Too many companies view social media as just another broadcast medium – a way to “get the word out” about new products, new promotions or new deals. While that approach may have worked in the analog era, it has limited value in the digital era. The secret to getting more B2B sales leads is customer engagement. Here are a few ways to ramp up the level of engagement on your social media pages:
#1: Share useful content
This may seem like a no-brainer, but there’s a big difference between sharing promotional material and sharing genuinely useful information. Some companies have adapted, replacing their slick marketing materials with infographics, e-books and blog content. All of that is content that can be downloaded and used by others.
#2: Listen to your customers
Instead of thinking of social media as a broadcast medium, think of it as a listening platform. Everyday, your customers are having discussions about brands, products and solutions. More importantly, they are having discussions about the types of problems and issues that they encounter every day. By listening to what they are tweeting about, or posting updates about, you can get a unique look into what’s on their minds. Some social media platforms – like LinkedIn – are especially useful for hearing what’s on the mind of top users or leaders.
#3: Measure everything
Of course, there’s a lot to be said for anecdotal evidence that businesses are embracing a hot new trend, or that certain issues are top-of-mind within certain business leaders. But often, we let our biases, perceptions influence what we think about certain topics. That’s why it can be so hard to spot a new trend – it often flies in the face of everything we think is true. That’s why collecting and measuring data is so important – it’s a way of really knowing what’s going in with your social media sites. Data can help to separate a momentary blip from a longer-term trend.
#4: Embrace video
If there’s one type of content that’s great for engagement, it’s video. In fact, anything visual – a beautifully filtered Instagram photo of your new R&D lab, perhaps – works. But video is so important because it’s a quick and easy way to tell a long or complex story. In a quick, 30-second explainer video, you can explain what your company sells and how it can help customers. In fact, some companies just transform recent blog posts into videos – it’s a way of making it easier for people to consume your content. Instead of reading a 1000-word or 2000-word blog post, all they have to do is press “play” on their mobile device.
Ultimately, the goal of any effective social media campaign should be quality and not quantity. A few high-impact videos or status updates are more important than just flooding the channel with lots of new content. Just remember – the key to boosting B2B sales leads using social media is engagement. Your content really has to resonate with potential leads and have them coming back for more. Even if they don’t end up visiting your website, they may share your content with their friends and colleagues, and that’s just as good.
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Dane
Dane Cobain is a published author, freelance writer, book blogger, poet and (occasional) musician from High Wycombe, UK. Before going freelance, he worked as a social media marker, now specialising in writing about publishing, technology and marketing.