Snapchat has released the latest version of its
Facebook has launched a new website which includes a range of resources and tools designed to help businesses advance their social impact.
As explained by Facebook:
“We designed our new social good website to help businesses achieve their purpose and change the world. From insights and inspiration to programs and resources, you can use this site to learn how your business can make an impact.”
Indeed, Facebook notes that its broader company mission is to “give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together”. Which doesn’t always seem like the company’s driving force, given its decisions, but ostensibly, this is Facebook’s key mission, and this new social good website aligns with that.
The mini-site includes notes on how to start a fundraiser, how to donate to a cause through your business, and provides case studies of various brands that have made a positive impact.
And such initiatives are important – according to research, the majority of younger consumers are more likely to support brands which openly show support for social causes, and look to make an impact on the world. That type of support can help to boost your brand messaging and patronage, while also enabling you to amplify initiatives that are important to you, a win-win in many respects.
Facebook’s new mini-site provides more insight on how to do this – you can check out the new Social Good for Business site here.
It may not initially seem like an ideal fit, but Facebook is becoming increasingly influential in the car purchase process, and connecting users to relevant deals for their next automotive purchase.
Indeed, Facebook reported last year that around half of auto consumers say that recommendations from friends and family are influential when deciding which new brand to buy, and 77% indicated that posts on social media had made them consider buying or leasing a new model.
That’s a significant consideration, and now, Facebook’s providing more tools to help car dealers connect with potential buyers on its platforms.
Facebook has added three new elements to its automotive promotion tools:
- A new “Manage Inventory” tab on dealership Pages
- A simplified set-up process for automotive inventory ads (AIA)
- A new “Vehicles” tab on dealership Pages where dealers can showcase their full vehicle inventory
The new options will make it easier for car dealers to list on Facebook, and maximize their opportunities.
“These new features will reduce the work required for dealers to create and manage a vehicle catalog as well as promote their vehicles. Dealers can now:
- Create, manage and promote vehicle listings in one place: This can be done through the “Manage Inventory” tab. Dealers can also view insights, like views and leads, to assess performance of their listings.
- Create ads to promote inventory in just a few clicks: Set up AIA to promote the right vehicle to the right person at the right time. Starting from the dealership’s Page or the “Manage Inventory” tab, dealers can either select an existing catalog or create a new one by connecting to a third-party provider. Once their catalog is set up, they can easily create ads using a pre-filled template.
- Showcase new and used vehicle inventory on the dealership Page for free: Vehicles will appear in the “Vehicles” tab — a new on-Facebook shopping surface.”
Again, while it may not seem like an ideal fit for Facebook promotions, the data shows that people are indeed looking for car-related info on Facebook, and with a range of Facebook Groups dedicated to automotive appreciation, it makes sense to use these new options to hone in on potential buyers.
Facebook also added some enhancements for its auto inventory ads back in September, and continues to improve its car listings on Facebook Marketplace.
If you’re looking to promote your dealership, Facebook could be a key option, and these new tools will make it easier than ever to increase brand awareness.
Want to know all of the benefits of SEO?
This list of SEO benefits will blow your mind. You will be thankful you read this.
Every business needs to invest in search engine optimization. Search engine optimization is the process of optimizing your website to maximize organic traffic from search engines. The leading search engines are Google, YouTube, Bing, and Yahoo.
This blog is a warning to everyone that does not have an effective SEO strategy. You are making a huge mistake by not leveraging all of the below SEO benefits.
You are losing money every day your website is not optimized in the search engines.
Here’s why.
1. There are people searching for your products or services on search engines
There are over 2 billion people online. 93% of online activities start on a search engine. There are 40,000 searches every second, and 3.5 billion searches per day. There are millions of opportunities for your business to become found on search engines. One of the most important benefits of SEO is that your customers are using search engines daily.
2. SEO pulls-in quality traffic
Traffic on search engines is the best traffic. Why? Because people are actually searching for the problem you solve. You can “pull” traffic to your business. You do not have to “push” out advertisements to persuade people to buy. Search traffic is already interested in your products and services. This is why the SEO industry is worth $65 billion.
3. SEO traffic is more likely to convert
SEO traffic is more likely to convert than other sources of traffic. In fact, search traffic has the best conversion rates for most websites. By positioning yourself on search engines, you are positioning your business to win more conversions.
4. SEO increases sales and leads
SEO is not a myth. You will increase your leads and sales if you offer a viable product or service. One small business generated over $103,510.98 worth of SEO results in just 5 months.
However, you must invest in the best SEO strategy. With a winning SEO campaign, your business will be on it’s way to higher conversions.
5. SEO can decrease your cost per acquisition
Another benefit of SEO is that it is “free”. It is far less expensive than advertising to acquire customers. The only costs in SEO are the costs to hire the best SEO company. Unless you have experience in website coding and Google algorithms, you will need an SEO firm or agency to grow your rankings and reap the benefits of SEO.
6. SEO does not involve any paid advertising
You do not have to advertise if you have strong SEO standings. You can increase your website traffic without having to pay per click. An effective SEO strategy can help you scale back your advertising dollars, and invest it in more efficient areas.
