Social media in B2B | Podcast
- Beth Lloyd-Wright
- Sep 9, 2021
- 3 min read
Updated: Dec 18, 2022
Back in 'Lockdown 1' (ahh, the memories) we had the pleasure of being interviewed, for the first time, by Dave Stevens for The Business Marketing Club's podcast. This social media focussed episode features our Founder and Creative Director, Beth Lloyd-Wright, alongside other senior B2B marketing professionals who share their insights. Listen below or subscribe via your usual channels.
Beth discusses the role of social media in B2B marketing, the potential results generated from great social media campaigns and where social media may evolve next.
The podcast itself is over a year old... but the recommendations are still relevant today. In fact even more so since technology became the default for any marketing and business professional using the pandemic.
There's no golden bullet! A skeptics guide to social media marketing in B2B
Podcast highlights from our interview with Dave are distilled here for you into six key takeaways:
Social media in B2B is only a decade old. In 2010 it was new and exciting (for some) but now it's more focussed and defined. The role of social media manager, especially in professional services, certainly wasn't on the radar. Now, thanks to the pandemic, we're seeing a faster shift towards social media being used in B2B and it's no longer solely sitting in the marketing departments hands.
Social media should be of equal importance in your marketing mix, especially for services based brands that rely on content (blogs, thought leadership, reports). Breaking down your 'hero' pieces, into bite-sized snippets, can provide long lasting content for social media, engage people quickly and drive interest in your brand offering.
There's no golden bullet! Social media is not a quick fix. Especially organic social media which requires a lot of hard work, for decreasing engagement. (shout out to all you social managers out there). But, when smartly integrated with your other digital marketing efforts you will be able to attribute social media impact (paid and organic). Expect to see around 5% of your website traffic from social media, more if you (consistently) pay-to-play.
Get 25% increase on your lead generation with LinkedIn advertising. The best campaigns are ones that really speak to your target audience. And ones that are actually seen by your target audience. How? LinkedIn advertising can be pricey but it's the premium audience you're paying for. Rich content drives the performance here, not basic messaging and targeting alone. You need to create a valuable exchange: high quality insights = high quality leads.
Social media policies are important. But boring. Governance of social is a big ticket item for many medium to large organisations. But, in our experience, this doesn't engage the team. It simply scares them into not participating. And therefore your brand can be at a loss because employee engagement is an essential part of success for professional services. BLW. Studio specialises in making the policy digestible and accessible through training and guides that are easier to use, and inspire greater participation from colleagues firm-wide.
Social media as a data insight tool, as opposed to a communication and broadcast tool. Over the next year or two the use of data will be even more prominent. Companies like The Social Intelligence Lab are already providing such data to help re-shape products, services and even government policies based on real-time data. As marketers, we're fans of Meltwater here too which can provide insight into wider trends which you can apply to your campaign planning. Watch out for more developments in this space (along with even more AI) to help supercharge how social media is used at home and at work. We will certainly aim to keep you updated here on our blog.
How has the pandemic changed how you use social media? Join the discussion over with us on LinkedIn.
If you're a solo marketer, or have a small team, and you're in need of some more support and expertise in this area, we could help. Give me a shout via the contact page.
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