How-to Guide:B2B Social Media Marketing (Part I)

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Kenneth has enjoyed a marketing career both agency and client side. With over seven years experience writing B2B and B2C copy, Kenneth has created content for a wide variety of industries.

Enthusiastic about all things copy, he has a proven track record of creating content capable of generating leads, sales and revenue.

In the role of Head of Content at Really B2B (a Sunday Times Top 100 firm and ranked agency in B2B Marketing’s Agency League), Kenneth is responsible for creating a strong brand personality and crafting content for our B2B clients which generates action and solid ROI.

Kenneth is passionate about writing that gets results.

The AuthorKenneth Connolly

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Deciding to write a series of how-to guides on the uses and benefits of social media in the world of B2B marketing is like opening a dustbin-sized can of worms. The entire social media ‘landscape’ changes so quickly that by the time you’ve read to the bottom of this page, one social media site will probably have dropped out of fashion and another one taken its place. So why then did I decide to go ahead and write these guides?

The simple answer is results. Here at Really B2B we’re always ready to pounce on the next technological advance or behavioural change, as long as we can measure and prove it generates leads, sales and ROI.

Of the top 14 well-known social media sites (shown on the left), this trilogy of how-to guides is going to specifically discuss the top 4 which we know, from our own experience with clients, currently offer the best opportunity to support your business growth and revenue generation in the B2B space.

In part one of this series we’ll discuss in-depth the importance of blogging and the benefits of LinkedIn when generating B2B leads.

Social Media: websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking.

Percentage of B2B Marketers Who Use Various Social Media Sites to

Distribute Content

Source: 2013 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks – CM1/MarketingProfs

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B2B marketers who use blogs generate 67% more leads per month than those who do not”Factbrowser.com

When we talk about social media we very rarely throw the word ‘blog’ into discussions and yet this is where it all begins. Granted, when blogging first became popular it was simply a way for people to keep an online journal and discuss things like ‘I knitted my cat some slippers’. But nowadays, blogging is an essential part of every B2B inbound marketing campaign and a great way to create a community of subscribers and generate comments, feedback and engagement with you and your business.

Other benefits of blogging also include:

• Maintaining contact with your prospects and customer database on a regular basis

• Provide comments on wider issues such as industry related news

• Reuse and repurpose more extensive content such as ebooks, white papers or research data to drive prospects to your landing pages

• Build your brand personality, show thought leadership and display an understanding of and solution to your prospects’ issues.

Statistics like the one shown on the left generally provoke the same reaction in Managing Directors and Sales Directors – ‘we need to get blogging and quickly bring in some leads’. But, this is not what blogging is about. It will help to generate leads over time, but it’s not going to have your phone ringing off the hook within a week.

Here’s why... 

Blogging“

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The opportunity to generate leads via your blog comes when you start blogging about your larger pieces of content

Blogging and social media is about relationships. It’s a place where you can connect with your prospects, establish your brand identity and build a relationship of trust and shared knowledge. By maintaining this display of thought leadership and avoiding the sales-pitch, you give your prospects the chance to come to you with the understanding that your product/service is the solution to their concerns.

It won’t happen overnight, that much is for sure. But by blogging regularly, your community of subscribers will grow, as will their engagement in the form of comments/feedback and sharing via social media channels.

The opportunity to generate leads via your blog comes when you start blogging about your larger pieces of content. By discussing your latest ebook/white paper/case study or even including an excerpt from the publication on your blog, you can start to push your prospects to your landing pages (to find out more about landing pages, download our how-to guide to Inbound Marketing).

As if blogging wasn’t already offering enough fantastic benefits, it can also help your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). Search engines like to discover new content and will review the pages of a blog more regularly than a full website and help push your blog page further up the search engine results pages (SERPs).

Blogging Continued

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• Approximately 200 million (200,000,000): Total LinkedIn users worldwide• 2: Number of people who sign-up to LinkedIn every second• More than 1 million (1,000,000+): Number of Groups on LinkedIn

LinkedIn is considered to be the undisputed heavyweight champion of social media for businesses. Why?

The simple answer is because LinkedIn has more professionals than any other network. It’s even been referred to as a ‘virtual rolodex’. If you’re looking to target key decision-makers within a business or industry, then LinkedIn is the place to be.

“Within the UK alone there are over 10 million professional users and 2 million plus are Directors and above” - thelinkedinman.com

How-to: LinkedIn

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LinkedIn generates the highest visitor-to-lead conversion

The benefit of a LinkedIn presence for a business is perfectly illustrated in this data from a recent Hubspot report: ‘LinkedIn generated the highest visitor-to-lead conversion rate at 2.60%, four times higher than Twitter (0.67%) and seven times better than Facebook (0.39%)’.

You’ll see later in this series of guides that when creating a Facebook page for your business there is a certain opportunity for artistic license and a more ‘social’ aspect. However, with LinkedIn, it’s all business. Your LinkedIn page may be a determining factor in whether your prospect travels through the sales funnel to become a customer, or simply thinks your company looks amateurish and untrustworthy.

Therefore, make sure your LinkedIn business page looks like that of an industry leader. You will eventually be using this social media page as an outlet to show your thought leadership, so make sure your profile page equally suggests your expert criteria.

The branding on the page must be exact, as any inconsistencies may be considered an indication of unprofessionalism and a lack of brand understanding. When entering information about your company in the ‘Home’ section, be sure to ‘cut to the chase’. This is not the place for a sales pitch or a long-winded speech, simply mention the products/services you offer, and why you are an expert in this field.

As with all social media pages, make sure you include your company logo, a link back to your website and your contact details.

