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The need for visual content only continues to increase in marketing, as we’ve said many times before. Sometimes technical B2B companies fear that their visual content won’t be as engaging on social channels as the content of consumer-facing brands, but that isn’t necessarily the case. Visual content is just as useful to B2B marketers and their prospects. In fact, sometimes graphics or videos have even greater success in the B2B space, because they help make complex products or companies more accessible to the people who are part of the B2B buying process.
Here are four ways that even beginners can create visual content for B2B marketing:
1. Data-Driven Content
Data-driven marketing is top of mind for most marketers, so why not make it part of your visual content? For B2B companies, infographics perform especially well on social media. They provide an engaging, immediate way to share data related to your product or niche with your customers. If statistics from your recent study are presented in a compelling way, they have the potential to perform well among even the least technical prospects.
2. Company Culture
We’ve said this before, but it’s worth repeating. Visual content is the perfect way to highlight the humans who are behind your B2B product. Use social media to highlight company culture and the daily activities that make your company fun. In our experience, this content performs especially well on Facebook.
3. Case Study Visualizations
B2B case studies are incredibly helpful in leading prospects down the sales funnel and closer to making a purchase. Case study visualizations could be video interviews, SlideShares or infographics, just to name a few examples. Think outside the box when it comes to the potential of your case studies, and demonstrate how your product is helping companies succeed in dynamic, compelling visual formats.
4. Product Highlights or Tutorials
B2B product tutorials or highlight reels are perfectly suited to visual content. They help prospects understand exactly what your company offers and save them from reading pages of website text. Busy B2B professionals appreciate the chance to watch a quick but compelling visual presentation of how your product can improve their lives.
How do you create visual content for B2B companies?
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How do you feel about marketing automation? For some, this is a polarizing topic, especially when it comes to social media. While many feel strongly that social posts should be sent with in-the-moment authenticity, others believe that automation ensures consistent posting and is worth considering. Companies against automation tend to be focused on human-to-human connection and conversation, and they consider pre-scheduling to be a breach of their core values. While that sentiment makes sense, we would argue that the best social media strategies employ a mixture of automation and real-time interaction. That way, authenticity still shines through the content, while marketers enjoy some breathing room to tend to other day-to-day responsibilities.
Adopting a social media practice that includes both approaches requires some planning and dedication, but when done correctly, it’s highly effective. Below, we’ve listed four guidelines for successful execution.
Four Guidelines for Using Social Media Automation with an Authentic Brand Voice
1. Use it for Protection
Marketing automation has the potential to be a marketer’s best friend. Marketing teams are pulled in many different directions, social media being one of them. Scheduling daily posts ahead of time helps make sure that your company’s content goes up even if unplanned meetings or crises arise. If you ask us, that’s a safety net worth having around.
2. Set Aside Daily Time
One formula for social media success that we find to work well is to do the bulk of content production up front. Spend a few hours developing the next month’s content ahead of time and schedule it to post on the appropriate dates. Then, devote fifteen minutes per day to in-the-moment content and conversations. It makes it easy to pop in and out and develop a human brand voice without losing your entire day to social platforms.
3. Avoid Spammy Automation
At this point, nearly everyone agrees that auto-replies and direct messages (i.e. Thanks for following!) come across as overly generalized and insincere. Avoid anything that could be considered impersonal or spammy in your marketing automation strategy.
4. Make the Most of Daily Interactions
In your fifteen minutes of daily social time, be sure to make the most of interactions. This is your moment to connect personally with leads, customers and industry influencers. To optimize your time, be sure to have targeted lists developed ahead of time for each category that specifically meet your company’s needs. That way, you never have to search for people to engage in the moment, and you can use every bit of free time to focus on high-value interactions.
How do you use marketing automation for social media?
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Data, metrics and analytics continue to be a hot topic for marketers in 2014, and that won’t change anytime soon. Everyone knows that optimizing data is key to successful marketing campaigns. The challenge, however, is understanding exactly what data is necessary for your company and how to utilize it in decision-making. Despite the new tools and reporting capabilities that are increasingly accessible to marketers, some questions still remain: What data is important? What data matters for my company? How do I translate data into actionable solutions with bottom-line impact?
