Help, We need a social media strategy!
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Yes, that’s the big question in the mind of many B2B marketing executives. Until recently, that included myself.
I did not really understand what to do with this “social media” thing. To put it black and white, I thought
- Facebook was for children and not for B2B,
- LinkedIn is for business only and serves to connect with people that I know or do not know,
- and I had no clue on why a company should use Twitter?
I think that about sums up all the prejudices I had on social media.
The moment I realized what to do with social media
Last year I started reading some great books on social media. I admit, I am a late believer, but around that timeframe it started to become clear to me what I had to do with social media in a B2B context.
As I wrote before in another post on social media, you should be where our buyers are. If your buyers, although they might be there for another reason than doing business (connecting with their friends or relatives), we should be where they are. Your buyers are there joining groups related to your business, and discussing trends, features and products!
How on earth will Twitter create useful opportunities for my B2B company?
Many B2B companies struggle with what to do with social media. They start creating a page on Facebook, Google+ or any other social media platform. And usually also a Twitter account.
But I’ve seen many B2B companies using it as an extension of their public relations, in which they just tweet about their press releases, new product launches, their promotions, etc…. Now that’s something you should not doing on Twitter.
Does my B2B company need Twitter?
If you are still asking yourself that question, you urgently need to dig into the topic of social media (you can start already today by reading this blog). Twitter, and social media in general, is being used heavily in B2B by journalists, analysts, but also your customers. They stay up to speed on trends, companies, and news, and educate themselves using social media.
“Social media networking” : Don’t we have better things to do?
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Many executives do not understand the power of social media networks.
And as such, your boss might be asking to you: why are you spending your time on “social networking” ? You should be plotting marketing strategies, and generate leads, and other stuff that marketers usually do.
If they ask you that question, just pop this counter-question :
How important is LinkedIn to your sales people?
He or she will probably respond that it is an important way of finding new business contacts, and information about companies and their occupation. And that for them it is a way to get in touch with people they want to meet. Or that its serves as a tool to track down occupations of people or companies to see if there is a link with business opportunities. Or that they are joining special interest groups on LinkedIn because that’s where people interact about trending topics, or even business opportunities.
