Social Media Tips for B2B Marketers

Social Media Tips for B2B Marketers

Social Media Tips for B2B Marketers

In a previous post Social Media for Business – which platforms work best? we outlined which social media platforms get the best results for B2B Marketers and why. In this post we would like to expand on this and outline some tips on how B2B Marketers should use these platforms.

 

Facebook Social Media Tips

According to Pardot Facebook’s algorithm for distributing content among followers includes more than 100,000 factors, including how often someone posts, how individuals interact with followers, the type of content, when it’s posted, and many more. The only real way to win the algorithm battle for brands is to post quality, shareable content that adds value to a follower’s timeline. Provide tips and tricks for your audience to help them drive more leads and sales. Also, videos posted natively will continue getting higher organic reach than video links posted from other social media platforms like Twitter, YouTube, Vimeo, and others

Tips:

·         Post content around company updates, new products or special offers

·         Use live video to show products and team

·         Post infographics on both product information and general fun

·         Balance content between promotional and non-promotional items

·         Share relevant industry specific articles that would be of interest to your audience

·         Show off your team and your company culture

·         Remember potential employees will more than likely check out your Facebook page before attending an interview

 

 

Twitter Social Media Tips

Twitter is a great platform for organizations to communicate to their followers in real time announcing company updates, new products and events using short pieces of content. Twitter is also a great place for you to establish yourself as a subject matter expert in your industry by posting links to relevant industry-related content, as well as your own content, which provides value to your followers

Tips:

·         Post vibrant images and video with text to standout in the Twitter timeline

·         Use relevant hashtags (#) to highlight area of interest

·         Engage with audience, partners and influencers using @TwitterHandles

·         Post links to events that your organization will be attending or supporting

·         Post links to press releases and blogposts

·         Retweet and Like customers and partners posts where relevant

·         Post 3rd party industry specific content that will show you as a knowledge leader in your field

.

 

 

LinkedIn Social Media Tips

LinkedIn is still the social media network for businesses and professionals. For B2B marketers, there’s not a better place for you to connect with your customers, and to confirm yourself as a subject matter expert or a knowledge leader. Graphics, quotes, and informative content perform very well on the platform and are very shareable. B2B marketers can and should use this to their advantage by providing as much valuable content as possible on a daily basis.

Tips:

·         Post content that established you and your organization as knowledge leaders in your field

·         Connect with like minded industry people and peers

·         Do not try to sell when establishing new connections

·         Highlight events you will be attending or hosting (tradeshows, presentations, webinars…)

·         Post company updates, new product releases, new partnerships, new appointments…

·         Post tips, tricks and how to guides on your products and solutions

·         Use platform to announce new vacancies at your organization and encourage your connections to share

 

 

Instagram Social Media Tips

Instagram continues to drive massive engagement for marketers and brands, as it tell its story via photos and videos. In 2016, Instagram launched “Instagram Live,” which gives users the ability to livestream from within the app. Most recently, Instagram opened up the ability for users to add up to 10 photos or videos in a single Instagram post. Instagram remains a great place for brands and companies to be, and should be included in your daily social media postings.

Tips:

·         Share behind the scenes look at your office or how your products are made on Instagram Stories or Instagram Live

·         Engage with customers and fans who post videos or photos of your products

·         Thank customers for posting photos of your products

·         Post fewer stock photos and more real photos of your team, products and solutions

·         Use new Instagram feature that allows you to post multiple photos and videos from an event your organization recently held or attended

 

 

Social Listening.

 Now that you have your social media accounts setup, one of the greatest tools available to marketers leveraging social media is social listening. Social listening is using commonly available tools to uncover and identify conversations that include your brand or company. This can be done as easily as using Facebook or Twitter’s native search functions, as well as Google and other search engines. There are also social-specific tools like Sprout Social, Hootsuite, and TweetDeck. Leveraging these tools to uncover customer service issues, conversations you should be a part of, and other opportunities for you to engage with current and potential customers is a very good reason you should make social listening an important part of your social media strategy. Search for usage of your brand’s name and company’s name, as well as product names. Also, search for opportunities to join conversations around your industry from people asking about features or advantages of your industry.

 

Social Media for Business – which platforms work best?

Social Media for Business – which platforms work best?

Social media for business has become a very important marketing tool, offering organizations opportunities to increase brand awareness, run targeted campaigns, increase leads and build community relationships.

Like everything in life, not all social media platforms are equal; some will appeal to B2C markets, others to B2B organizations, some to younger generations, others to more mature audiences and so on.

Here is a brief list of some of the popular Social Media platforms used in business today and to which types of business they may most appeal:

SOCIAL MEDIA FOR BUSINESS

 

1. TWITTER

 

What is it?

Twitter is an online news and social networking service where users can post and interact with messages called “tweets”. Until recently a tweet was limited to 140 characters, however, Twitter has just recently doubled this limit to 280 characters.

What type of business is it suitable for?

Twitter is suitable to all businesses from the Sole Trader to the Multinational Corporation.