As we mentioned in February, Movéo formed a Data & Insights group this year to enhance the services offered to our clients through increased data optimization. While the questions described above are still difficult to answer for individual companies, we can offer one key piece of advice that is critical to your marketing strategy, social media included.
Find a way to measure engagement.
The key to optimizing parts of your strategy like lead nurturing, social media and content marketing lies in your ability to understand what your customers are doing and why. With that knowledge, you can begin to shape decision-making in a way that truly impacts the bottom-line. Data offers access to our customers’ habits, but how do you use that information to understand their needs and intentions?
It’s tricky, but it’s possible. Because marketers are equipped with tools to understand customers better than ever before, we recommend working with your company’s leaders to develop an engagement measurement system. When you measure the engagement of your leads, prospects and long-time advocates, you understand what’s adding value to their lives and can begin to determine how to provide more of it. Once you discover what sets of data provide that understanding for your company, you’ll be better situated to provide customers with the right pieces of content or products at the right time.
How do you determine what customers want and why?
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Thought leadership is a critical piece of the content marketing puzzle, and when leveraged correctly, it works particularly well in specialized B2B markets. In many ways, LinkedIn has emerged as the ideal platform to demonstrate thought leadership and gain influence. It’s a one-stop shop where leaders can promote their writing, be recognized for their knowledge and participate in conversations with followers. They even extend special invitations to LinkedIn Influencers, who are featured prominently as experts in their field.
Whether you’re a seasoned influencer or a marketer who simply wants to leverage influencer relationships, LinkedIn is the perfect place to do it. If you’re wondering where to start, don’t worry. We’ve got you covered.
Four Ways for Thought Leaders to make the Most of LinkedIn:
1. Use or Apply for Long-Form Publishing
Earlier this year, LinkedIn announced that long-form publishing will be rolled out to all users. This was great news for marketers who have regular content to share. If you haven’t been invited yet, you can apply for early access here.
2. Be Active in Groups
Thought leaders who want to build a strong following must be active in groups. Find communities related to your industry, and contribute to conversations–the more you can engage others, the better.
3. Engage With Other Influencers
Make a point to engage with other influencers to tap into their extended networks and recruit them to become part of your own.
4. Poll Your Audience
Ask your audience questions about industry-related topics. The content won’t take long to produce, but people love to share their insight and participate in conversations with influential users.
Four Ways to Use LinkedIn to Network with Industry Leaders:
1. Be Conversational
You might be using LinkedIn, but think like you’re tweeting while engaging with thought leaders. Be conversational, respond to their thoughts and chime in with your perspective.
2. Take Ten Minutes Per Day to Engage With Influencers
It’s worth the effort to take a few minutes each day to engage with influencers. You never know what connection is going to pay off in the long run.
3. Share Your Own Content
Don’t be shy. Share your personal content in relevant groups that include influencers you’re targeting.
4. Post Updates That Include Influencer Content
Sharing the content of people you admire with your own network is a strong way to build relationships. Be sure to let the author know you valued their work enough to pass it on.
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In light of Facebook’s new pay-for-play requirements, LinkedIn is becoming more popular than ever. It’s being heralded for its perks and its stance as an ideal platform for thought leadership. Many B2B marketers have been committed to the channel for quite some time, so this will come as no surprise to them. LinkedIn’s professional demeanor makes it the perfect place for companies to target prospects, highlight products and execute content marketing initiatives in the B2B space.
While the benefits of LinkedIn are undeniable, it evolves quickly like the other channels we’ve covered this month. These changes require marketers to adapt, much like they’ve had to do for Twitter and Facebook. If you’re eager to use LinkedIn to its fullest potential for B2B but feel you don’t have the time to keep up with best practices, we’re here to help.
Here are four ways to use LinkedIn effectively for B2B:
1. Target Prospects in Groups
The benefits of LinkedIn groups for B2B are well-known, but it’s a good idea to reinvigorate your presence in your favorite ones, especially as long-form publishing is rolled out to everyone this year. Reach out to contacts, share your expertise and participate in conversations.
