Does Social Media Work for B2B Companies?
B2B companies ask us often “Does Social Media Work for B2B?” and in our experience that question is being asked because there is a presupposition that is doesn’t work for B2B markets. But as with any answer we give here on the Acumen blog it really depends. What does it depend on? What does “Work” mean for you as a B2B company?
If you simply ask Does Social Media Work for B2B Businesses then the answer is Yes!
If you ask will social media increase sales for my B2B company, then the answer isn’t so simple.
What are Your Social Media Goals?
Are you trying to primarily increase brand awareness, increase engagement, generate leads, increase sales? While you may want to say ALL of those things, the hard truth is that you aren’t going to be able to easily accomplish that if you are medium to smaller size B2B company. So focusing on one will allow you to more easily generate the results you are looking for.
Speaking of company size, we’ll discuss that a little later in the post, so keep reading!
Each goal has a different tactic that you would apply within social media to achieve success.
Awareness for example would be doing things to get in front of your prospective buyer over, and over, and over, and over, etc. This way they know that you exist, know who you are, and what you do.
But if you are trying to increase sales then you’ll be posting a lot more direct response content related to selling a product.
The content you post cannot be in conflict with your goal on social media.
Make Social Media Work for B2B
For most medium sized to small B2B companies you need to be posting at least 3 times per week with a mix of consideration focused content and direct sales posts.
This will generate more leads overall but at the same time mildly accomplish increasing brand awareness.
Why Can’t I Do “All the Social Media Things”?
We think you know the answer to that. Bandwidth and Return on Investment (ROI).
You likely don’t have the resources to put into it and there is a point of diminishing return on the social media effort. But how do I grow then you may say? Our answer is to leverage social but grow your customer base in other more efficient ways such as SEO, direct sales and advertising (which you can do on social by the way, which is different then using organic non-paid social media).
Huge B2B brands can pull this off but they didn’t build their business on the back of social media. Social becomes most effective once your brand has reached a significant customer base that can be leveraged to make your social media do real work for you.
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