Strategy needs to focus your resources in these areas. If in doubt – a little research or if necessary trial and measure will answer the question very quickly.
- Review and improve – The best social media strategy is the one that can be measured and reviewed easily. If a marketing element isn’t getting the results you had hoped for, then it can be tweaked and improved. It also has to be kept in mind that Social Media is still relatively new so is very dynamic. The Social Media Team should be encouraged to continually learn and try new platforms.
If you are in the business to business arena and need advice on developing your Social Media Strategy, then give us a call, we’re more than happy to be of assistance.