2. Enhance Content Marketing Through Sponsored Updates
As with other social channels, even a small advertising budget on LinkedIn can go a long way. Target your ideal, industry-specific prospects through Sponsored Updates, and use them to share your thought leadership and long-form publishing. These should be built into your comprehensive content marketing strategy.
3. Highlight Products with Showcase Pages
LinkedIn Showcase Pages are most effective for standalone products or initiatives, but they’re a great way to build a community around one facet of a company. Showcasing one product or group of products under the umbrella of your Company Page helps organize varying parts of large B2B companies while maintaining connection with the parent brand. This page has helpful hints for getting started.
4. Become or Connect With LinkedIn Influencers
LinkedIn Influencers are established thought leaders in their fields who have large followings online. It’s invitation-only, so if you aren’t on the way to becoming one, try to establish relationships with those who are related to your industry. If your content marketing is strong, they might even choose to share it with their large extended networks.
Are you using LinkedIn to its fullest potential?
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The ROI of social media is an ongoing debate between marketers and the C-suite. While most professionals who work in marketing stand firmly by the value of social media, they still occasionally flinch when required to report bottom-line results or recruit continued support for their efforts from executives. After all, social media is ideal for relationship building and influencer outreach–two things not easily measured. The reality is, however, that social media marketing requires time and resources that mandate the support of company leadership, and sometimes its worth is elusive, especially in certain B2B markets.
Despite the fact that its results are difficult to measure, social media is an ideal place to participate in conversations that relate directly to your B2B specialty. Let’s take Twitter, for example, where companies can establish thought leadership, engage prospects and give their company a conversational, human voice that is hard to establish elsewhere. Below, we’ll explain how to approach each one in B2B and what its worth is from the executive point of view.
Three Ways to Use Twitter to reach B2B prospects:
Establish thought leadership.
Much like LinkedIn, Twitter is an ideal platform for establishing thought leadership in your industry and beyond. Users can share their writing with communities where it will truly resonate, and often that exposure will result in further sharing with users’ extended second and third-level networks. Soon, you’ll have thought leadership associated with your name or company that’s hard to achieve elsewhere. Through that leadership and your willingness to provide industry insight free of charge, your company’s values and product will gain connections with potential leads and new prospects.
Engage prospects.
This is an important part of the social media cycle that’s often neglected. Once you have the attention of new prospects, as described above, they must be excited to connect with you. This is an opportunity for your company or its leaders to develop a responsive, human voice that engages every customer and potential customer in new ways each day. Rather than repeated broadcast-style tweets that push products or content, reach out to other users. Answer their questions, ask them for thoughts on particular topics and be friendly. An engaged prospect inches closer to becoming a customer without even realizing it.
Guide industry conversations.
Twitter is the perfect platform to not only participate in B2B conversations, but to guide them. Find Twitter chats related to your company’s industry and offer to guest host or be featured in a question/answer series. Shaping the national chatter that’s related to your specialty provides the perfect opportunity to become a buyer’s natural choice in that field. Demonstrating your expertise through outreach and natural conversation in large online communities is a perfect way to become top of mind.
How do you recruit B2B prospects on Twitter?
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Twitter has changed a lot over the past year. In fact, some people are even predicting its death. While we believe Twitter is alive and well and holds more potential for marketers than ever before, it’s true that the platform’s new features require marketers to adapt and stay quick on their feet–but what else is new? With some adjustments in content and strategy, companies can still use Twitter with the same results, and maybe even improve them. After all, Twitter has 225 million active users who send 500 million tweets each day. That sounds like the perfect place to showcase your marketing strategy to us.
Here are four ways to use Twitter effectively despite its evolution:
1. Always optimize visuals
Though it takes a bit of extra time to optimize images for Twitter, it’s worth the effort. Your design team works hard on visuals, and to make sure a wide audience sees them, they need some channel-specific attention. This post from Media Bistro will get you started, explaining what parts of graphics need to be emphasized, how to get the right part of your image to show up in the preview panel of the Twitter feed and what sizes work best. Think of it this way: if your image is optimized, it will elicit more retweets and favorites. The more of those you can get, the further your company spreads.
