In 2018, social media channels continue to remain one of the most accessible, profitable, and popular traffic sources for most of the businesses.
According to a recent research performed by Content Marketing Institute, 83 percent of B2B marketers use social media networks for traffic/client generation – making it the No. 1 preferred tactic.
According to the same research, the average B2B organization is present on six social media channels. Also, 80 percent of the B2B marketers possess a specific strategy when it comes to their social media marketing attempts yet only 32 percent have actually documented their strategies.
Social media marketing has become tougher than ever. Everyone has access to it yet only the smartest and most resourceful will prevail. Here are some simple yet effective ways to improve your social media marketing performance. Remember – the key is to understand the simplicity of your strategy and to offer it your 100 percent willpower, discipline and care.
Know your audience well – The No. 1 rule in business (B2B and B2C) is to know your customer. In B2B marketing, your audience is made up of professionals who clearly know what they’re doing. To save you time, energy and budget, you should ensure that you know exactly what type of professionals you’ll approach in the future.
Create buyer personas – To optimize your audience establishing process, you should create buyer personas. These are the imaginary and ideal future customers of your business – your social media marketing strategies should be aligned with their mindset, needs, problems, desires, circumstances and personal characteristics.
Analyze your competitors – You must never reinvent the wheel. As a wise man once said, “There’s nothing new under the sun.” If you want to thrive in your niche marketplace, you should play smart and get insights on your biggest competitors’ marketing strategies.
Social media profiles are open, especially the business ones. Pay attention to your competitors’ strategies: content marketing, SEO, influencer marketing. To speed up the process, you should leverage competitive analysis tools.
Feature your employees’ voices – If you have employees, make sure you use their voice to improve your brand’s awareness, influence, and trust. If your brand members are happy, your brand will look happy, and therefore it’ll become more approachable. This strategy is called employee advocacy, and it’s the perfect strategy to humanize your company and demonstrate competency at the same time.
Don’t be afraid to invest in social ads – Being afraid to put money into your social media campaigns is absurd. In the B2B environment, you can’t expect to be one of the top figures unless you’re truly dedicated and resourceful. You must also have guts – and that’s what ads are all about. If you dare to develop and activate an out-of-the-box ad campaign (no matter on which network), you are likely to see amazing results.
Improve your content’s quality – If you want to impress your future clients, your content must be exceptional. Here are some of the aspects that come into my mind whenever I refer to qualitative content:
- Relevant and concise
- Simple language
- Provides REAL VALUE (applicable, accessible, and genuine)
- A unique value proposition – why is your content better than the rest?
- Lastly, as Michael Farwell, B2B Marketing Manager at Essay Geeks service suggests, “Don’t destroy your professional reputation by committing inoffensive yet deadly grammar and spelling mistakes.”
Diversify your multimedia content – When you distribute your content on social media, ensure that you’re not sharing only text. Diversify your content and offer your followers a chance to indirectly tell what they like (through engagement). Post videos, audio, graphics, whitepapers, text and keep rotating.
Optimize your CTAs – According to SmallBizTrends, 70 percent of small businesses don’t leverage CTAs on their online platforms. That’s insane, considering the importance of a well-placed CTA (call-to-action). Internet users are not proactive by nature. In fact, most websites visitors come and go. Therefore, your role is to create a bridge between you and your random site visitors. Create powerful CTAs and lead your traffic to your email or products better than ever.
Leave your valuable opinion on breaking news – As long as your online platform has a decent brand awareness and reputation, you will be treated as an authority in your field. Whenever breaking news get published, ensure that your brand’s name is always present in the comments, ensuring that value & quality answers and opinions have been provided.
Chris Richardson has been working as an editor at a publishing agency in London, UK for five years. He is also a professional content writing expert in such topics as career growth, self-improvement, blogging and technology innovations. Feel free to connect with him on Google+.
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