7. Top SEO rankings provides 24/7 promotion
SEO is 24/7. It does not sleep. Yes, that’s another one of the benefits of SEO. Your rankings do not disappear overnight. You can increase your website traffic all day, every day. Once you rank high in search engines, they will promote your business while you are sleeping.
8. SEO builds trust and credibility
People trust Google. They use it every day to find what they are looking for. By ranking high on search engines, your business will build trust and credibility with your audience. In fact, 37% of search engine clicks are on the first organic listing.
9. SEO is a long-term strategy
SEO is a long-term strategy. It can take 6-12 months to see optimal rankings. However, just as it takes time to move up the rankings, it takes time to move down the rankings. Once you are placed in top positions, you rarely move down. The only reason this would change is due to rising SEO competition or changes in Google algorithm.
10. SEO makes your customers more informed
Your customers are using search engines to research. They use their findings to help them make informed decisions on available options. High SEO rankings allows you to educate potential customers. This indirectly builds trust, but most importantly helps them make an informed decision.
11. SEO influences purchasing decisions
SEO significantly influences purchasing decisions. This is because of the developed trust and credibility mentioned in our prior points. Use SEO to improve your conversions by significantly influencing the purchasing decisions of those on the web.
12. SEO increases your brand awareness and equity
Conversions aside, SEO will also build your brand equity. In other words, SEO will help people become aware of your brand. Awareness is important because your website visitors may not always be ready to purchase. However, by being aware of your offerings, they may purchase in the near future.
13. SEO increases customer attribution or “touches”
While your awareness is increasing, SEO will simultaneously increase your customer attribution points. Attribution is the amount of times your audience sees your brand. The more times they see your business, the more likely they are to purchase from your business. Strong SEO rankings will help you dramatically increase your touch points with potential buyers.
14. SEO receives 90% more clicks than PPC
SEO trumps paid advertising. This is because organic SEO listings receive 90% of clicks. Many users of search engines tend to skip paid advertisements. This is most likely due to their trust in Google’s algorithm. By investing in SEO, you will likely gain more traffic than the advertisers on the same keywords.
15. SEO can increase your website referrals
One of the benefits of SEO is that it will increase your website referrals. You will gain more website referrals from search engines. In addition, your website visitors are likely to refer your website to their friends. A strong SEO presence will you grow referrals, literally and figuratively!
16. SEO is measurable
benefits of SEO rank
SEO is measurable. You can measure your conversions and the source of conversions. You can also measure the progression of your website rankings and organic traffic. With the right tools (or an SEO company), you will be able to measure which search keywords are the most valuable to your business.
17. SEO drives offline sales
Do your customers do research online before visiting your store? Of course they do! Because most people do their research online, SEO also drives offline sales. This is because they are using search engines to do their research, but may visit your store or make a phone call to actually buy your products. Therefore, SEO is a major contributor to driving offline sales.
18. SEO is more cost-effective than paid advertising
This is a no-brainer. SEO is more cost-effective than paid advertising. In fact, the average CPC (Cost Per Click) considering all the industries is $2.32. Why spend money for a page to be seen when you can work your way up in the organic search results by using effective SEO?
Once you rank high on search engines, you do not have to pay for clicks from search engines. And you will no longer have to worry about your PPC budget. Pause your PPC advertising campaigns and let #1 SEO rankings drive more results.
19. Your competitors are using SEO to grow
Kill or be killed. Your customers start their internet journey with a search. Your competitors are using search to grow their business. In fact based on a recent study, 61% of these marketers stated that optimizing their website is their top priority.
Sooner or later, if you are not using search to grow your business, you will not have a business!
20. SEO can give smaller businesses an edge on larger companies
If you operate a small business, you may find that it is tough to outspend larger competitors in AdWords. However, an effective SEO strategy may be your way to gain higher rankings. While larger companies rely on advertising, you can rely on a savvy SEO strategy to go in the back door to acquire customers.
21. SEO will help you gain market share
Gain market share by being first. If you are the first option, your customers will never know about the hundreds of alternatives. Unless, they scroll to page 10 of Google. However, we know that will not happen. Why? Because 75% of users never scroll past the first page of search results.
22. SEO will help you break into new markets
SEO will help you break into new markets. Once your website is optimized, you can begin to expand your website to target other keywords. The keywords you choose can be new products or services you could offer. You can count on the search engines to drive qualified traffic to your new offerings, helping you enter new markets.
23. SEO increases the value of your business
Another one of the most notable benefits of SEO is the fact that your business becomes more valuable as your SEO rankings rise. If you are in the market to sell your business, many buyers will find strong SEO rankings as a valuable intangible asset. This is likely because SEO rankings tend to hold its value and sustain over the years.
24. SEO integrates all of your online marketing activities
SEO is online marketing. All online marketing activities in some way can attribute to your SEO rankings. Web design, content marketing, social media marketing services, and online advertising influences SEO. When all activities are integrated, your SEO rankings.
25. SEO improves your overall marketing ROI
As previously stated, an integrated marketing campaign will influence SEO rankings. Not only does this influence your SEO rankings, but your overall ROI from all of your marketing activities will be higher.
According to latest studies conducted, it shows that organic traffic can result to more than 40% of business revenue. And also, local searches has over 18% of purchase made within that day. This will be explained in more detail in the next points below.
