B2B Monday Myth: More Is More on Social Media
by Emily Swet
The Myth: More Is More in Your B2B Social Media Strategy
The Truth: Scale Back on Quantity, Scale Up on Quality
Social media is growing up. At this point, the hustle to fill space is over. Audiences have set the pace of what they want to see, and when. It’s true that, as marketers, our goal is to move that needle – albeit with a deft hand. There is value in restraint: unbridled social calendars can have a detrimental impact on your goals. Take a moment to audit your current B2B social media strategy, and see if anything sounds familiar.
- What Are You Posting? Take a closer look at your content. Is there value to it? Or are you merely posting to meet your daily quotas? Think critically on this. While you do need to stay active throughout the week, posting your FAQs page just for the sake of having a post isn’t the path to engagement. Content that isn’t valuable to your audience won’t be valuable to your sales funnel either.
- Abandon the Spray & Pray Method. How many times and across how many platforms are you posting? There’s a good chance a large portion of your followers is the same across the social landscape. If you are blowing up their feed throughout the day, especially with invaluable posts (see above), you risk the chance of pushing them to hit the unfollow button.
- Who Actually Are Your Followers? For B2B businesses, this is especially important – it’s not about how many people are following you, it’s about whether they matter to you. Buying followers or hooking in demographics that aren’t in your customer base is a waste of time and budget. A focus on smaller, yet appropriate audiences will yield more valuable engagement for your brand (read: more shares, more click-throughs). If you haven’t already, creating customer personas will help you find your focus.
Since so much can be done on social media for free, it seems like a smorgasbord for strapped B2B marketing departments. Find your strength in reserve: refine your B2B social media strategy to the most helpful or interesting content, and you’ll see both your content longevity and customer engagement increase.
Continue ReadingB2B Monday Myth: Testimonials Are Passé
by MGB2B
The Myth: Testimonials Are the Old Way of Doing Things
The Truth: B2B Buyers Are Highly Influenced by What Their Peers Have to Say
There are many different types of content you can produce to attract new prospects to your brand, but one you won’t want to overlook is testimonials.
Testimonials have been around in many forms since the dawn of marketing. And the reason they’re not going anywhere anytime soon is that B2B buyers value them more than you might think. In fact, more than half of B2B buyers rely on customer testimonials or referrals to make purchase decisions.
The thing you have to remember about testimonials is that they need to be done properly.
Here Are 5 Tips for Creating Effective B2B Testimonials:
- Video Is the Way to Go. While having a quote or two on your website can’t hurt, video testimonials appeal to Gen X and Gen Y buyers who consume visual content more and more each day. According to the Content Marketing Institute, 62% of B2B marketers have found video to be effective.
- Keep It Authentic. It seems like I shouldn’t have to say this, but don’t use actors. Ever. Your buyers want to see testimonials from real human beings who have used your products or services. BS detectors are in abundance in 2017.
- Make It Short and Sweet. Testimonials are very different from How-to videos or entertainment videos. If you go too far over the one-minute mark, you’re going to start losing people. So to be more effective, keep your video around 45-60 seconds, with your superstar clients and customers front and center.
- Host Your Videos Efficiently. Of course you want your testimonial videos to appear on your website. But make sure you host it on a video site like YouTube or Vimeo and embed the videos into your site. This will be less taxing on your server and make it easier to share on social media.
- Distribute Via the Right Channels. Speaking of social media, you’ll want to make sure you feature your videos on Facebook to get in front of your most engaged audience. Instagram is also a good place for testimonial videos. You can show a short clip and drive people to a link to the full video in your bio.
Follow these guidelines, and you’ll be on your way to creating successful testimonial videos. Need help getting started? Drop us a line.
Continue ReadingThe 3 Most Important Factors of Any Social Media Campaign
by MGB2B
Social media is no longer something only younger generations participate in. Now more than ever, it’s important that your manufacturing company utilizes it to reach a wider audience. In doing so, you’ll get your products and services in front of people who might not have initially seen it. Building a social campaign can be a complicated process, but when done correctly, the payoff is sizable. The most important thing to remember is that campaigns are “living” pieces of your company. They need to be monitored throughout their lifetime to ensure they are running smoothly. And if not? Here are a few things to keep in mind…
Organic vs. Paid
You’ve surely heard the terms “organic” and “paid” when it comes to social traffic. Organic traffic is the traffic you get on your social account without having to pay. So, if someone finds your profile, likes a photo, shares a post, or leaves a comment, without any prompting, that’s organic traffic. Paid traffic, on the other hand, happens when you pay to have your posts boosted, ensuring they get in front of your desired audience. The likes, shares, comments, and follows that result directly from these paid campaigns are paid traffic.
So you’ve built your campaign, now what?
To ensure your campaign performs to the best of its ability, there are a few things to focus on:
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Your Audience
Who you are trying to reach with your message? There are a lot of great metrics tools out there that can help you determine the audience you are already reaching, which you can eventually build off of. Twitter, for example, has an entire section in their user interface that breaks down your audience. From your audience’s interests, to their buying style, wireless carrier, and demographics, you have an incredibly detailed picture. If your campaign not performing as well as you had hoped, analyze this picture. You have time to reconfigure and adjust your audience throughout the lifetime of your campaign, as long as your monitoring it.
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Your Message
This facet is closely tied to your audience, and varies from each one. Consider speaking to a 28 year old engineer differs versus a 50 year old executive. The interests, abilities, and knowledge of these two people vary greatly. Your message should be tailored to each. Since social media has the ability to speak directly to your audience as individuals (and they’ve come to expect it), make sure you do just that.
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Your Platform
Social media outlets like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and LinkedIn all have a purpose, and they’re not necessarily the same. Instagram is strictly for photos or easily-digestible videos. Facebook is a melee of articles, photos, thought-pieces, and more. Hopefully, before you’ve created a campaign, you’ve chosen which platform works best for you, your message, and your audience. It’s easy to default to Facebook but if you notice your campaign taking a hit, take a step back. Review the pros and cons of each social site (and believe me, they all have pros and cons.) If the platform you’ve chosen doesn’t check most or all of your boxes, halt your campaign. Move the budget over to a platform better-suited for your needs. It’ll make a big difference in your ROI.
As with anything, there are more than just three factors that could affect your social media campaign performance – these are just the tip of the iceberg. If you want to get in front of the right people, with the right message, at the right time, you have to do your homework.
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