What should it be used for?

Organizations should use Twitter to highlight upcoming events, new product launches, important company announcements, customer service and much more. Due to its brevity, you can ‘link’ your tweet to a web page with much more detailed information, you can shorten the web page link address for your tweet by using services such as bit.ly and goo.gl. A great Beginners Guide on how to use Twitter has recently been published by WebClare.

When to use?

Businesses should post on and interact with their Twitter accounts on a daily basis.

2. LINKEDIN

 

What is it?

LinkedIn is a business oriented, professional networking social media service.

What type of business is it suitable for?

LinkedIn is one of the most popular social media for business platforms and is primarily suitable for businesses that operate in B2B (business to business) marketplaces and Recruitment.

What should it be used for?

Description of company and services provided, individual’s professional profile, new job postings, company and product announcements, highlighting upcoming events. LinkedIn prioritizes relationship building amongst members, do not lead with a sales pitch to a new connection, but rather build a relationship built on mutual interests or industry sectors.

When to use?

LinkedIn should not be over used as your connections may view this as spam. Posting a couple of times a week may be sufficient. As well as posting on your company’s profile you can also post on relevant LinkedIn user groups for a wider audience reach.

3. FACEBOOK

 

What is it?

Facebook is a popular free social networking website that allows registered users and businesses to create profiles, upload photos and videos and post messages. With over 1.6 Billion active users worldwide, it is the world’s most popular social media platform.

What type of business is it suitable for?

Like Twitter, Facebook is suitable for all.

What should it be used for?

Facebook can be used for increased brand exposure, targeted offers, communication platform, building a loyal brand following and community. As part of your social media for business strategy your organization can use Facebook Ads to target selected demographics, geographical locations and much more. The Marketing Crowd offer wonderful courses on best practices for Facebook Marketing

When to use?

Post on a daily basis. Try to make posts interesting and encourage audience participation, including likes, comments and shares.

4. INSTAGRAM

 

What is it?

Instagram is an internet based photo sharing application that allows users and businesses to share pictures and videos on their accounts.

What type of business is it suitable for?

Luxury brands, fashion, food and lifestyle product companies.

What should it be used for?

Sharing visual content and short videos. By using the same filters consistently your organization or brand can establish a style that will become instantly recognizable to your followers. Using appropriate #hashtags is also very popular on Instagram.

When to use?

Organizations should aim to have at least one post per day.

5. PINTEREST

 

What is it?

Pinterest is a free website that requires registration to use. Users can upload, save, sort and manage images which are known as ‘pins’ through collections known as ‘pinboards’.

What type of business is it suitable for?

Mainly suitable for Fashion, Food, Travel and DIY businesses.

What should it be used for?

This platform should only be used if your organization has great images to share. According to The Next Web Pinterest favors most recent content, pinning and re-pinning should be done on a regular basis.

When to use?

Frequently, many times a day.

6. YOUTUBE

 

What is it?

YouTube is a video sharing website that allows users to upload, view, rate, share, comment and subscribe to other users. YouTube is owned by Google, so when it comes to SEO, videos are more likely to appear in search results than other websites.

What type of business is it suitable for?

Any organization that has video content to share.

What should it be used for?

Product promotions and demonstrations, ‘how to’ guides and client testimonials.

When to use?

Organizations should try to post a new video at least once a week.

 

 

The above is a brief overview of some of the most popular social media for business platforms used today. Other platforms such as Yelp, Google+, Snapchat, Quora….. should also be considered depending on your organizations target market and demographics.

If you would like help with your social media marketing and which platforms will work best for your business contact RML Marketing & Business Development Solutions today.

What does Social Media bring to the B2B Marketers Table?

What does Social Media bring to the B2B Marketers Table?

With 93% of B2B Marketers stating that Social Media is their number 1 tool for content creation and distribution, we take a look at what it offers the astute B2B Marketer. Here is a list of some of the benefits that we believe Social Media platforms bring to B2B Marketing:

Content Distribution

Platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+, etc., are wonderful tools to highlight and promote your organizations products and services through case studies, customer success stories, webinars, white papers, upcoming shows and events.

Engage with Customers and Prospects

You can use tools such as Twitter to engage with customers and prospects and even offer customer support. Setting up User Groups on LinkedIn is another great way to grow an active, loyal following for your brand. It is essential that these accounts are constantly monitored and responded to in a timely manner.

Social Media can Improve your Website’s SEO

According to Kissimetrics social media profiles will influence the content of your search results and, in fact, social media profiles are often amongst the top results in search listings for brand names.

Use Video as a Lead Generation Tool

Developing product overview and customer testimonial videos can help drive leads and enquiries to your organization.

Keep an eye on the Marketplace and your Competitors

Hootsuite suggests that you can use Social Media very effectively to keep an eye on your competitors. Known as social listening, your organization can see what your competitors are offering, what is being said about them and any big industry news that may just have been announced.