26. SEO is the best PR strategy
SEO is the new “PR” strategy. It makes PR make sense. In order to rank high in search engines, you must have quality backlinks. Backlinks are links from external websites that link to your website. The more you have, the more relevant your website is. The more relevant your website is, the higher you rank. Acquiring quality backlinks may require publicity. The more publicity you have, the more backlink opportunities you may have. The two works hand-in-hand.
27. SEO will increase your social media followers
SEO will add-on more social media followers. As your visitors are researching your website, they are likely to click your social media icons to follow you. An effective SEO campaign will generate thousands of website visitors, which you can expect to translate into a smaller percentage of followers.
28. SEO will increase your email newsletter subscribers
benefits of SEO increase email subscribers
One of the benefits of SEO that you probably want to achieve is increasing your email newsletter subscribers. If you have an email newsletter signup form on your website, you can expect more subscribers as your rankings rise. This is because you are gaining more traffic to your website, and more exposure. For optimal results, provide an incentive on your website for people who subscribes to your email newsletter.
29. SEO will increase your blog traffic
SEO will increase your blog traffic. As your website’s authority rises with search engines, a few things will happen. Your blog’s individual ranking in Google will rise. Your blog content is more likely to be found on Google. And lastly, you will likely gain more referral traffic from your website by promoting your blog throughout your website.
30. SEO improves your website’s click-through-rate
High SEO rankings will improve your website’s click-through-rate. Or, vice versa. You must have a high click-through-rate to improve your SEO. Click-through-rate is the amount of people who click your website divided by the amount of people you reached.
31. SEO improves your website’s time-on-site
As your click-through-rate rises, your website’s time-on-site will likely increase as well. This is how long your website visitors are staying on your website. The longer your visitors stay on your website, the more likely they are to buy. Additionally, it will boost your SEO rankings as well.
32. SEO improves the safety and security of your website
SEO will force you make your website safe and secure. This will protect your website visitors from viruses and fraud. Simultaneously, it will boost your rankings as secure websites will significantly influence your SEO rankings.
33. SEO improves the speed of your website
As you are working on growing your website’s SEO, you will improve the speed of your site. High-speed websites will help you offer the best user experience to your visitors. In addition, high SEO rankings will also correspond with higher-speed websites.
34. SEO will improve the user experience of your website
As you can tell from the last few points, SEO will improve the overall user experience of your website. It is important that you keep in mind that Google’s goal is to provide relevance to their users. To rank high in Google, your website must be relevant. In order to be relevant, you will have to offer a great user experience
35. SEO is growing
SEO spending is forecasted to increase to $80 billion by 2020. SEO spending is likely to be higher than online advertising spending. SEO is growing for one reason. It works. Your business has an opportunity to jump on the SEO bandwagon before it becomes too saturated.
36. SEO is mobile
Mobile is the future of online. And, 50% of all Internet users are mobile. This is likely to continue to increase. By optimizing your website for SEO, you are also preparing yourself for the next generation of marketing. Your website must be mobile-friendly. And, search engines will favor your website for optimizing your site for mobile.
37. SEO will help you stand out
There are 250 million websites on the Internet. The average person will never know what most of the Internet has to offer. Higher SEO rankings will help you stand out from the millions of other websites.
38. SEO is laser-targeted
SEO is keyword-based. This means that listings appear based on the keywords people search for. The advantage here is for you to reach people who are looking for exactly what your business offers. The keyword targeting ability of SEO is one of the primarily reasons why it delivers the most qualified traffic to your website.
39. SEO traffic is the real deal
SEO traffic is the real deal. The people visiting your website are not coming for fun. They are in actionable pain. They have real problems. They are looking for answers, and they clicked your website because they think you can find it with your business. And this is one of the benefits of SEO. As long as you add value, and understand your customers, you will have much success with SEO.
40. SEO rankings last forever
Okay, not really. But honestly, it is extremely hard to screw up SEO rankings. You will likely remain in top positions, unless you use black-hat SEO practices. Black-hat SEO practices consist of frowned-upon tactics to trick search engines to rank your website. However, you are not going to have to worry about this. Why? Because you are going to use a trusted SEO company. Once you attain top placement, it is time to celebrate! Or, begin expanding to other keywords.
41. SEO can eliminate cold-calling and other traditional strategies
Tired of passing out flyers? Tired of advertising in magazines and not seeing results? Tired of cold calling people and bothering people who will never want to buy from you? If your answer is yes, invest in SEO.
42. SEO can double, triple, or quadruple your business
SEO can literally double, triple, or quadruple your business. SEO exposes you to the entire market of individuals searching for you. You can expand in more cities, states, nations, or other parts of the world with an effective SEO strategy. The world becomes your marketplace with an effective SEO strategy.
43. SEO can help you attract talent
SEO can help you attract talent. People looking for work also start their journey on Google. You can optimize your website to rank on Google for the positions you are hiring for. Avoid recruiting fees and acquisition costs by investing into a SEO strategy.
44. SEO is Affordable
SEO is more affordable than advertising to increase your conversions. SEO pricing typically ranges from $800-$2000 per month. However, the return is invaluable. Once you rank #1 on Google, your website will receive thousands of free hits to your website.
