Social media for B2b marketing
Social media and B2B marketing share a common theme – word of mouth, or as is rather crudely dubbed online – “conversations”.
Social media is all about “conversations”. Site’s like twitter ask you to join the conversation upon signup but what is all this conversation stuff actually about and how can you make it work for B2B marketing?
In Social Media Marketing within the B2C market, word of mouth, buzz and sales are achieved relatively quickly. New products can be introduced to focussed consumer groups and the results can be quite remarkable. For example, a company selling bottles of real ale can establish itself as an authority or “good guy” in a social media group interested in real ale. Once established the company can introduce its products then sales can be made in a relatively quick period of time.
The B2B marketing process however is more complex and results are achieved much more slowly. Social media marketing for the B2B market works by creating “leads” within conversations. It’s important therefore to get the right messages accross in your conversation because it can be a much more structured process involving several people to achieve the eventual sale.
So how does a B2B services company join the conversation to make new sales?
- Listen to what’s being said by others about your products and services
- Search on your products, brands and services within social media websites
- Search blogs, technorati, google blogs etc
- Join the conversation adding positive input
- Help other users solve problems
- Build yourself up as an authority for your products and services
By applying the above your company can be seen as a resource or authority and from there you can obtain recommendations to achieve new sales.
We can nhelp with B2B social media marketing. Contact us now for a quote.
