Tag Archive for: social media marketing

Lead Liaison

Social Media and Brand Awareness

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Social MediaThere isn’t just one key to success for a company, no matter the size. Success is usually a product of persistence, best practices, and even a little (or a lot of) luck. One very important key to success is creating brand awareness. We’ve talked about brand awareness several times on the Lead Liaison blog, but today we’ll be talking about the relationship between social media and brand awareness.

An Argument for Social Media for B2B Companies

I’m sure I don’t need to go into why brand awareness is essential for any company, especially a small-to-medium sized company. When another business has a need that pertains to your line of work, you want that company to think of you immediately. Brand awareness is the result of nurturing and education, both of which can be done via social media in small, easy-to-consume spoonfulls.

Why should B2B companies use social media to promote brand awareness? Example: in my off time, I occasionally (okay – more than occasionally) scroll social media. Even though I’m not “on the clock”, I’m still thinking about to-do lists, and I am aware of what I am consuming. I’ve usually got an even clearer head because I’m in more of a relaxed state of mind. When I see advertisements for tools that I could use at work, it doesn’t make me cringe. It makes me think. During the workday, I’m so busy with tasks and emails that I rarely stop what I’m doing to assess the situation and see if I could be doing anything better or more efficiently. That’s not good – but it’s fact.

What Should Be Different About a B2B Company’s Social Media Efforts?

As with most B2B marketing, it’s more about education than hard selling. Remember, the goal with your social media is brand awareness – not immediate sales. You want to help businesses learn to trust your company’s name as a resource. Once you’ve done that, you’ll be the first company that comes to mind when their need comes to fruition. Because of this, your social media marketing should not focus on selling, but rather on education. Share best practices, tips & tricks, or links to informative articles (yours or others’).

Where Should You Focus?

Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are some of the most active social media sites. However, LinkedIn Groups can be extremely effective for B2B social media marketing, as well as a YouTube channel. As an introvert, I much prefer to skim YouTube videos about a software that I’m interested in purchasing, rather than speak to a salesperson on the phone.

But, it’s not necessarily where you focus your social media efforts. It’s more about how you communicate. A recent study from The MarketingProfs, The State of Social Media Marketing, shows that B2C and B2B social media marketers are mostly using the same social media approach, in terms of which platforms they utilize. The differences instead lie in how social media is used, not which social media are used.

In social media, small companies can act like big ones. Sure, there are paid advertising options for most social media sites. However, the reach is essentially the same, depending on the amount of followers a company has. Because of this, we see that social media activity does not vary much between large and small companies.

Social Media for Brand Awareness

The message is simple. B2B companies should use social media to help educate and nurture members of the marketplace. If done properly, that brand awareness will lead to increased trust, which leads to increased sales. This is a modern strategy for communicating with your potential clients, and it’s time to get on board!

Interested in how Lead Liaison helps you manage your social media presence? Contact a representative today for a free demonstration!

Lead Liaison

Social Media Monitoring

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*Editor’s Note: The views & opinions expressed in any guest post on our site are those of the guest author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of Lead Liaison. 

Today’s guest post comes from our friends over at the Salesforce Marketing Cloud. Are you a social media manager or someone with limited experience wanting to educate yourself? This article is for you!

New posts, images, videos, articles: Those are all great elements of social media. But if you don’t monitor what’s happening on your social media accounts—often called social media listening—you may be missing out on key insights.

Those conversations, emotions, and connections offer clues about what your clients are thinking and feeling. You can’t just check Facebook; you must keep tabs on every platform that you choose to participate in, and you must make those check-ins a regular business function. To do otherwise is to lose the potential to make key adjustments as needed.

Want more insights into social media listening? This graphic is for you!

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Lead Liaison

The Marketing Guru Covers: What are the benefits of social media marketing?

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social media marketing

Social media is everywhere. Many companies are leveraging their social media presence to build a more personal relationship with their audience. But, how effective is it – really? What are the benefits of social media marketing?

Become Recognizable & Relatable

Social media marketing allows you to increase your online presence. By increasing your brand recognition, you also gain more loyal customers. If they see your name over and over again, you become a part of their lives. You become more familiar to them. You also become more humanized.

What’s even more valuable, is that each customer interaction is an opportunity to show your level of customer service. It’s a public, 1:1 interaction that other people can see, and “like” (or dislike, so beware!). In an article posted by B2C about social media marketing, they reference a statistic originally reported by Forbes: 71% of consumers who receive a quick response on social media say they are more likely to recommend that brand to other people. And we all know that the most solid form of referrals is word-of-mouth.

Convert more leads/prospects by increasing inbound traffic

Inbound marketing is the best way to build up your list of prospects and convert leads. Every time you post something, you open yourself up to opportunities for prospects to click your link, interact with your website, and perhaps even fill out a form or put in their email address. Every post is a new opportunity for someone to be guided back to your website. With tools like Lead Liaison’s Marketing Automation platform, you can post to multiple social media accounts with the push of one button.

Save money

Compared to other marketing channels, social media posting is relatively inexpensive and time efficient. It’s trackable and measurable content, which adds to it’s value. It can be free, or you also have the option of using paid social media to give your content a significant boost. MCG Consulting Group lays it out like this, “boosting or sponsoring posts on a page with, let’s say, 20.000 likes, the average paid reach can be close to 40% (about 8,000 people) vs. the 2% organic reach, with an investment of $5 per post.  Even if you decide to boost every single post, posting on a frequency of 16 to 20 times per month with an average of likes of 500 to 800 per post, the reach could go up to 5,000,000 people who could have seen your posts during that specific period, with an investment equal or below $150.”

Learn more about our integration with social media!