45. SEO is the smartest marketing investment you can make
The benefits of SEO are endless. SEO is the smartest marketing investment you can make. It is a long-term asset to your business. It generates traffic, leads, and sales. It does not require any advertising. Your customers are searching on it right now. And, one of your competitors are growing your business significantly from it. If you want to grow your business without cold calling, networking, or other forms of “push” advertising, invest into a SEO campaign today.
This B2B social media marketing guide is what you need to grow your brand.
Social media has always been seen as the playground for B2C companies. While it’s true that many of the top brands leveraging social media operate in the B2C segment (such as Nike, Starbucks, and Applebee’s), it doesn’t mean that B2B companies don’t have a place in the social media arena.
There are companies of all sizes that have already tasted success with B2B social media marketing, and continue to grow as a result of tapping into the major social networks for more customers.
B2B Social Media Marketing
However, it’s easy to find a travel company making the most of Twitter or Facebook in terms of marketing and customer service, but what about a residential management company? Or a trade staffing agency? Or a PR firm? Take any B2B business that you can think of, the question is, can it successfully tap into the world of social media and grow as much as a B2C company?
The answer is a definite yes. If you look around, you’ll find hardcore B2B companies killing it on social media. Whether it’s IBM on Twitter, Cisco on Instagram or Intel on Facebook.
The problem that many B2B companies often face is: a lack of knowledge and an awareness of social media. Many of them still believe social media is not for them, which is costing them sales. Or they don’t have the right staff/resources to run their social media campaigns. That’s where our social media experts at Barodian Advertising come in. We completely create, schedule, run, and monitor your social media so you never have to lift a finger – all while seeing great results! Contact us today if you’d like to get started.
It’s important to keep in mind that if a B2C company that sells fashion products can use social media to market its products, then a B2B company dealing in office supplies has an equal shot at it. But in order to see real-world results, such companies need to embrace B2B social media marketing with full throttle. And stop relying solely on old-age marketing tactics such as attending networking events, cold calling and direct mail.
Getting great results with B2B social media marketing is not rocket science. In fact, it can be as effective as B2C social media marketing, as long as the fundamental goals are not ignored.
Any B2B company can grow awareness about its products and build a stronger brand by strategically leveraging popular social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.
So if you think it won’t work for your B2B company, then think again. By not jumping on the social media bandwagon, you are in fact leaving money on the table.
B2B Social Media Marketing
Omobono, a global B2B creative and technology agency, conducted research that found B2B marketers can see real results with social media. And if done right, B2B social media marketing can prove to be the best marketing technique to promote their products and services.
Omobono basically surveyed 115 marketing experts working in B2B companies and found that a whopping 79% of them felt social media is the most effective channel for marketing. What’s more, 38% of them said if they had access to extra budget for the coming year, they would want to invest it into B2B social media marketing.
B2B Social Media Marketing
Even though data shows that B2B companies are eagerly investing in social media, there is a need to focus on increasing revenue.
While there is no doubt that social media is a powerful marketing method, it has to be done effectively to achieve a high return on investment.
For successful social media marketing, a B2B company needs to take a strategic approach and execute their campaign with precision.
Below we’ve outlined three steps that are crucial to create a profitable B2B social media marketing campaign.
How to Create an Effective Social Media Marketing Campaign
Step #1: Define Your Marketing Objectives
Without defining the right objectives, you’ll find it difficult to make your B2B social media marketing campaign profitable. Why? Because your return on investment depends on setting marketing goals that contribute to your company’s overall growth.
Having measurable goals that are relevant to your big or small business will help you create a winning B2B social media marketing strategy. You need to ensure that each goal you set is smart and measurable in nature so that gauging success becomes simpler, and more scientific. Venngage does an excellent job outlining how to do this in your social media plan.
Every decision that your company makes towards getting more prospects and converting them into customers should reflect these goals. And more importantly, how you plan to achieve them.
B2B Social Media Marketing
Also, companies using B2B social media marketing need to realize the importance of gaining visibility in the competitive social landscape. Social news feeds today are crowded, and your company has to stand out of the crowd without losing focus of its core objectives.
Let’s look into a few objectives that you can consider for your B2B marketing company.
- Generate Targeted Leads:
It’s a fact that B2B companies operate differently than B2C companies in more than one way. The techniques that work well for a B2C firm, may not be that viable for a B2B business.
For instance, B2B clients are known to make bigger investments, which brings down their chances of impulse buying. So if your B2B company wants to leverage social media for marketing, it makes sense to do so for lead generation rather than sales.
If you’re a business that thinks long-term, and if you truly want to get a healthy ROI from social media, then your top priority could be about generating new, quality leads. Above all, each lead that you generate via social media gives you the confidence and direction to gain even more leads in the future.
Studies have shown that any businesses (B2B or B2C) that uses social media to generate leads can be in the position to earn 24% more revenue. Whether you choose to use LinkedIn for generating leads or Twitter, depends on the kind of business you are running and where your audience tends to hang out the most.
B2B Social Media Marketing
Capturing leads and nurturing prospective buyers can be via social media as long as you do the following effectively:
Build a strong, positive network and grow your reputation
Add clear call to actions to your social media pages, profiles and posts
Improve your brand and focus on establishing yourself as a thought leader
Leverage paid ads to consistently generate quality leads
Track and measure your social media performance/progress
With B2B marketing, it’s important to take a unique approach in order to generate high-converting leads and achieve a bigger ROI.
