At one time, social media was essentially a B2C marketing tactic. But now B2B marketers are getting into the game, experimenting with ways to generate ROI from all of those updates, tweets, photos and videos they are posting on social platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. For B2B marketers, there are now seven very good reasons to make social media part of their B2B marketing stack.
1: Boost fan loyalty
The more active you are on social media, across as many platforms as possible, the more you will be able to engage with your fans. And that, in turns, leads to increased fan loyalty. Each update is a mini window into your company and your brand, and makes it easier to create relationships with fans.
2: Increase brand recognition
It’s harder for B2B brands than B2C brands to have everyday name recognition, but social media is the key to getting your name out there. The reason is simple: every post or every tweet that you make can be amplified 10x or 100x – and that means you are reaching a much larger audience than you ever thought possible.
3: Increase website traffic
As long as people are liking, commenting on and sharing your content, you have a powerful tool for driving incremental traffic to your website. Each like, each share can lead to new website visitors. All you have to do is include a link back to your website with each social media update.
4: Improve search engine rankings
Having an active social media presence is one way to improve your search rankings. Google will view your website as being more authoritative if you are using social media to keep the site fresh and generating a lot of social traffic.
5: Improve marketplace insights
Social media is not inherently a “broadcast medium” – it’s much more of a conversational medium. And, as part of having any conversations, there’s a certain amount of listening that needs to be done. The more you listen on social platforms, the more you will learn about competitors, trends and other industry developments.
6: Reduce marketing costs
Social media is essentially free. While there are always options to boost the reach of your social posts by advertising, any organic traffic that your social sites create costs nothing except your time. When you compare social media costs with more traditional outbound “paid media” costs, you can see why so many companies are choosing to run their marketing campaigns solely on social media.
7: Boost lead generation
Every person who interacts with you on social media is a potential lead. Of course, you can’t expect that every interaction will eventually lead to a sale, but you can expect that if people are engaging with your content – as measured by likes and shares – then they are interested in what you have to say.
Those are the seven big reasons why social media should become part of your B2B marketing stack. The choice of platform and channel can change, depending on your primary business goal.
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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.