Written by ContentPowered.com
Social media should be one of the major components of all the things your B2B business does including marketing, product development, customer service and sales. It’s a huge surprise to see how many B2B companies overlook this important task.
If you think that integration is simply adding a Facebook or Twitter logo on your B2B marketing collateral and it’s done, you still have a lot to learn. There are many other ways you can use social media for your B2B marketing that goes well beyond the basics.
Below are some of the different ways you can take advantage of using social media for your B2B marketing.
Email and Newsletters
Every single email and newsletter you send out should have a call to action for social media. This means having the company’s links to social media included in all the emails and letters from your employee’s under their email signature. When people are reading emails, they are already online, so it is a lot easier for them to click over to the social media link attached.
Your Company Brand
Always be sure that your B2B social media profile is branded properly to match the feel and look of your brand. Have some good branded wallpaper for your profile on Twitter and skin your YouTube page with your brand. Create an message in a voice and tone on social media that matches the voice of your offline messaging.
Content Sharing
Make sure all of your content is simple to share by using services such as ShareThis or AddThis. On Facebook, companies who have the Facebook “like” button on their website have an increase of 65 percent in referral traffic just from Facebook.
Third-Party Blogs
If you find out that your company is mentioned by a third-party blog, be sure you include it in your press room. Over 80 percent of people who use the Internet also read blogs (Source: Social Media Examiner). When you can get blog coverage, it’s just as credible as having press coverage.
Microsites
To combine all your social media activity, create a microsite. When you have a microsite, the consumer has a place to go see all your current activity. Here you can have your feeds from Twitter and Facebook, a Google News RSS feed for press releases and company news, any YouTube videos you have and an RSS feed from your blog. Use this portal as your home page for social media and as a call-to-action area for your offline activity.
Blogging
The B2B companies that blog have more leads than companies that don’t blog. From an SEO perspective, if you want credit for this traffic, integrate your blog under your corporate domain. For instance, blogs hosted on Blogger or Tumblr won’t increase your website ranking. Use a platform such as WordPress to get your blog into your corporate site.
Twitter Hashtag
If you host an event or conference, make sure you provide a Twitter hashtag to tweet about it before it happens. Keep in mind that most Twitter users have 126 followers (Source: the Guardian). If you have ten people tweeting during your event, you just exposed over 1,000 people to your event. You can use the Twitter hashtags so your audience can tweet questions during any panel discussions. Post those tweets on a screen behind the panelists.
Mobile Website
We all know how much smartphones are used today. By creating a mobile version of your company website, business executives on the go can access your site directly from their phone. To drive people to your mobile site, take advantage of using QR codes, and set up links to your profiles on social media. If you are a local B2B business, reward frequent visitors with special deals and discounts.
Search Engine Traffic
Go through your search engine traffic and see what keywords are being used the most to drive people to your site. Next, build an automatic search feed for those specific keywords on Twitter so you can find people who have conversations using those keywords on Twitter. You might find that these people are potential prospects, so tweet with them!
Facebook Contest
Promote a Facebook fan contest and add it to your newsletters, emails, printed ads and radio spots. Require people to “like” your page and become a fan to have a chance to win a good prize. Take it even one step further by telling them they can gain extra entries to the contest for mentioning your contest on their own Facebook wall or for inviting their friends to enter the contest. This is how you take advantage of the viral effect of social media. Create a Facebook tab for your contest and have people give you their email address when signing up. This way you have new Facebook fans, and you build a great email database.
Promotions
Run a big promotion on Facebook and have the prize be tickets to a local sporting event or concert. Local events will encourage entries from the people who live in your area. Join up with a media partner such as a radio station locally or a newspaper to save costs on publicity and promotional costs. You will find you get a lot more coverage and press than going at it alone. Tell people to “like” your Facebook page or have them write on your media partner’s wall. This way, both your organizations will benefit.
Remember that integrating social media is a lot more than just adding it to your regular marketing programs. Social media needs to be in the middle of every aspect of your business including marketing research, customer service and product development. Know the audience, and think of how you can extend your conversations from offline to online.
Brandon M.
says:Thank you BoostLikes, I think your next post should be on B2B email marketing 🙂