How & Why to use social media for b2b

Social Media for B2B

Social Selling for B2B

A quick overview for those just starting to understand the opportunity of Social Media
​We often get asked how will social media help us, we are a Business to Business (B2B) company?
This is a common misunderstanding, where many businesses believe social media is only for Retail business and or Business to Consumers. (B2C)
Social media has been growing in reach dramatically for years now, but recently this growth has become exponential due to Covid-19
To see and understand just how the world has moved online to become a truly digital world there are no better links than these
WearSocial
Global Visualization 

Questions before you get started on Social Media

There are very few who would argue how much social media has impacted our lives. 
For those now wanting to understand how to use social media for the purposes of growing their business’s I have put together some questions to be answered first ; 

1. Are you concerned about where your next new customers will come from? 
2. Are you concerned with maintaining and growing your existing customers?
3. Are you able to get your new products and services out to your markets and customers in real-time?  
4. Are you able to work with your own teams in real-time?
5. Are you concerned about your costs today for marketing, advertising and sales? Are they going up while results are getting worse?
6. Are you able to communicate with your customers in real-time?
7. Are you as connected with your customers as you would like to be? 
8. Are you able to measure your brand presence in your target markets and how well you are doing compared to your competitors?​

The answers to these questions very much determine what you need to do next...

Customer Service in Today's Digital World

What's your current understanding of Social Media?

There are many steps that will begin to help you address the best answers to these questions but here are some additional questions that will help you to start your journey. 

           1. Are your corporate profiles on social media active and well managed? 

• LinkedIn
• Facebook
• Instagram
• Twitter 
• YouTube
• Any others important to your customers
  
  2.  Are your various departments and teams leveraging social media?
• For recruiting?
• For customer support?
• For sales? 
• For marketing? 
• For internal communications? 
• For corporate and community messaging?
• For product development and market intro’s
  
  3. Do you REALLY understand why Social Media is important for your business?
• If not, you are in good company...However, do you understand that you MUST do so? 
• We can help here with a full day virtual DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION SESSION for you and your management teams

Once you understand just how critical social media is to your business you can begin to plan your next steps. 

What are these steps?

   1) Set your goals and objectives / write these down and get your teams actively engaged

• *Hint...Please don’t just list “To grow our revenues!” 
  

2) Build and train your team​ to assist you in bringing your business into today’s digital world

• This does not necessarily involve expensive training courses, it does require interactive real-time activity that trains as you make progress
  

3) Provide any tools that will assist in this process so that your teams can see success quickly

• These tools can be free or low cost and need to provide immediate ROI (return on investment)
  

4) Create a Social Media Plan for your organization. This is the most critical part of your digital transformation!

5) Measure everything you do!

6) Lastly and most importantly, take an active role and leading role in this process. 

• The degree to which you personally succeed in understanding and leveraging social media yourself will determine the same for your organization. Your teams will only actively engage in this process if you do likewise. ​

"8" Steps to start using Social Media for B2B

So, finally, how to use Social Media for B2B:

1. Build out engaging and fun corporate profiles on all relevant social media
2. Create a personal profile for yourself while asking the same of your team members on these same social media platforms
3. Actively contribute, engage and spend time on all social media platforms consistently
4. Write your own articles and have your teams do the same to build personal and corporate branding on all relevant social media
5. Content, content and more content! From your industry, your customers, your teams and of course from you!
6. Set a goal for yourself and your teams to communicate at least 50% through online means in real-time (Slack, Teams, Facebook messenger, texting, etc)
7. Measure all activity to effectively determine your level of market penetration and new  inbound opportunities
8. Finally, lead the way for your team. If you walk the walk, they will too! 

Remember, your ability to communicate has never been easier, BUT not through traditional methods! 
With Covid-19, face to face meetings have dwindled, traditional networking has as well. 
Emails are less effective than ever, while no one answers a call today without knowing the caller ID first!
You have to communicate with your teams and customers where they spend most of their time...online through social media!!
Social media is here to stay.
No doubt there will be many new platforms to come and the way we access them will continue to evolve. 
Traditional marketing for B2B business has had it’s final death blow delivered by COVID-19. 
This does not mean that your company needs to suffer the same fate! 
Begin the journey today and start asking the right questions so you can begin taking the right steps. 
Your customers are already making the most of this new digital world and you can too! 
Here are a couple more B2B corporate examples you can learn more from; 
https://socialnomics.net/2019/08/25/b2b-social-media-case-studies/
https://trueinfluence.com/b2b-social-media-case-studies-for-2016/
As you begin taking your first steps, don't hesitate to ask any questions you may have!! 

Thomas Ross / Pro-Certified Social Selling & Training Expert

​

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