- Build Your Brand
Your social media optimization efforts can make a positive impact on your company’s brand development. Being on a social network such as LinkedIn is not enough to enhance your brand. Your business needs to be active when it comes to protecting its reputation and giving away value. One wrong step on social media can diminish your brand’s value.
According to a 2017 survey, brand building is one of the top digital priorities for B2B marketers.
top b2b priorities
Here are three efficient ways to enhance your brand and get the most out of your B2B social media marketing efforts:
- Create an Online Brand Persona: Similar to a persona of your ideal customer, an online persona of your brand will take you a long way. Creating an online brand persona helps your prospects and customers connect to your core values on social media, which affects the overall results you get. In order to successful an online brand persona, focus on the voice you will be using on social media. Keep your long-term vision in mind when doing so.
- Have a Crisis Management Plan Ready: There may be times when you’ll see the unhappy side of your customers on social media. This is when your brand’s reputation can go for a toss if no steps are taken to resolve the issues. When you have a crisis management plan ready, you’ll be in the position to deal with a problem when it arises.
III. Connect with Media: Connecting with your prospects and customers is an obvious step when you’re using social media. But being a B2B company, you shouldn’t stop there. In other words, you also need to interact with bloggers and journalists who are actively writing or creating content in your niche. By using social media for reaching out the right kind of media and building strong relationships with relevant media contacts, you will be able to get on their radar.
- Offer Better Customer Service
Social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook are great for improving your customer service and give better value to your B2B customers. Social media gives you the opportunity to see how your customers are interacting with your content and what they’re talking about your brand. By taking the right steps, many customer problems can be resolved without having them escalated further.
B2B Social Media Marketing
Here’s how you can do it effectively.
- Go Beyond the Major Social Networks
Where are your hanging out? What websites are they using to talk about your brand and as well as your competitors? You need to do a bit of homework to find out where your customers are spending time on, so that you can connect with them. Just because you’re running a B2B business does not mean your focus should only be on LinkedIn.
Sometimes you need to go beyond the traditional social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. For example, if you’re running a travel business, you may want to keep a tab on your customers by being active on a website like Flyertalk. This is the site where your travel customers would be discussing everything airline related. Join these discussions to learn the concerns of your customers and come up with solutions to make them happy.
Regardless of the industry you are in, you should try and learn what your customers are talking about you, before it’s too late. The more you study and participate in these discussions, the better it is.
- Keep an Eye Preferred Networks
The best part about social media is it allows you manage your reputation. By monitoring the major social networks and forums, you’ll not only be helping out customers in need but also avoid any negative effect on your reputation.
In order to make the most of social media in terms of customer service, you need to use professional tools that let you track your mentions and listen to customer queries aired. You can start by setting up Google Alerts, and later on move to a more premium tool when you’re ready. Remember, a tool is only as useful as you make it out to be.
- Respond the Right Way
An important rule of serving customers via social media is to that you take care of their issues without making the situation ugly. In other words, you need to deal with customers the right way instead of getting into heated arguments. Since your discussion is happening on a public platform, you want to avoid any unnecessary debates.
Most of the time the issue can be resolved without any verbal spats. Sometimes the customer is genuinely wrong, and this is when you deal with the issue privately and resolve it quickly. Try to cooperate with the customer as much as you can, even they are difficult. Responding the right way is the key to building better business relationships.
Your image and brand are critical, and you need to safeguard those by showing everyone that you truly care for your customers. Any prospective customers monitoring your discussions will be in a better position to do business with you. At Barodian Advertising, we are experienced in handling tough situations when it comes to reputation management. Additionally, our specialists monitor client accounts every single day and respond to comments and messages within 24 hours.
Step #2: Identify Your Target Audience
Social media is made up of diverse people, so not everybody is going to be interested in the content you share. Which is why it’s important to reach out to an audience that connects to you and your content. You want businesses who pay attention and listen to your advice. Being in the B2B segment, this not only helps you build a list of followers, but also lets you create real authority and a positive brand in your niche.
Identifying your target audience is the first step to sharing information with businesses who have interest in your area of expertise and possibly have goals that connect to your product or service. If you manage to build a relationship with an audience that shares the same level of passion about your industry, then the updates you share with them will get even more exposure.
The last thing you want is to deliver your content to an audience that is least interested in what you’re sharing. And that can easily happen if you don’t know who exactly you’re targeting.
target audience
You want your business to deliver value to other businesses because it helps you gain influence in your niche and increase your reach. By adding more value to your social media content, you will slowly but steadily differentiate your business from other companies that are not putting the effort in B2B social media marketing.
1) Know Your Priorities
Your goals and your priorities shape up your marketing. Using social media to grow your business is what you’re aiming for, but how do you want to accomplish that? What do you want to get out of your B2B social media marketing? How do you plan to increase your business with the help of social media?
2) Analyze Your Competitors
Every healthy business has competition, and so do you. Which is why you should spend some time analyzing the social behavior of your competitors. Find out what how they are interacting with their customers and utilizing each social networking platform. You also get an opportunity to understand the kind of content they’re creating, and which of it is helping them generate engagement.
competitor analysis
Your aim is to fully analyze and grasp the social media tactics of your competitors so that you can do better in those areas. For instance, if your competitor’s posting frequency is low, you could ramp up yours by sharing high quality content more regularly. Everything that you learn from your competitors will help you improve your own B2B strategy. Which will have an impact on the overall results you achieve from your B2B social media marketing efforts.
