Business to Business (B2B) products and services have a reputation
for being a bit dull. In “ye olden days,” B2B marketing was all about
serious, “just the facts ma’am“, in the weeds text. In the early years of social media, many even assumed that B2B was not a suitable match for the medium.
Those
days are long gone. It’s clear that there are many benefits to
participating in the world of social media, from improving SEO to
improving relationships with the media; from growing a stellar
reputation to growing a loyal customer base.
The key is to keep your B2B content marketing efforts interesting.
Hey, I see that eyebrow arching in disbelief! But trust me when I say
that it’s not that hard. You just have to get a little creative.
Humanize your company
Just
because your business sells wires or widgets doesn’t mean you can’t
have a personality. You’re not a robot or a faceless logo. There is a
person behind the social handle, and it’s only right that you
acknowledge that.
It’s all right to have a gentle or quirky sense of humor, as long as
you keep it within appropriate bounds. Ekaterina Walters wrote a great
article on the value of humor in marketing. My favorite quote from the article comes from master of comedy in marketing, Tim Washer:
“A good laugh is a nice gift to give your customers.”
You can also try playing around with emoticons. Use of emoticons by businesses
has been shown to be a great way of humanizing the brand. Without a
visual link to a human face, emoticons provide an added layer of
understanding and connection to fill the gap.
Not comfortable with humor or smiley faces? Try simply being polite.
Thank
followers when they repost your posts. Ask them questions. Find out why
they liked a particular post or what they thought of the content you
linked to. Draw your followers into conversation to strengthen their
connection to your business and their feeling that you are truly
interested in understanding their interests and concerns.
Make your employees specialists
Building on the idea of humanizing your business, consider allowing your employees to have their own voices across social media channels.
This step is a little more complex, as you should ensure that employees
that are going to represent your company on social media have appropriate training on proper social media etiquette. However, the results can be powerful.
Giving
your employees a social media voice allows them to build their own
reputations as specialists in areas relevant to your business. It will
quickly become clear that they aren’t simply spouting marketing material
or promoting sales. Instead, they can offer knowledge and assistance
that might not otherwise be accessible. They can also build closer bonds
with relevant prospects and media representatives.
Be sure that
you continue to offer access to in-house specialists through other
channels as well, such as phone, chat, video, and cobrowsing.
After all, once you’ve peaked prospects’ interest on social media,
there’s a good chance that the next move they will make is to explore
your website and your business’ offerings.
Showing prospects that
your company is full of knowledgeable, friendly and accessible employees
is key to getting yourself short listed when the buying process comes
to a head. Many B2B sales are long and laborious, the first step of
which is to select the top companies to put in the running for a trial.
If your employees have been available to answer questions and have
proven that they are knowledgable and helpful resources, your
organization will be top of mind when it comes to choosing a business
partner.
Go deep
You should offer links
via your social channels to high-level blog posts or articles. This is
great for gaining the interest of CEOs and top tier management. However,
it can be to your benefit to hit your target businesses at other levels
as well.
Don’t be afraid to get into the weeds. When a prospect
is doing research on which businesses they are going to spend the big
bucks with, they want to know that you know your stuff. Prove it by
providing detailed information they might not be able to find elsewhere.
For example:
- Talk about the materials you source and where they come from.
- Discuss the kind of changes that would need to be made to the network in order to create the ideal environment for your solution.
- Go into detail about the languages needed to develop your software.
- Provide examples of the in-depth training required to acquire the level of knowledge necessary to provide your service.
- Offer links to your knowledge base to encourage deeper understanding about how your product can be used and administered.
All of this information is interesting. At the same time, it shows the breadth of knowledge, skills, and support your business can provide when your prospects are ready to buy.
Provide statistics
Hard
facts and outside proof are great ways to spice up your social media
feed. They are interesting, very sharable, and further proof that your
offering is worth a second loo,
Has your company sponsored a research piece? Write a blog post (like this one by Glance Networks) and
post a link to the piece so people can get the full picture. Then, post
a fact or two a day, teasing out the juciest pieces.
Your clients
are also a great source of information. If you have any ROI (return on
investment) statistics about a single customer or a group of customers,
post those. Are your customer satisfaction or net promoter scores (CSAT or NPS) high? Post them.
If
you haven’t done any research yourself, you can even post statistics
from other people’s research. Just be sure that you don’t copy an entire
article word for word, and that you do include a link to the original
research and the name of the company that did the original research.
Include visuals
Want
to give those statistics or any other post even more punch? Make each
one into a graphic and note the audience response. After all, 40% respond better to visual information than plain text. What’s more, it’s easy to make cool graphics, so what do you have to lose?
Using
stock photography for the background is fine as long as you personalize
the pictures. Adding stats will do the trick, as will adding
interesting quotes or information from your blog posts. You should also
add your company logo to each graphic. Then, when people retweet and
repost your beautiful graphics, you’ll get the extra benefit of
increased brand awareness.
Even if you aren’t a graphic artist, you can easily use a program like Canva to
add words to a picture. You can purchase graphics on Canva ($1 for each
element) or you can import your own and create fun graphics for free.
There are plenty of great resources for free photos to use as backdrops (try Unsplash, for example). You can also purchase inexpensive photos from a site like Dollarphotoclub.
Going
for even more original content? Forget stock photography and take your
own pictures. For instance, take a picture of your widget and add a
quote from a happy customer or an interesting statistic about the ROI of
using your product.
Be creative
The
bottom line is that while any legitimate business should have a social
media face, it doesn’t have to (and shouldn’t) be that of a blank-faced
robot.
Take these concepts and build on them. Let me know what you
would add to this list to fill your feeds with relatable, trustworthy,
and interesting content so your prospects will keep coming back for
more.
Source: http://maximizesocialbusiness.com/5-tips-make-b2b-content-interesting-21666/
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