Read on if you are a B2B marketer without any idea of how to strategize your business’ foray into the world of Social Media Marketing.
Alright, according to a B2B social media survey by Pardot, 42% of B2B marketers report zero sales lead from Social Media. Bad news is it? Not quite in my book, as it means 58% do get leads. Takeaway1- “BE OPTIMISTIC”. So, how do they get the leads, do they have rocket scientists on board? obviously not!.They simply have forayed into the space with a clear strategy in place. The following lines should help any B2B marketer, big or small, to develop a clear understanding of what needs to be done to attain success on social media.
Listen
Any social media effort has to start with listening. Before even your first blog post or your first tweet, listen what is being talked about. Go ahead and take the services of social monitoring tools and listen what people are talking about your brand, about your products. Listed are a few insights that needs to be looked at:-
1. What are people talking about your brand and your products?
2. Where are these people talking on? Are they on Forums/Facebook/Linkedin etc.
3.What is being spoken about the competition?
4. What keywords or hashtags are people using when they talk about your brand. Monitoring tools like Brandwatch, Radian6 have comprehensive keyword cloud graphs.
5. Who are the industry influencers on social media?
Set your Goals right
Don’t just enter social media because your competitor is on it. That’s way too dangerous. Social Media is going to live forever, so you cannot afford to enter, create an audience and leave it when you are not getting results. If you are in it, you are in it forever. There’s no stopping mid-way, of course you can always change your strategy if it’s not working, but you cant leave the space until the audience is leaving a particular platform and embracing another. If it has to be done with a long term view, then better do it right. Never rush into it, remember the age old saying Haste makes waste? Take time, brainstorm and come up with a clear answer as to why you need to be on social media and what you would want to achieve by being on it. The first step of “Listening” should answer most of the questions for you. Takeaway2:- “LISTENING NEVER STOPS”
Choose the platform
Get out of the “I want to be on Facebook Syndrome” and see whether you really need to be on Facebook. If your audience is elsewhere, there’s no point in being on Facebook. Based on your findings during the listening phase, you need to choose the platforms. This probably reiterates the importance of listening for social media marketing. Almost each and every step depends on listening. The longer you listen the better insights you would be able to derive.
Post good and informative Content
Content will decide your success or failure on social media. Whichever platform you choose, you need to ensure that the content is appealing to the audience. A typical B2C marketer can afford to be slightly casual and be playful on his FB or Twitter profile, but a B2B marketer cant afford to do that. I dont mean to say be dead serious and sound boring, but ensure the tone suits your audience. Audience on social media easily understand marketing tone and this will put them off, so concentrate more on adding value. An occasional sales pitch is fine, but never base all your content with an intention of getting some marketing mileage. Takeway 3–”Content is still the King”
Run Ad Campaigns
Never hesitate to try out Ad campaigns on platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Facebook and LinkedIn have comprehensive audience targetting options and it will help your message reach the right audience. You can run ad campaigns even if your business is not on Facebook. They are very inexpensive and the FB ad products can help you reach the exact audience. Moreover, they show you the exact potential reach of your message. Takeaway 4–” Not everything is free on Social Media” so spend, if the need be.
Analyze
Analyze and see if your efforts are meeting with success. Some key KPIs you need to look at are:
1. Visits to the website from Social Media websites.
2. Other web analytics stats like time spent on website, conversions etc
3. Clicks on Shortened links.
4. Number of ReTweets, @mentions, likes and comments (on Facebook or Linkedin Groups), shares, Increase in fans and followers etc.
Good news is that, not all analytical applications come with a cost attached to it. Some like twitter stats, FB and LinkedIn insights, Bit.ly Analytics are free, so try these out and derive insights.
Last Tip
Last, but not the least, take the aid of other forms of marketing, online or otherwise, to spread the word about your social assets. Have social asset buttons placed on your website, ask your employees to add the business’ social profile buttons on their email signature. If you are a guest speaker at a conference, make sure to add your social profile ids at the end of the presentations, make use of the back side of the employees’ business cards. Fill it with the social profile information. Never hesitate to try things and hope that everything combines well and gets you in the 58% of B2B marketers who get sales leads from Social Marketing efforts !!
Please feel free to drop in a comment or two. Any feedback good or bad are welcome 
Good and light article to read for the weekend…….