2. Focus on influencer relationships
The great thing about 225 million active users is that you can find influencers in any niche. And as many marketers know, influencers are key to exposure for your company. When you connect with a B2B influencer and they find your company’s content worth sharing, it’s automatically shared with thousands of like-minded people in their networks. This is a healthy, organic way of growing your own network as you offer your content to audiences where you know it will resonate.
3. Remain conversational and personal despite Twitter’s growth
If you’re wondering how exactly to build those influencer relationships, this is your key. Keep it friendly! Don’t be afraid to chime in on their tweets with conversational, personal replies–just like you’re talking to a friend. Twitter is the perfect place to chat about shared interests, so don’t let its size fool you. Conversations still matter.
4. Consider advertising options
With 225 million people at play, Twitter is the perfect place to consider a paid advertising campaign for your company’s original content, product or thought leadership. It works well for B2B companies who need to discover leads in their niche, because it offers advanced targeting of many kinds. The Twitter blog offers helpful explanations on advertising options like tailored audiences, geo-targeting and promoted accounts, just to name a few.
Twitter holds endless potential for companies who can adapt. Has your strategy changed this year?
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As every marketer knows, rumors have been circulating about Twitter’s decline. Is Twitter dead? Has the platform changed? Is it still useful, or is it dying fast? While the network has certainly evolved over the past year, we’re happy to report that in our opinion, Twitter is still highly relevant, and we don’t think it will disappear anytime soon.
As a B2B marketer you probably use Twitter regularly, so you know that this year brought change. And like anything else, change on social media can be scary. Recently, Twitter added in-feed image display and large header photos that look eerily similar to Facebook cover photos. They also extended their advertisement options for business users and allowed everyone to do things like pin, filter and prioritize tweets. In the face of all these shifts, any smart marketer would be questioning whether or not Twitter is still worth the effort.
Here are four things that will help you answer that question for yourself:
1. Who says Twitter is dying, and why?
In the past few years, Twitter has experience rapid growth. Because the feeling of using the channel has changed, and the audience is far wider, people are saying it’s dead. As this article explains, using Twitter is indeed a different experience than it was in the early days, but it isn’t going anywhere. Much like early blogging, Twitter is evolving and will continue to be a useful means of online connection, bridging the gap between the media and the public.
2. How has Twitter’s functionality changed?
Twitter has changed quite a bit since its beginning. Conversation streams used to require clicks to explore, but now they’re clustered within your feed–that’s just one feature that was nonexistent a few years ago. Perhaps most noticeable is the platform’s ever-increasing emphasis on the visual, a stark change from its early, text-driven genesis. If you like data, this chart highlights other changes from the past eight years, and this piece describes profile changes that took place this spring, along with a brand new font. More than likely, Twitter’s evolution will continue, and we’ll all be more-or-less happy to adapt.
3. What big Twitter perks remain?
Since adapting takes work and time, you might be wondering whether or not Twitter’s still worth it. The answer is yes. Twitter is still an ideal place to make connections, recycle content, build communities, learn, participate in conversations and put content in front of targeted users with advertisements.
4. What are Twitter Cards and should you use them?
Twitter cards are an amazing resource for B2B marketers. Essentially, they make it possible to attach a media experience every time certain pieces of your content are linked. Since Twitter is all about sharing and re-sharing, Cards provide a valuable opportunity to spread your brand experience far and wide. They give you an element of control over how your content appears to the public, ensuring consistency, and there are seven types, which means there’s something for everyone. Yes, B2B products are a perfect fit.
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An overwhelming 71% of online adults use Facebook, as this this Pew Research study shows, making it the largest and most popular social network. Because many consider the platform to be a place for family photos and other social engagements, B2B marketers sometimes wonder if it’s right for them–especially in light of this year’s organic reach decline. Now that business pages essentially require posts to be paid to be visible, is Facebook worth the effort for B2B?
