Tip # 1: Budget your time
Developing a community on social networks requires a certain level of mastery in order to:
- Build a brand image
- Create relationships and master your e-reputation
- Promote your brand to influencers
- Optimize your process until you create a “lead generation machine.”
Concretely, you have to play the game and devote a block of your schedule in order to get results.
Without results, social media marketing services will remain the job you do “when you have the time.”
At a minimum, devote 1 hour a day:
- On the watch in your sector and around the latest opportunities on your privileged social networks.
- To the publication or the programming of new posts.
- To the responses to comments and messages received.
But ideally, you should have an internal resource dedicated to this acquisition channel in order to:
- Publish regularly and systematically to best enhance your expertise
- Coordinate the production of content: visuals, videos, live, speaking engagements …
- Analyze your statistics and refine your process
- Conquer and monitor the progress of your prospects in your social media tunnel
- Manage your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn advertising campaigns
“Budgeting your time” also means understanding the real value social media really brings in terms of customer intake.
As you can figure out the numbers, you can more easily invest in advertising and skills (community managers, visual and video content creators, editors, etc.) even if it is difficult to outsource what makes the “touch” and reflects the expertise of your business.
Upwork or Malt platforms can help you find qualified social media experts while you wait to internalize these skills.
Tip # 2: invest as early as possible
Quickly allocate a specific budget to generate an audience and thus amplify the reach of the different publications.
The arrival of algorithms on social media platforms ( Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Linkedin, etc.) has considerably reduced the reach of publications and requires more engaging content ever to emerge.
The use of targeted paid promotion tools makes it possible to increase the number of views of your publications but also to develop an approach and a systematic engagement of your qualified prospects while ensuring the distribution of your content.
You invest (or will invest) time and money in producing your content.
You might as well drop a few tens or hundreds of dollars to make sure they are seen by the people for whom they are intended.
You can either:
1. Use classic campaigns on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Linkedin with a regular budget
2. Or simply boost your publications to increase your visibility and engagement at a given time
Once you’ve got a taste of social media campaigns, it’s hard to stop. The important thing is simply to be clear about your objectives, to spend the time necessary to optimize them, and to properly assess the impact in terms of customers.
Tip # 3: explode and disperse your content
B2B decision makers are sometimes overwhelmed by the amount of content disseminated on social media.
They do not necessarily have the time to read content of 3000 words (effective content on Google in particular but less suitable for social media) if they are not actively looking for solutions.
It is therefore often relevant to explode your content and distribute it in bricks in order to have more content to share and that it is not drowned in the mass.
In other words, divide relevant information into more easily consumable blocks (snackable contents) rather than soliciting the reader’s attention on too long content.
Your content will gain in engagement.
In practice, the publication of an article or white paper could give rise to a division in this form:
- On Facebook: publication of key paragraphs of your content accompanied by a photo.
- On LinkedIn: publication of key paragraphs of the content with a professional angle and drawing advice, a summary, an action plan, a concrete business case.
- On Instagram: publication of an infographic summarizing the main lines of your article.
Remember, each network has its own specificity, so you have to take a different angle each time to stay consistent with the editorial theme of each.
Tip # 4: Create and develop educational and entertaining content
Creating high-quality, entertaining, inspiring, engaging (while staying aligned with your offerings) content should be the backbone of your digital marketing strategy.
Indeed, a broad Inbound Marketing approach is a virtuous approach in B2B:
- Your content (published on your site and on your blog) makes it possible to attract attention thanks to SEO
- Your content serves as a base of expertise to create videos, infographics, slideshows…
- These allow you to irrigate your social networks (from YouTube to Facebook) in the form of micro-content
- Your best content allows you to create more targeted and engaging advertisements, therefore less expensive
Here are some suggestions for content that you can publish:
- Articles / Posts
- Infographics / Visuals (photos, sketches, gifs…)
- Stories
- Videos / Live / Slideshows
- Podcasts / Radio
- White
- Papers
- Webinars – Customer case studies
Some companies push the strategy of content creation to the development of educational and fun courses and programs intended to prepare their audiences for their offers while training them.
On social networks, you must add a fun and entertaining dimension, through content that is easy to consume (snackable content), which does not require clicking and leaving the platform to be consumed and which intrinsically has a viral dimension (therefore which encourages sharing).
Either because they are inspiring, shocking, funny, divisive, sexy, beautiful, moving….
However, be careful: “viral” without the “marketing” dimension is not “viral marketing.”
Therefore, stay aligned with your business goals if you want these social media shares to have an impact on your business.
You can outsource the production of content, but from experience, you must integrate at least part of it for it to provide real value.
Tip # 5: Keep your camera close to you (or your teams)
Visual content (including videos, live, photos, images, diagrams, drawings, etc.)
Remains the format par excellence on social networks.
Plan to prepare photo and video reports during your company events (training, conferences, exhibitions, daily life, etc.).
Giving a behind-the-scenes look at your company to your audience, whether in the office or on the go, can dramatically humanize your brand.
Nothing prevents you from recording yourself live on video or by recording yourself by voice in a rather raw way when you have a reflection, an advice, a strategy that you want to share with your audience.
If you have a dedicated budget for this kind of action, you can consider entrusting the production of photo, video, or text reporting to a recognized influencer in your industry to whom you will offer a spontaneous partnership.
Not only allow you to vary the form of your speech and bring a certain interactivity and authenticity to your content, but you will also benefit from the audience of this influencer.
This type of activation can also be done by inviting them to visit your company or to present your manufacturing processes exclusively.
Tip # 6: Take Your Audience to Action
Social Media content strategy should focus on delivering “actionable” advice and recommendations to your audience.
So content that makes it possible to “take action.”
You will, of course, not give all of your methods, but the objective of your content should be to open the door to your prospects, to show the field of possibilities, to indicate a direction, and to show that it is possible to act now.
How to do? By broadcasting:
1. Speeches around the central issues that concern your customers
2. Extracts from text tutorials around methods, analyzes, studies, tools, etc.
3. Tutorial videos
4. Podcasts …
The goal being that eventually you direct them to a way to connect with you:
- Either by registering for a more private group
- Or by switching to a messaging conversation which may give rise to a phone call
- Or by offering additional content for download in exchange for an email
Tip # 7: Find Your Own Voice
The statistics are relatively telling, 86% of consumers agree on the fact that authenticity is an essential concept when it comes to selecting a brand.
However, only 57% believe that brands are capable of creating authentic content.
This authenticity reinforces the confidence of your target audience, all the more so in a B2B context where no one is sensitive to too “corporate” discourse that is too “public.”
We should, therefore not hesitate to speak with a fear, more relaxed style, or even by taking positions that are sometimes decided, even if it means provoking a conversation and interactions.
In short: to develop an impactful presence, focus on your audience rather than your own self-promotion goals.
So speak up, but also give it to your community, the only way to get the commitment that will allow your posts to travel far.
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