3) Decide on What Content to Share
If you already have a content marketing strategy and content development team, you already know what type of content you will be producing for social media. But in order to find your audience and make B2B social media marketing work for you, you need to know what type of platforms will be receptive to your content. The more clear you are about this, the better results you will see.
For instance, if you publish a case study in the form of a long-form blog post, then it would make sense to distribute it through Twitter and LinkedIn. On the other hand, if you have a video version of the same case study, you should share it via YouTube and Facebook. As long as you know your audience is there on a certain platform, there’s no reason to not share your content with them.
4) Create and Assign Personas
Knowing your audience is not enough, you also need to put them in appropriate categories or “personas” according their needs/requirements, their overall buying behavior or based on the different kinds of responses. This sorting out is crucial to serve your customers better and give them an experience like never before. This step allows you to create a specific strategy for each customer persona you create. Which in turn improves the chances of getting more sales.
B2B persona example
Step #3: Choose the Right Social Media Platform
Every social media network is different. And the people that use it have different interests and priorities. When your B2B company experiments with social media marketing, it’s important to understand the importance of selecting the right social media platform.
Your social media efforts need to be directed in the right direction because unlike a B2C company that deals with end customers, you work with companies and businesses. Which makes your choice of social media platform a crucial part of your B2B social media marketing strategy.
B2B Social Media Marketing
Many B2B marketers have tested and analyzed social media platforms to find out what works best for their B2B brand. Why? Because finding out the best social media platform is essential to your business’s success.
We have worked with both, Facebook ads and LinkedIn ads, and have found Facebook to be a more viable B2B advertising solution.
The reason being simple: Facebook ads are likely to be cheaper than LinkedIn ads in terms of cost per click. For example, you could spend $5 per click on LinkedIn that would cost you $1 or less per click on Facebook. And the quality of the lead would be the same. It’s a no-brainer.
Even though LinkedIn is a pure B2B channel (one of the reasons it’s more expensive), Facebook ads can help you get similar results. Why? Because Facebook has two billion monthly active users. And there is every chance that your B2B audience logs into Facebook as much as they do on LinkedIn, if not more.
Your social media efforts should focus on not only forming the right marketing objectives but also on building a strong relationship with your target audience. Which can only happen when you are focused in the right direction.
How do you do that? By working on both, leveraging the right social network and as well as understanding the behaviors of your target audience. And since these keep evolving, it’s crucial to move with changing times.
For example, take the industrial companies and manufacturers that are using social media for their advantage. Many B2B companies in this sector are using videos to reach their marketing goals. In which these are being uploaded to video focused social media networks such as YouTube. These sales and marketing videos are helping add to the bottomline of companies by helping with demonstration of products and the functionality of each equipment.
In fact, 83% of marketers say that video marketing increased their revenue. Although compared to writing blog posts or making infographics, creating videos will require more budget. But here are some tips you may try to create engaging videos without spending too much:
For webinars or Q&A videos, you can record them using Zoom.
Have you ever tried live streaming? Try Facebook or YouTube for that and be sure to choose the one with the more engaged followers.
After creating these videos, you can now promote them on your other social media accounts.
When selecting a platform, it is important to assess how it can be used to reach the organization’s main objectives and build an audience. Instead of starting with the question, “What platform is the best?”, your B2B company should ask, “What platform aligns the best with our marketing objectives?”
Need Help with B2B Social Media Marketing?
When talking about B2B social media marketing success, the focus is usually on how amazing the results have been. Or how the B2B company managed to make the most of social media marketing at a limited budget. But it’s important to understand that these results are possible only due to effective preparation and a flawless execution of the campaign.
B2B social media marketers need to think long-term in order to see real-world results, and continue growing. Focusing on immediate results will only hamper the sustainability of your social media efforts. With efficient planning and preparation, even the biggest challenges can be overcome.
If you need help with your B2B social media marketing, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with the Barodian Advertising team. Using our vast social media marketing experience, we will help you formulate a B2B social media marketing strategy that aligns with your company objectives.
The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted every industry and business in some form, ranging from complete shutdowns to massive increases in buying in certain sectors.
It’s difficult to grasp the full implications of the global action to restrict the spread of the virus – everywhere you look there’s another impact, and day-by-day, those changes compound and become larger economic considerations for the long term.
And definitely, COVID-19 will have long-term impacts. While, theoretically, we may be able to get back to some level of normal life within months, the businesses that have been forced to close, or are struggling through, will take time to come back, if they ever do. Concurrently, online shopping is also on the rise, highlighting the convenience and ease of use of such to many more people, which could lead to a major consumer shift.
Given the various implications and angles, it’s interesting to take a look at what’s happening from an SEO perspective – what’s rising and falling in interest, and what does that mean for broader consumer behavior?
The team from PageTraffic have put together this infographic listing of some of the key search trends of note – which could help you in your strategic planning and process.
Facebook has this week launched another new app via its New Product Experimentation – or NPE – team, which is essentially a new version of the Creative Labs development team that Facebook shut down back in 2015.