Despite the fact that the platform is mostly known for personal social interactions, Facebook is a surprisingly great fit for B2B relationship building. After all, the employees and B2B buyers that companies need to target most likely fall in the overwhelming 71% of adult Facebook users. If you’re a B2B marketer wondering how to leverage the network’s strengths in your efforts, here’s a tip that might surprise you.
Use the family photo strategy to your advantage.
Facebook is the perfect place for technical B2B companies to show their human side. By highlighting company culture, internal events and the real people who make and sell your products, you enable your company to attract clients as well as employees. Believe it or not, showing off your positive culture can even help sell products and attract leads. Here are three ways Facebook can work for you:
Recruitment
Chances are, your company has great events and holiday celebrations for employees. Facebook is the perfect place to show that B2B companies are just as fun and engaging as any other. This helps engage current employees and increase happiness and productivity. Best of all, it shows your internal style to potential recruits and job candidates who will strengthen your team in the future.
Selling
B2B buying teams include multiple people and many touchpoints. Why not put your product in front of them while they browse Facebook over lunch? Advertising on Facebook is comparatively inexpensive, and its targeting capabilities are advanced. It will be easier than you think to engage professionals in your niche. Engaging photos and product descriptions, especially with a small paid sponsorship, have the ability to go far.
Customer Community
Facebook is the perfect place to integrate personal and professional behaviors, since those lines are becoming increasingly blurred anyway. With the help of a few customer advocates, build a customer appreciation or help forum on Facebook. If people love your product, they’ll love to discuss ways to use it effectively with other users. Facebook provides a photo-friendly, accessible platform for them to do just that.
How do you make Facebook work for B2B?
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In late 2013 and early 2014, Facebook presented great challenges to its business users. They’ve been well documented on the marketing blog circuit, and even Facebook themselves have weighed in on the issue. All chatter aside, the reality is that organic reach of Facebook business page posts has almost entirely disappeared. Unpaid posts enjoyed exposure until late fall 2013, but now they reach 2% of followers, maybe 5% on a lucky day. All predictions confirm that organic reach will be at 0% by the end of the year.
In the face of these rapid changes on a platform nearly everyone uses, marketers and business owners are forced to adapt. Understandably, they struggle with their options. Should they simply pay-for-play, back off on content production or possibly stop using the channel all together? Many have tried a combination of solutions, but in our experience, it’s possible to stay relevant on Facebook. All it takes is a bit of strategic thinking, and a willingness for marketers to stay quick on their feet–but what else is new?
Here are four ways to keep your brand visible on Facebook:
1. Manage Content Production
Fans of your company are still very likely to seek out your Facebook page, so it’s important to keep regular content going rather than letting it die. But because you risk many posts never being seen, it’s wise to limit the time your content team puts into crafting Facebook posts. Consider quickly adapting content from other channels, shortening text or recycling old posts–all time-savers that will keep your work efficient and effective.
2. Focus on Trends
One of the best ways to battle the drop in organic reach is to focus on trending content. Logging in and sharing a trending post (especially if it’s visual) is one of the best ways to hop on the train of organic, and hopefully, viral, reach other accounts are achieving with what’s happening in news or culture.
3. Post Multimedia Frequently
You’ve heard it before and we’ll say it again: people love visuals. Facebook is no different. Photos and graphics elicit many more clicks, likes and engagements than simple text or links. Videos do well, too. In our experience, pairing visuals with trending themes is the way to go.
4. Explore Facebook Ads
Even if you’re against paid promotion of social media posts, it’s something you should consider for Facebook. The audience is massive, and the platform’s targeting abilities are highly advanced and nuanced. You can reach very specific groups with your messaging, and Facebook even helps you choose which ones will be most responsive. The great thing is, it doesn’t cost much to get exposure. Even if you’re a small company, start with a minimal budget and watch how much engagement increases. From there, decide what works best for you, set a budget, and promote important and original content. After all, your company’s best work deserves to be seen.
