Importance of Social Media for B2B Marketing

Social media is an essential aspect of B2B marketing, and the reason is not farfetched- most B2B customers need more mentoring, nurturing, support, trust-factors, and information.

 B2B prospects and customers use a wide range of channels for research such as seminars, conferences, surveys, whitepapers, websites, data from libraries, customer feedback, third-party data etc. All these help them in their decision making.

Improve search engine ranking

Series of evidence shows that social media can increase traffic to your website or blog as well as improve your website’s search engine rankings. Search engines like Yahoo, Google and Bing are regularly updating the way they rank websites. Being active on social media is a good sign that your website is performing at an optima level- this will help your page rankings.

Also, a simple Google search about your business will pop up several links to your business’ social media pages (if they are available). This is why you need to regularly keep them highly updated with unique information. Potential clients, customers and peers will have easy access to your website pages.

Thus, ensure you have high quality unique contents- contents worth reading, and your pages are up to date.  Social media makes your website to be highly visible in the search engines.

Responsible for employee engagement

Besides serving as places to market your products or services, social media are also wonderful platforms to engage your employees. Some businesses have employees that are super-active on various social media platforms. Social media offers employees and employers the opportunity to engage with each other.

This can encourage team spirit within the organization.  Employees can use it to keep in touch with each other, and become brand ambassadors.

It helps you to build a lucrative profile that is consistent with your brand. For instance, employees can sign up with LinkedIn, which is the largest professional network in the world.

Increase brand awareness and visibility

Social media enables you to build an amazing brand- if you have a viable social media presence, then potential clients/ customers will see your organization as the first port of call whenever they need products or services you offer.

Having a social media page is one thing, engaging with your social network effectively is another thing. If you engage happily with them, they won’t just think of you as a brand, they will see you as a person- an easygoing friend. People do business with those they can relate with.

Helps to acquire new business relationship

Social media remains a great way you can connect with your existing clients/ customers and potential ones. Twitter has over 240 million active monthly users; Facebook has over 1.2 billion monthly active members, while over 300 million people are active on LinkedIn.

These are great marketplaces for you- where you won’t lack any opportunity to connect with people. Start blogging about your activities, both potential and existing clients/ customers would like to know about them.

With blogging, you will develop multiple positive connections, and this will no doubt lead to more opportunities for your business. Engaging your followers on social media on an active basis will yield multiple results, because most people check their Facebook and Twitter feeds on a daily basis. Your followers and fans will daily be checking the contents you share before either buying and/ or recommending your services.

Build thought leadership

There are so much to learn about your industry from your competitors. All you need to do is to be checking the contents industry experts in your field share on their various social media pages.

Their activities can change your thought pattern, it can help you to know areas you are going wrong, or what you need to do to get things right. Keep on monitoring your competitor’s social media accounts, experts say this is one of the most effective ways of staying up to date.

Educate Potential customers about your products and Services

If you are still in doubt whether your business should be active on social media or not, then here is another point that will convince you. There are a lot of information you need to share with your potential clients/ customers, which they can leverage on to either buy from you or recommend your products or services to their contacts on social media.

 If you share relevant information on Facebook and Twitter for instance, millions of people will become interested and ultimately become your fans. Create high-quality contents that will make your followers to keep talking.

Conclusion

Blogging is another b2b marketing strategy that will grow your business. Start blogging today, so that you will continue to inform people what is happening around your business.

All we are saying in this article is that social media can improve your search engine ranking, increase your brand awareness and visibility, engage your employees, enable you to acquire new relationship and become a platform to educate others on the goings on in your business.