Drive Traffic to your Website

Make sure to list your homepage URL on all your social sites, this can drive traffic back to your full site from the social media platform that your organization has been found on.

Tradeshows and Events

Using the recognized Tradeshow and Event hashtag (#show2017) can help highlight your organizations participation and drive traffic to your booth or speaking engagement.

If you would like help with planning a Social Media Campaign to help your organizations B2B Marketing activities please contact us today.

5 DIY Tips to Help Improve your Website’s SEO

5 DIY Tips to Help Improve your Website’s SEO

As you are probably aware, the minefield that is known as SEO (Search Engine Optimization), can bamboozle even the most tech astute digital marketer. According to Searchengineland.com SEO stands for “search engine optimization.” It is the process of getting traffic from the “free,” “organic,” “editorial” or “natural” search results on search engines.  All major search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo have primary search results, where web pages and other content such as videos or local listings are shown and ranked based on what the search engine considers most relevant to users. Payment isn’t involved, as it is with paid search ads. (What Is SEO / Search Engine Optimization?, n.d.)

To get your website listed highly for relevant search words or terms on a search engine is a very daunting task, with many, many permutations and combinations. It is a task that I would seriously recommend outsourcing to an expert, however, here are five quick website SEO improvement tips that you can implement on your own today:

5 DIY SEO Improvement Tips

  1. Submit Your Website to Search Engines: You can improve your business visibility by submitting your website pages to search engines such as Yahoo, Bing and Google. Get your free business listing on Google by clicking on www.google.com/business and filling in the form.
  2. Create Social Media Sites to Help Boost SEO: Create your organization’s own social media pages on sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Google+, etc. to get more organic search traffic.
  3. Optimize Images and Use Alt Text for Keyword Optimization: Use image optimizer sites such as www.imageoptimizer.net to improve the quality of your images. Also, add Alt Text where possible. Alt Text (alternative text) is a word or phrase that can be inserted to tell website viewers the content.
  4. Hyphenate: When setting URL page titles and tags use hyphens (-) between words to improve readability. Do not use underscore (_).
  5. Update Website Content Frequently: Updating your website’s content on a frequent basis attracts search engine spiders to index your website pages more frequently.

For help with improving your website’s SEO, layout and user experience please visit www.rml-marketing.com or contact us today.

The Simple Hashtag (#) – The 21st Century’s Most Important Communications and PR Tool?

The Simple Hashtag (#) – The 21st Century’s Most Important Communications and PR Tool?

As the hashtag (#) celebrates it’s 10th year anniversary as a modern communication tool, we examine its popularity and use, particularly in social media. The hashtag, sometimes called the pound sign in North America, was often used in information technology to highlight a special meaning. In 1970 the pound sign was used to denote immediate address mode in the assembly language of the PDP-11 when placed next to a symbol or a number.

The pound sign or hashtag then appeared and was used within IRC networks (internet relay chat) to label groups and topics. The use of the pound sign in IRC inspired Chris Messina to propose a similar system to be used on Twitter to tag topics of interest on the then microblogging network. He posted the first hashtag on Twitter ten years ago in August 23rd 2007:

It was after a series of forest fires in San Diego in 2007 that the use of the hashtag in Twitter first, and then other social media platforms, became popular. According to Messina the intention behind the hashtag was to make it easy for users to search for content and find specific updates that are relevant without the technological knowledge to navigate the site. Therefore, the hashtag was created organically by Twitter users as a way to categorize messages

Ten years later the hashtag is no longer just the prevail of Twitter users, but has also become highly popular on other social media sites such as Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, Google+, giving a new lease of life to audience engagement on popular TV shows #GameOfThrones, live events #SuperBowlLI, politics #POTUS and a whole host of news and worldwide happenings.

Simply by pacing the hashtag # symbol in front of a word or key phrase, the author can highlight the key points of his or her communication. Likewise, the reader can use the hashtag # symbol for research and up to date feeds on any particular topic that may be of interest.

The quantity of hashtags used in a post or tweet is just as important as the types of hashtags used. It is currently considered acceptable to tag a post once when contributing to a specific conversation. Two hashtags are considered acceptable when adding a location to the conversation. Three hashtags are seen by some as the ‘absolute maximum’, and any contribution exceeding this risks raising the ire of other users.

So, besides search-ability and speed of information, what additional benefits does the hashtag offer the 21st century marketer and PR guru? Here is a list of some of the more popular advantages of using hashtags in modern communications:

·               Improve brand awareness by using hashtags related to service or product to enlist and grow a                                  large following and sense of community.

·               Use trending hashtags where relevant to drive additional traffic to your site.

·               Encourage interaction with customers, prospects and partners.

·               Create a brand hashtag that is unique to your business and use as a signature tag.

·               Unique hashtags are ideal for new campaign or product launches.

·               Hashtags are search engine friendly

If you would like to know how to improve your social media communications and improve your brand awareness with modern tools, email RML Marketing and Business Development Solutions today at info@rml-marketing.com

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