B2B Myth of the Week: Social Media Content Should Be All-Business
by MGB2B
Myth: Social Media Content for B2B Brands Needs to be All-Business
Fact: Social Media is the Perfect Channel to Show Brand Personality
Social media content for B2B brands must revolve around statistics, numbers, and charts. Right? Wrong. While buyers do need practical information, it’s also necessary to humanize your brand. To do so, make sure some of your content resonates with your buyer’s emotions. After all, at the end of the day, it’s a human making purchase decisions. Need help getting started? Here’s three jumping off points to get your creative content up and running:
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Tell Stories
Storytelling is a simple way for buyers to relate to the brand. This, in turn, strengthens the relationship between brands and buyers. By sharing stories on social media, your company has a chance to develop a personality that strikes a chord with your audience. According to a study at Stanford University, information shared through stories is remembered 22 times more than facts alone. So what kind of stories can you tell? Try a testimonial from a satisfied client. Polish up your brand creation story. Or consider a story that demonstrates how your product or service can solve a problem.
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Use Humor.
People often assume that social media content for B2B brands is limited to stiff and serious posts. Including humorous content is a great way to get people interested in what your brand is doing. Let’s face it, most people don’t expect B2B brands to be funny. Use that to your advantage. Incorporating humor can be an extremely successful way of getting attention from potential buyers. There are plenty of ways to mix a little humor into your content calendar. Get creative with photos and videos that your brand is sharing. Is there something people find confusing about your brand? Poke fun at yourself (like MailChimp does). Or maybe there’s a common challenge in your industry you can make light of. A little levity can go a long way in ingratiating your brand to your audience.
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Show the Brand’s Personality.
Developing a personality that is associated with your brand has way more impact than just facts and numbers. Audiences remember personalities over stats. This one’s tricky – it’s easy for B2Bs to fall into the same-old personality traits: committed, quality-oriented, eco-friendly, etc. But who is your brand really? And how does that resonate with your audience? Make yourself memorable. Think about what ultimately motivates your brand, and develop your character from there. Is your brand personality wise? An explorer? A trusted advisor? Do you aim to challenge or inspire? Whatever you feel your brand is, infuse those characteristics into your content (not to mention your ad copy and visuals) and stand out from the pack.
Even though it seems like social media content for B2B brands is limited, it’s just the opposite. It’s an opportunity to showcase just what makes your brand tick. While facts and stats provide the proof, your brand personality will resonate far longer.
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Executive Branding for Manufacturers: Your Hidden Marketing Superhero
by Emily Swet
Manufacturing is a traditional industry. And traditionally, industry executives have stayed off the grid, focusing on marketing their products and brands. Companies were a brand unto their own, and there was formidable strength in remaining faceless. But trends are shifting. Today’s audience is increasingly accustomed to building relationships not only with brands, but the people behind them. Work this to your advantage, and unleash one of your best assets – executive branding for manufacturers.
What is Executive Branding?
Executive branding is when key players at a company build their profiles online for the benefit of the company. Their beliefs, opinions, and most importantly, their industry expertise are put front-and-center. For manufacturing brands, it’s a great opportunity to bring your brand to life and add a little personality. Especially if your key players are already blessed with great personalities to begin with.
Manufacturing marketers often struggle with how to present dry subjects in ways that make an impact. And they’re often marketing to other manufacturers or distributers instead of directly to a consumer. As one of Forbes’ top trends for B2B marketing in 2017, executive branding is an effective strategy to counter this. Breathe life into your campaign by putting your leaders at the forefront. By placing some marketing emphasis on your leaders, prospective buyers will have a human reference point in their decision-making process. Plus, they’ll know what the company culture is like and a little about what the brand is likely to stand for.
Same Techniques, Smaller Scale
Executive branding takes the same concepts you’d use to market your products or services, and applies it to your executive leaders. Build and market your individual leaders’ knowledge, authority, and humanity. Use your executive to answer they buyer’s “why” and build their trust. Seeing the company from the CEO’s point of view goes a long way – buyers want to know what they think, not the staff writer. And a strong executive brand can create a connection with your future buyers long before the first purchase.
Think of your CEO as a brand persona. Create an executive communication plan that addresses:
- The kind of content your thought leaders (or the marketers behind them) will create
- The kind of content they will comment on/interact with
- How they present their persona digitally, as well as in real life
And when it comes to content, focus on knowledge, expertise, and personality. But – and we cannot express the importance of this – omit the direct pitch. A well-branded executive can guide your buyer into your funnel without needing an obvious shove. From LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter to a personal company blog, there are plenty of opportunities to promote your executives as thought leaders. Even the humble email newsletter has a powerful impact when it comes from your CEO.
If you’re not interested in promoting yourself, we get it. A seasoned marketing company is a good place to start, both for devising a strategy and executing content. And consider the consequences of not participating on social media. Executives can come off either not technologically advanced or worse, not transparent. At a time when social presence, public relations, relationship building, and marketing are intrinsically linked, executive branding shouldn’t be considered an add-on, but a necessity.
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B2B Monday Myth: Customer Service Isn’t Important for Brand Identity
by MGB2B
The Myth: Customer Service Has Nothing to Do with My B2B Brand Identity
The Truth: Building Brand Loyalty Requires Robust Support and Engagement
A brand is more than just a logo or a message on a company website. A brand is a combination of several different things, including the way a business interacts with its clients and how the clients feel about the product or service. If it’s been taking a back seat in your marketing strategy, it’s time to consider how customer service for B2B brand identity can help.
Customer service is not a just a department.
Many companies make the mistake of thinking that once a transaction is made, their job is done. But brand building doesn’t stop when the sale is complete. Following up with customers and maintaining a relationship with them is just as important. It ensures that your customers feel positively about your business, encourages them to come back, and even creates raving fans that will market your product for you. Positive brand perception requires authentic interactions that engage. Your marketing strategy should rely on customer service for B2B brand identity to accomplish it.
There are several different strategies for continuing to interact with your client base to earn their trust and build brand loyalty:
- Define yourself through action.Ultimately, the quality of your business is determined by your actions. Clearly identify your company’s purpose and customer support standards. This culture code should be carried out through every level of your company, from top to bottom. In today’s world, it’s not just about what your brand says — it’s about what you do.
Be transparent and available. This is your opportunity to show customers they can rely on you. Be reachable by phone, email, or social media when other companies aren’t. Contact information should be easily available, especially a call center number. This lets customers know there are real people behind your brand — an online FAQ page just isn’t sufficient. Further more, these interactions display what your company is about, and determines what customers say about your business. Own up to any mistakes, and make sure that every support call ends successfully. - Engage on social media. Most business are active online, so use this to your advantage. Engage in genuine conversation with your customers on social media. Personal messages and replies are most likely to increase brand loyalty and awareness. Online communities aren’t just for consumers — businesses also turn to the internet to ask questions, provide answers, and share knowledge about a product or service.
- Encourage feedback. Finally, every brand needs a system to track customer feedback. The most successful companies are often marked by their willingness to let customers speak out about their experiences — positive or negative. Making a customer feel acknowledged will build their trust and help you understand where you might not have met a their expectations.
Customer service is often looked at as something specific only to consumer brands. It’s also the task that many B2B companies dread handling. However, it’s just as important for B2B. Use it to your advantage and elevate the perception of your brand. Start to amp up your customer service for B2B brand identity, and companies will continue to bring their business to you time after time.
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