My company has professional customers, should it be on Facebook ? Which content should I share if my company is in building? As many questions you are asking yourself if you communicate with professionals. We answer in this article to 8 false beliefs about B2B entreprise presence on social media!
1. Social networks are not for B2B companies !
Wrong!
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For a long time social networks didn’t attract B2B enterprises.
In France, people spend on average an hour and a half on social media each day. Not using a media with such a big audience is not an option anymore.
Users of social networks today are more and more used to consume and share brand content. Why not yours ?
The question is not if your company has to be on social networks but why. Defining a relevant and clear strategy is thus becoming necessary.
2. My brand is present on social media without a real strategy
Why is my brand on social ?
This simple question is the first step to develop your brand’s communication. Identifying new prospects, building an efficient competition benchmark, managing your online reputation, gaining in reach, recruiting and managing your employer brand, are among other the main possibles goals.
Answering that simple question shall define the objectives to set in order to roll out on social media. This key step should allow you to identify the opportunities and the risks of being present on line.
You can then compare them with the risks and opportunities of not being on social, and decide!
#TBT: 77 years ago, IBM and @Harvard agreed to build the “Giant Brain” digital calculator https://t.co/5sM4U0xgUN pic.twitter.com/ReDBWHBdn7 — IBM (@IBM) 31 mars 2016
Once you clear this step, you have to identify the values of your brands , they are needed if you want to develop a consistent social media policy. Rely on social concerns: ecology, life comfort, sustainable developement, safety at work…
This policy will give you a more precise idea of what your editorial choices should look like on social networks. You also have to define a launching process and the steps it involves, this implies evaluating the ressources required for your project.
Communicating about those issues with your internal teams allows your brand to develop its culture thus helping you to specify your values and the editorial strategy to adopt.
3. A B2B brand cannot be on Facebook or Instagram
That’s for a fact: our digitalized era see the line between professional and personal life disappearing..
Today, 30% of Twitter users make research about B2B companies against 12% of overall web users. A Business-to-Business marketer uses Facebook and other social networks daily. Your brand has to be present there.
Twitter is probably the most relevant network for your B2B strategy, it allows you to quickly share a picture or a link to your content.
Don’t hesitate to call out notable actors that are likely to be interested in your content, for them to share it.
Special Cargo – Loading a 350 metric tons tugboat! In February, the Special Cargo team at Maersk Line in Rotterdam added an impressive statistic to its résumé. The team loaded a tugboat weighing in at 350 metric tons – equalling the weight of 130 grown elephants! – onto Magleby Maersk headed to Singapore. This shipment broke the previous weight record of a 310 tons generator from Norfolk to Busan. #SpecialCargo #MaerskLine Une photo publiée par Maersk Line (@maerskline) le
LinkedIn, the professional network, which allows you to personalise your brand message and showcase your teams and their abilities.
Facebook offers an incredible display: its users are numerous and use it regularly. Why would you ignore it ? Imagine what content your target audience is expecting from you and benefit from that audience.
Instagram, king of the image allows you to visually differentiate, and to propose an other face to your professional activity.
You may also consider using SnapChat, Whatsapp or other networks that can help you to show an innovating image.
4. My B2B company doesn’t have content
Are you sure ?
Your (potential) followers are expecting you to tell them a nice story. Simple texts, photos or videos of your activities can be easily produced. Still thinking quality content requires a huge budget ? See Glass O-I example below.
Once you find your starting idea, it is important that you shape it and give it a tonality that will identify your brand: beauty, humour, passion, emotion. It’s essential for it to work.
You have the opportunity to publicly demonstrate the activity of your teams, their working space, their expertise via interviews, backstage reporting…
Members of your teams are the most genuine and qualified persons to promote your brand culture and the values you care for.
Innovating on content or its format is often successful – see this amazing Schneider Electric video. You can also get inspiration from strong trends while including your brands and its characteristics.
5. My B2B company cannot differentiate from its competitors
It’s up to you !
44% of B2B marketers have an elaborated content strategy. Too many companies that target professionals don’t optimise their on-line presence.
You have to get to a quality content production process. Associating a brand identity to it, allows you to distinguish yourself from competition..
Back to business and ready for the start of another great week. #HappyMonday!
Posté par FedEx sur lundi 14 mars 2016
With content traceable to your brand, you transforme your followers trust into attachment, encouraging shares and interactions. This should enlarge your reach and audience.
That distinction can be related to your services or your brand culture. The choice of your topics or the way you treat them also have to be a differentiating factor.
It also implies, as said before, message customization and highlighting your teams. We tend to prefer working with people we value.
General Electric, is not really a public favourite brand, but is one of the best examples of content creation for social media, especially on Instagram.
6. My followers won’t engage with my content
It only requires quality content and your engagement !
Establishing a publication routine is one of the key to success on social media. There are some tools that can help you maintaining the frequency of your posts (see our Engage service), and not to leave blanks in your on-line presence, during the week end for instance, when users are very active on social networks.
You have to think about the people who will consume your content while you create and diffuse it.
Better aircraft build a better world: discover the passion behind our desire to shape the future of flight. #Airbushttps://t.co/9XD9IkNUoS — Airbus (@Airbus) 1 mars 2016
Engage your followers by involving them in your campaign: encourage them to react for instance by asking them a question, with animations or by offering content that includes them (fans tagging, photos with them…).
You can’t ignore your fans feedbacks, that’s the key to maintain their engagement. Fulfilling this objective implies, moderate and answer message and comments in a reasonable lapse of time.
Read also : 10 steps to manage customers relationship on Twitter
Some of your fans will more repeatedly share your contents or react more than average, they’re your ambassadors and you need to value them so they become assets: They will introduce and promote your brand towards their contacts on networks.
7. My company cannot rely on its internal services to animate social networks
That’s (probably) wrong!
This might be the hardest process to set up, but you can bet that at least one person from your internal teams would be motivated to use social media for your brand.
The quickness and the regular usage of Twitter or a Facebook group allow to unite your teams and encourage internal exchanges. Some building companies have their site managers using Twitter to report encountered problems.
That’s one way to fix it pic.twitter.com/EECdxNNu0j
— Screwfix (@Screwfix) 24 mars 2016
Your role is to identify those person who will become your communication relays and encourage internal usage of social networks.
Your future marketing collegue might be among them !
8. It’s hard to measure engagement and success on social media for B2B companies
That’s a mistake! All your marketing actions have to be tracked and analysed.
Based on the objectives you set for your brand, you have to define your criteria of success.
Define them in the short and long term: managing presence on social media is a marathon, not a sprint!
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Impressions, reach, engagement rate, leads collected ou online or physical sales are some of the indicators to regularly monitor.
Some tools are needed to efficiently gather and analyse those data – our offer Analyse can help you in this.
Don’t hesitate to question or readjust your process, according to your results. Finally, don’t forget to share with your internal teams the positive results that will value your work and your brand on social media.
You also have to keep in mind that being present on Twitter and Facebook can only contribute to show a positive and modern image of your brand. Reputation, customers and prospects trust and fidelity can only be reinforced.
As a B2B marketer, social networks are a weapon: be sure your prospects are there. Those efforts don’t require massive financial investments, but they can totally change your brand image and boost your activity.This work demands consistency and rigor, while creating and diffusing content as well as while analysing its impact on your audience and your results.
On which network is your brand present ? Answer in comments !