3 Simple Tips for a Successful B2B Social Media Marketing Campaign

The use of social media market campaigns has risen exponentially over the last few years, and for obvious reasons. Relative to other marketing strategies, social media market campaigns are extremely cost-effective, the audience is growing daily, and more and more people are turning to their online peers and business connections for advice, referrals and information.

If you are a B2B company, rather than a B2C, there are a few distinct differences that you’ll want to keep in mind when focusing on the best ways to evolve your social media marketing campaign. Unlike B2C businesses, the focus of a B2B social marketing campaign often includes the goals of searching for investors, locating exceptional talent and generating media buzz. By following a few simple tips, you can achieve all these goals: save time, money and frustration, and watch your business grow into the powerhouse that you envisioned.

1. Find Your Audience

According to a recent social media marketing industry report published online by www.socialmediaexaminer.com, both LinkedIn and Facebook tied for first place among B2B marketers as their most preferred marketing platform. By pulling in a respectable 29% each, or 58% of the 3,800 total B2B respondents, Facebook and LinkedIn came in well ahead of all other responses. (Blogging and Twitter came in second and third with 19% and 16% each, respectively.)

What does this all mean for your B2B social media marketing strategy? Simply put, if you want a piece of the action, you must become part of the action. If you are interested in developing strong business connections and relationships with other B2B companies, your first step should be maximizing your presence on LinkedIn and Facebook. This step alone will get you headed in the right direction.

If you need further evidence, think about this: over half (58%) of the B2B respondents in the social media marketing industry report indicated that they had developed crucial business partnerships through the use of social media. Think about that for a moment. By investing a little bit of time to build up your presence using Facebook and LinkedIn alone, you have the potential to significantly grow your business relationships.

You won’t be alone either. Based on the same report’s B2B respondents, 78% plan on increasing their presence on LinkedIn. While Facebook can be an important tool for B2B marketers, LinkedIn is the only service that was designed specifically to facilitate B2B relationships.

With a presence in over 20 countries and active users totaling more than 225 million, LinkedIn is the go-to social media platform for B2B marketers whose focus are both local and international.

For B2B marketers who focus largely on local business relationships, it is equally important to invest adequate time in building and promoting lead generation through both Facebook and LinkedIn. Facebook is a wonderful tool to announce local promotions, and its integration capabilities related to email marketing tools will save you time and labor. It’s also a great way to help gauge the popularity of a businesses ’brick-and-mortar’ locations

2. Consider SlideShare

According to LeadFormix, Inc, SlideShare, which is sort of the YouTube equivalent of the PowerPoint world, is used by almost half of all marketing experts and gets more online traffic from business owners than other platforms. Since SlideShare receives approximately 60 million unique visitors monthly, by aligning your B2B company with SlideShre (which was purchased by LinkedIn in 2012), you will increase your search rankings which, of course, will lead to more online exposure for your business.

Another reason to get on board with SlideShare is that it runs very smoothly on the LinkedIn platform, which is one reason that SlideShare has become really popular with the LinkedIn community. So, if you are going to increase your presence on LinkedIn, why not add SlideShare to the mix, for a productive double whammy?

3. Where are You Headed?

Finally, and, most importantly, it is imperative to have a social media marketing policy in place before you fully engage in any B2B marketing campaign. Otherwise you could waste considerable time and money, which are the two most valuable resources for any business.

Questions to ask yourself: Do I have a clear plan of action in place to ensure that my online marketing strategies will go off without a hitch? Do I have designated staff to monitor the results of my marketing strategies and to ensure that those strategies remain efficient and effective? If not, then you are on a ship without a map or a captain, and you will not get where you want to go.

So, LinkedIn, Facebook, SlideShare, and a plan. Is it just that simple? Well, yes and no. While there are many other considerations to take into account, the pointers listed here are imperative to the success of a B2B social marketing strategy. Follow them and you will be well on your way to achieve your business goals.

* If you haven’t signed up for LinkedIn or Facebook, you should do so today! While you are at it, connect with us for more great tips on social media marketing!