Social media has grown to become a powerful tool for digital marketers everywhere. When used the right way, it can be a great way to build your brand’s image, nurture relationships with your target audience, and even generate leads. While it may seem like the obvious choice to utilize social media platforms for B2C companies, B2B companies can also benefit from these platforms, with 75% of B2B buyers and 84% of C-level executives using social media to help make purchase decisions.
Through the right channels and proper strategy, B2B companies can enrich lead generation strategies through social media. Here are a few tips on the best practices for maximizing social media lead generation for your B2B brand.
1. Promote gated content
One of the easiest methods to get leads through social media is through promoting your gated content on your profiles. Whatever this content might be—eBooks, comprehensive guides, or whitepapers—it’s worth sharing if you think your audience can find value in it.
The frequency of sharing your content will depend on the platform. For example, it’s recommended to promote on Twitter once a day and once a week for Facebook or LinkedIn.
2. Build up your network
Beyond promoting your products and services, social media can be a great way to nurture relationships with your existing clients. It also serves to build a positive and credible reputation that prospective clients will hear about. This can be done by following and connecting with industry leaders, engaging followers through replies, and participating in forums to offer expert opinions.
3. Target your customers accurately
55% of B2B clients use social media to scope out potential product or vendor information. Take advantage of this by making sure that you’re reaching your clients on the right platforms. Focus on your ideal buyer personas and see which platforms best fit their online behaviors. While LinkedIn can seem like an obvious choice for B2B clients, other platforms may have advantages that better suit your business model.
In addition to this, making use of targeted ads on social media can be more effective, with marketers reporting a 25% increase in conversions for paid social media.
4. Tailor your content to the platform
Social media platforms all have their own quirks. Posting the same copy in the same format across all your social pages can come off as repetitive and uninteresting. Understanding the differences between these social networking sites and how your target audience uses these platforms can make all the difference.
More casual platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are more suited for instant content engagement and multimedia posts. Meanwhile, LinkedIn is good for more technical and professional content.
5. Be consistent
Social media may need different approaches, but your brand should still be consistent across all platforms. Take the time to decide on your company’s social media image and how to best convey it across the various platforms.
Consider this: Your social pages may be the first time potential clients encounter your brand, so it’s important that you make a good impression. By aiming for brand consistency, you are assured that every touch point will eventually lead to conversion.
Aside from posting and sharing content, updating your profiles and making full use of your selected platform’s features can go a long way in promoting your business.
6. Set up a social media contest
Contests or giveaways are a surefire way to get new leads, especially if your contests require participants to sign up or engage with your social pages. However, choosing the prizes for these contests should be done with care.
Giving away the latest gadgets or vacation trips can attract a lot of attention and participants, but they may only be interested in the giveaway and not your brand. To best maximize your leads that will most likely convert to sales, your targeting strategy and prizes must suit the needs of your ideal buyers. Giving away a free trial of your product or a service related to your industry may attract fewer participants, but these leads are of better quality and have a higher chance of converting to paying customers, should they like your product or service.
7. Conduct social media listening and monitoring
It’s important to consider your business’ long-term strategy for digital marketing. Paying attention to the data from your social pages, as well as the data in the industry can help improve your marketing performance.
Social media management tools have monitoring features that help you keep track of the metrics of your various social pages. This makes it easier to find which aspects to focus on, what practices you can do better, and what strategies are more effective. Meanwhile, making use of social media listening tools allow you to find potentially related topics and issues that your business can address through your posts and content.
Turn Your Likes to Leads
There’s no denying that social media is where your potential leads are. A good understanding of who your target audiences are can push you in the right direction in choosing which platforms to use, what kind of content to share, and how to best engage them to generate leads and possibly convert to sales. Keep up with the crowd and stay ahead of the competition by elevating your B2B marketing strategies today!
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