The latest app from the NPE crew is called Hobbi, which is a Pinterest-like app for collecting images of hobbies and interests, and sorting them into boards to track your progress.
As per the description of Hobbi on the App Store:
“Hobbi wants to help you document and remember the things you love to do. You can save photos of the projects you’re working on and the activities you love to do, whether it’s cooking, baking, DIY, arts & crafts, fitness or home decor. You can then organize your photos into visual collections in order to see the progress you’re making over time. You might just surprise yourself with how much you have done.”
It actually seems like a fairly positive app, though without the social sharing elements, it’s also likely to be a fairly niche prospect. In theory, if it were to take off, and Facebook were to expand it, it could be challenger for Pinterest in some respects. But, at least in this initial form, it seems fairly separate in terms of its use case.
Hobbi is the fourth app released by the NPE team since it was announced in July last year.
NPE’s other three apps are:
- Whale which enables users to create their own memes with simplified templates and tools
- AUX which is essentially a participatory DJ app, where users try to get their song on a group playlist
- Bump a chat app which aims to introduce students to others in their vicinity
Each app seeks to tap into rising trends via a relatively unique angle, and while none of them appear to have caught on as yet, Facebook’s strategy appears to be to just keep throwing things at the wall in order to see what, if anything, sticks.
As noted, the NPE team is similar to Facebook’s original app experiment group Creative Labs, which Facebook shut down in 2015 after a series of apps that never caught on. The Creative Labs team was a bit more overt in its experiments – it created ‘Slingshot’ to take on Snapchat, and ‘Riff’ as a challenger for Vine. With those apps, Facebook was very clearly taking aim at rising competitors in the market, but with NPE, The Social Network seems to be looking for more unique angles, which, you’d assume, is based on rising usage trends on other platforms.
Indeed, TechCrunch notes that Google has also recently launched a similar DIY collections app called Tangi, which may suggest that both Facebook and Google are seeing a rise in interest in this area via their existing apps.
In this respect, it’s interesting to note where Facebook’s NPE team is looking – while these app experiments might not gain traction in themselves, they likely reflect what people are searching for, and what users are already doing, which may point to new shifts.
You can download Hobbi from the App Store here.
Social media was created to facilitate human connection, to amplify our interactive capability by providing new ways for us to share our lives and experiences, and relate to others around the same.
Social media gurus have been preaching along these lines for years – in order to succeed on social platforms, you need to ‘be more human’, you need to ‘humanize your brand’, ‘it’s human connection that matters’. And while there are many examples of such approaches leading to greater success for brands online, there is another, rising trend which largely goes against this, and brings into question the very future of the form.
That trend is the rising popularity of virtual influencers – computer-generated models which are gaining popularity, especially on Instagram.
Virtual influencers, as you can see here, run a broad spread of variation – from so close to real that you can’t tell, to cartoonish, Sim-like characters which seem completely out of place.
But they are, indeed, rising – recently, social analytics platform HypeAuditor put together an overview of some of the top virtual influencers, and their performance stats over the last year.
And the numbers speak for themselves:
According to HypeAuditor’s report:
“Virtual Influencers have almost three times more engagement than real influencers. That means that followers are more engaged with virtual influencers content.”
That’s an amazing trend, especially when you consider what it could mean for the future of influencer marketing. If these findings are correct, and virtual influencers are on such a significant rise, that will lead to more brands looking into the same. Virtual influencers are unpaid, unbiased, available 24/7 – and, evidently, very popular.
Is this the next wave set to flow through your Instagram streams?
In terms of who, specifically, is engaging with these computer-based characters, the profile shows that younger female users are more likely to engage with virtual influencers.
You can see that 18-24 year-old female users are significantly more likely to engage with these creations. Additionally, HypeAuditor’s data shows that US users are far more likely to engage with virtual personalities.
So who are they, and why are they on the rise? You can take a look for yourself – HypeAuditor has also provided a listing of the top virtual influencers worldwide, along with their rising follower counts.
As noted, the characters themselves range from hyper-realistic to cartoonish depictions. The leading virtual influencer is lilmiquela, with 1.7 million followers, followed by the Bratz-doll like noonoouri (332k followers), the mostly real looking imma (159k) and the hyper-real Shudu (193k).
Most of the Instagram profiles for these characters note that it’s a virtual or digital character within their bios, but as these types of models rise, it’ll be interesting to see if more try to disguise the fact that they’re not real – and whether regulations may need to be established on disclosure over such.
Right now, however, there are some limitations on virtual character use. Building realistic 3D models is expensive – maybe more expensive than simply using real people in some cases – but as technology advances, those costs will go down, and open the door to more businesses looking to utilize the same.
That could also, however, lead to new questions around depictions of realistic body types and their impacts on impressionable users. We already see such debates when looking at real models, and how young women, in particular, compare their bodies to them – but these characters aren’t even real. No diet tricks can help you obtain a virtual waistline.
Christmas is now only 75 days away, so if you don’t have your holiday campaigns locked in, it’s time to get moving.
Indeed, Facebook says that nearly half of US shoppers start shopping for the holidays in November or earlier. If you’re not mapping out your connection strategy, you’re going to start missing out on opportunities very soon.
