Aman
Remember the days when you had to send out surveys or pay thousands of dollars to include a questionnaire in a magazine to gather information about your target market and, of course, potentially collect a new lead for your business? Luckily, those days are over. Today, when you need to collect valuable information about your potential clients, the internet is the way to go. The announcement of the internet has completely changed the way businesses collect leads – not only when it comes to businesses that serve the public, but also when businesses that target other businesses with their products and services want to collect new business leads. Social media is one of the biggest players when it comes to generating business leads – and that’s what we would like to discuss in this post.
The Impact Of Social Media On Lead Generation
Social media channels, including Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus, were originally developed to serve as a way for friends and family members to stay in touch with each other. These networks offered features such as a friend system, a timeline feature and, of course, a messaging system. These networks quickly gained ground amongst people throughout the entire world. Today, however, social media networks are not only used to stay in touch with your friends. They are used by thousands of businesses to help them increase their clientele, drive more visitors to their website, make more sales and, of course, to earn more money. Iron Paper reports that, after a recent survey was sent out to a large number of businesses, they found that up to 66% of business claim that social media has been effective in assisting them with increasing their clientele and generating leads. They also report that, on average, people spend almost two hours per day on social media networks and at least 97% of adults with internet access participates in social media networking once or more every month.
In this post, we would like to turn our focus towards B2B marketing, also known as business-to-business marketing. While most reports on the internet will tell you how you can generate more customers for your business, only a few really focuses on generating business leads when you are targeting other businesses.
Social Media Marketing For B2B Brands
While sponsored blog posts and guest blogging are all excellent strategies for driving more traffic and building the authority of a B2B brand, companies often forget to attend to their social media presence to increase B2B leads. While it may seem somewhat daunting for a B2B company to take their marketing efforts to social media platforms, they often fail to realize that those brands that have taken on social media marketing as part of their promotional strategies have yielded mostly positive results. Before we dive into a proven strategy for generating B2B leads on social media, let’s take a quick look at some vital B2B social media strategies, as reported by Weidert Group:
- As much as 93% of B2B brands are already utilizing social media marketing, with approximately 70% of these B2B brands utilizing one of the four most proven social networks for this type of companies – these include Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and Twitter.
- More than half of all B2B brands that have taken on social media to promote their products and services to other businesses have been able to generate leads on the platforms they targeted.
- Most B2B brands now employ a dedicated team that deals with the brand’s social media marketing efforts due to the effectiveness of social media platforms for lead generation.
- Approximately 50% of B2B brands that incorporated social media marketing as part of their promotional strategies have seen an increase in their brand’s authority and health, as well as experienced better customer experience. Furthermore, around 25% of B2B brands that utilizes social media marketing have already seen a significant increase in their revenue.
The Perfect Way To Use Social Media For B2B Lead Generation
Now that we’ve taken a look at some vital statistics that you should consider, let’s continue with a strategy that will help you take advantage of social media networks to generate leads for your B2B brand. We are going to outline a step-by-step guide to help you get started with social media marketing and to help you avoid making mistakes that could lead to disappointing results.
Step 1: Identify The Most Appropriate Social Media Channels For Your Campaign
There are quite a large variety of social media platforms and not every platform may effectively work for your business. Capterra reports that LinkedIn is the most popular social channel for B2B marketers, followed by SnapChat, Twitter, Instagram and, of course, Facebook. This, however, does not mean your business will only generate leads effectively on these platforms – and it also does not mean that these platforms will be best (in order) for generating B2B leads.
Thus, the very first step should be to identify the best social media channels that you should target in your marketing campaigns. You will be able to identify the most appropriate channels by doing some research. You could read up on different reports that can be found online and browse through the different social networks that are available. Search for keywords related to your industry and see if there are businesses that could benefit from your products and services. If you cannot find potential customers on a channel, then it is most likely not worth targeting.
Step 2: Create Professional Profiles For Your Business
One common mistake that companies make when they create their profiles on social media channels is the fact that they do not pay attention to how well they configure their profiles. Each social media network has their own unique layout for a company’s profile page – and it is important to utilize every aspect of these pages to make your profile stand out from the rest. Make sure you add a professionally-written biography and “about us” section. Add an appropriate cover image on your page and make sure the profile picture for your presence on each social network looks professional.
Step 3: Connect With Potential Clients And Utilize The Platform’s Marketing Features
Once you have joined appropriate social platforms and ensures your profile looks professional, it is time to initiate a marketing plan. To get started, you should explore each platform as each of the social networks has unique features that allow you to promote your brand, products and services. Make sure you utilize all of these features to increase the success of your marketing campaigns. Apart from utilizing these marketing features, you should also connect with businesses that might be potential clients for your brand. Use the search feature to find potential customers, connect with them and tell them what you can offer them. You should also share valuable information on your profiles to gain authority for your brand.
Conclusion
Promoting a B2B business is often considered to be much harder than promoting a business that focuses on promoting their services and products to the general public. Fortunately, thanks to the agencies like ProvenSEO, B2B brands now have an array of opportunities available to them. Social media is one particular area that seems to have a lot of potential when it comes to promoting a B2B brand on the internet, with more than half of all B2B marketers reporting an increase leads thanks to their social media marketing efforts.
