Two Questions for B2B Brands on Social Media

As social media continues to dominate the digital realm, B2B companies are realizing the importance of having a strong social media presence. Yet many marketing managers are juggling several efforts – leaving little time to develop a robust social strategy. Between developing content, drafting posts and managing paid campaigns, it’s common for B2B brands to take a “lights-on” approach to social. But, with nearly 40% of B2B companies planning to increase their marketing budget in 2019, it’s the perfect time to reevaluate your social media strategy.

If social media hasn’t produced the results your B2B brand was hoping for, here are a few questions to ask yourself.

Are you monitoring and interacting across channels?

Similar to real life, relationship building on social media is a two-way street. Especially in today’s hyper-connected digital landscape where brands are competing neck-in-neck for impressions, success on social media requires more than a few posts highlighting company news. While building up a library of content and pushing it out on your channels is important, the most successful B2B social strategies go beyond posting owned content and put an emphasis on interaction.

Here are a few tips to help you boost positive social interactions.

• Be responsive and approachable
• Foster customer loyalty
• Seek opportunities to engage with potential followers
• Identify trends, pain points and influencers (yes, B2B influencers exist!)
• Understand your customers’ needs
• Follow your competitors to see what methods are and are not working

How are you measuring success?

Consistent measurement and reporting are key to analyzing success on social over time. By understanding social media metrics and having a solid process in place for reporting, B2B brands can identify which content performs best on each channel and continue to improve their strategy.

Here are some metrics that can deliver more value to your reports.

Impressions: the number of times a post from your page is displayed, whether the post is clicked or not

Reach: the unique number of people who saw your content at least once

Web Traffic: the amount of traffic driven to your webpage or landing page by social media

Clicks: refers to the number of clicks your post received (link clicks, post likes, clicks to profile, clicks to expand a photo or video)

Followers: the number of people who follow your account

Conversions: measures on-site actions using Facebook pixels and Twitter tags

Engagement Rate: a qualitative metric to help you know what type of content is performing best; measured as a percentage expressed by the number of people your post reached divided by the number of times people engaged with your post (e.g., likes, comments, shares, retweets)

While increasing positive social interactions and improving measurement might not solve all your social media struggles, identifying areas for improvement will get you on the right track this year.

For more insights on communication and brand strategy, industry trends and more, subscribe today to the Weekly Buzz here.