To help with this, Facebook has this week launched two new features which are designed to help businesses make the most of their holiday push.
The first element is a new set of customizable Stories templates for use across Facebook, Instagram and Messenger.
As you can see here, the new templates provide simple, visually effective Stories presentation options which brands can use to showcase their offerings.
And given the rising popularity of Stories, they’ll no doubt prove popular. If you’ve been looking for a way to branch into Stories, these templates could be a good point to start from.
You can access the new Stories templates via Facebook Ads Manager – Facebook has provided a step-by-step overview here, but the key steps are:
- Create your image ad at the Ads level
- Choose ‘Select a placement to customize’ then select Instagram Stories, Facebook Stories or Messenger Stories
- A pop up will open (you can also reach the pop up by choosing the
Edit button above Ad Preview) - Choose ‘Change Template’ to choose a template. Preview your ad on the right.
There’s a range of additional customization options to choose from within the creation flow, including background color, music and call to action effects.
That does, of course, mean that you need to use them within paid promotions, but you can also download them for re-use as organic stories.
Facebook does note that the feature is being rolled out gradually, so if you’re not seeing it yet, you will soon.
Facebook’s also looking to provide more ways for brands to shift into private messaging, this time via Instagram Direct.
Adding on to the capability to manage your Messenger and Instagram Direct messages from your Facebook Page, Facebook is also adding Instagram Direct functionality which will enable businesses to:
- Add labels to contacts, including ‘VIP’ and ‘New Customer’ in order to provide more context about each
- Search through contacts to find what and who you’re after faster
- Used saved replies in Direct to streamline responses for common queries
- Set up instant replies and away messages, which you can set to respond at different times
- Sort Direct messages into dedicated folders to better manage response
More customers are looking to engage with brands via messaging, and messaging use is clearly rising on Instagram, as evident by the recent addition of its separate ‘Threads’ app. Worth noting too that Instagram is working on adding Direct capabilities to its desktop version, which could make it easier for brands to manage their messaging workflow, incorporating Instagram DMs.
The announcements come as Facebook launches a new ‘Boost with Facebook Holiday Bootcamp‘ initiative, which will see The Social Network open its offices across 17 cities worldwide to provide training in order to help brands maximize their holiday campaigns.
Facebook says that more than 140 million businesses use its apps every month “to find new customers, hire employees and engage with their communities”. In addition to the bootcamp event, Facebook says that it will host over 200 free training events for small businesses and nonprofits around the world this year as it looks to improve digital literacy, and keep marketers coming back to The Social Network.
It’s clear that Facebook can have a major impact on business growth, and these tools and initiatives add to that capacity – but Facebook has also caused marketers plenty of headaches with its various algorithm shifts and strategic updates. Improving your understanding of Facebook’s systems will help in this respect, but broader digital marketing knowledge will also help safeguard you against over-reliance on one network, which can change the rules on you at any time.
Last December, TechCrunch reported that Facebook was re-launching its search ads after a five year absence. And this week, access to Facebook’s new search ad option appears to have been significantly expanded, with a range of Facebook advertisers reported that ‘Search’ is now an option within their Ad Placements tools.
As you can see in this example, which was shared by digital marketing consultant Steven Johns, search is now showing for more businesses in their ad placement options, while there’s also a basic example of how the new search ads look and work. When someone searches for a related term on Facebook, you can target that query, and have your ad shown in the results, similar to Google search ads.
As noted, Facebook originally launched search ads back in 2012, but abandoned them shortly after. This re-launched version is different to that initial offering, but focuses on the same functionality – in TechCrunch’s reportlast year, it noted that
“Advertisers will be able to extend their existing News Feed ads to the new “Search” placement through the Facebook Ads Manager, similar to how they’d pick Facebook Audience Network or Instagram. No video ads will be allowed, and search ads won’t appear on desktop. Marketplace search ads will appear on iOS and Android, while Facebook search ads are only testing on Android. For now, advertisers won’t pick specific keywords to advertise against, and instead may appear in search terms related to auto or retail topics.”
Facebook would appear to have evolved its search ad options from this, but the basic functionality remains the same.
How effective search placements will be will obviously be relative to the product/service you’re offering, and the specifics of your ad listing.
It’s also important to consider what users are searching for on the platform. Back in 2016, Facebook said that it was facilitating over 2 billion searches per day, a significant volume to consider, but we haven’t seen an update on that stat since, and with social media usage behaviors changing, and Facebook searches, you would assume, being less about specific products and services than the same on Google, the opportunities are more limited.
That doesn’t mean they won’t be effective, but there are some key considerations to keep in mind around the potential of Facebook search ad placements, and whether they might work for your business.
It’s not clear how much Facebook has expanded its search ad placements as yet (we’ve asked and will update if we get more info), but it’s another option to consider in your marketing strategy, in order to maximize the reach and resonance of your Facebook campaigns.
‘Snap Chatter’ monthly report, which highlights all the key topics and trends that are seeing significant increases in mention volume among the app’s users.
And given Snapchat’s popularity with younger audiences, the Snap Chatter reports can be a great indicator of rising trends in general – the monthly listings include key topics of focus in different regions, trending entertainment, celebrities and catchphrases.
You can get a full rundown of each element on Snapchat’s business s
ite, or check out the infographic overview below.