LinkedIn: Business Page Creation

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Your staff are vitally important and help to cement the professionalism and expertise of your company in the eyes of your prospects

On LinkedIn, key members of staff within your company become representatives and advertisements for your brand. This means two things... firstly, it is advisable to create profile guidelines for employees’ profile pages. Secondly, each key staff member can become a marketing channel for your company.

In your profile guidelines, make sure that your key staff members maintain a level of professionalism on their LinkedIn profile pages (i.e. no inappropriate or offensive profile photos – use your common sense here). Staff accounts should also mention the products/services and expertise of your company within their current employment section.

Your key staff should also:

• Build their own professional network (i.e. connect with prospects, customers and key opinion leaders

• Create their individual brand through knowledge sharing on their profile and with key groups and by participating in polls

The objectives of these staff members’ profiles should be...

• To share your news and content through status updates (to their own networks)

• Join groups focused around your specific industry

• Participate in relevant discussions and offer thought leadership content or answer questions related to key business issues

  

LinkedIn: Key Staff Profile Pages

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To save time, let a member of staff ‘manage’ your social media account

  These ‘promoters’ of your brand are vitally important and help to cement the professionalism and expertise of your company in the eyes of your prospects. Given that regularly updating your own social media account can take time which you may not have, why not consider letting others ‘manage’ your personal account? This simply means letting trusted members of staff log into your account and make updates and answer comments on your behalf. This is a great way to maintain your own personal social media presence without spreading yourself too thin.

Just be careful who you allow to manage your account. Don’t give your username and password to that guy in your office called ‘Crazy Kevin’.

LinkedIn: Key Staff Profile Pages Continued

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Only 30% of your social media posts should be self-promotion. The other 70% should be valuable information for your followers and not related to your brand

The phrase LinkedIn ‘Groups’ was mentioned briefly on the last page, but just to clarify, a Group is a collection of like-minded professionals who have joined a forum where they can each share information and take part in specific discussions.

These groups are a fantastic way to connect not just with other professionals within your industry, but also prospects. You can see what your prospects are talking about and understand their burning issues, concerns and pain points too.

There are a couple of things to remember though when you join a group. The first and most obvious is that they are not a place to start ‘spamming’ others with advertisements for your products, services or content. Yes, there will come a time when you can offer your latest ebook/white paper to other group members but don’t go in ‘all guns blazing’ from day one.

Groups are a great place to gain trust and become an influencer (group members whose contributions cause the most contributions from other group members).

Start your own discussion, respond to peoples’ questions, posts and comments and then measure the results.

Once you have become established within the group, gained the trust of your prospects and shown that you care about their feedback, then you can gradually suggest that they download your latest piece of content or get in touch with you.

LinkedIn: Groups

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LinkedIn offers better segmentation to get your ad in front of the exact prospects you are looking for

Other social media sites such as Facebook let you target your prospects based on certain pieces of profile data such as location, Likes and interests. But, if you are hoping to get your ad in front of a specific decision-maker with a particular job function who works in a specific sized company, then LinkedIn Ads are for you.

LinkedIn Ads offer a Pay Per Click option meaning you only incur a charge when someone clicks on your ad, but in return, you get to target your advertising to the exact person/people you are looking for.

Target your ads using data such as:

• Job Titles• Job Functions• Industries• Company Size• Plus many more...

With Google Ads becoming increasingly overcrowded and expensive, and Facebook Ads not offering strong enough B2B targeting options, the smart money is now being spent on LinkedIn Ads.  

LinkedIn: Ads

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In order to gauge the success of a LinkedIn campaign, the measurements and KPIs need to change. These are important for both your corporate account and also your key staff accounts. The data which needs to be collected and analysed is:

LinkedIn: Measurements & KPIs

Corporate Account Key Staff Accounts Total connections Likes, Comments and Shares on page

posts Responses to a question or an event Cost Per Click Conversion to follower Cost per follower

Total connections Likes, Comments and Shares on page

posts Responses to a question or an event

The information mentioned above can be gathered easily using a combination of data from LinkedIn and also your own analysis. However, in order to gather the information shown below, you will need to either use some form of tracking software or even a marketing automation tool.

• Conversion to download• Cost per download• Leads

It should go without saying that when it comes to online marketing these days, test, test and test again. With so many metrics available, there is no excuse for ‘hoping’ something works anymore. You are now able to measure almost every aspect of your activities and therefore experiment with them until you get the desired results. This is not just the case with LinkedIn, but with all of your social media marketing too. And believe me when I say that we practice what we preach. It’s through testing and amending that we have managed to secure leads and sales for our clients via social media.

With so many metrics available, there is no excuse for ‘hoping’ something works anymore

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Conclusion

So, there you go, you now know the importance of blogging and LinkedIn for B2B marketing. These two communication channels not only allow you to regularly engage your prospects, leads and customers with new content and information (while driving them to your landing pages), but also specifically target the high-quality leads you’ve been looking for (based on in-depth criteria).

What’s next? Well, the second how-to guide in this series will discuss the micro-blogging mammoth that is Twitter. We may not be able to keep the text under 140 characters, but you can rest assured that it’ll be filled with valuable information and tips on how to generate revenue and measure ROI using the most ‘reactive’ of all social media channels.

We’ll also discuss the best frequency for your social updates and how you should react to feedback and comments in a public environment.

Keep your eyes peeled for ‘How-to Guide: B2B Social Media Marketing (Part II)’ coming soon. But don’t worry, we’ll let you know when it’s available.

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LOOKING FOR BUSINESS GROWTH?If you’re interested in improving your lead generation processes, request a meeting.

We’d love to discuss your objectives and how our social media marketing services can help support your business growth.

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