Social media has solidified its reputation as a viable B2B marketing tool.
Rather than the fun, leisurely pastime it once was, it is now prolific in the digital marketing space and has been adopted by major business brands looking to take full advantage of the opportunities it offers.
As a B2B marketer, you already have a strategy in place when it comes to social media - you may even have established a social media policy for your workplace. But the goalposts are always changing.
So what challenges will 2019 bring?
Last year there were several announcements that promised to affect social media marketing in 2019, for example:
And that's not all.
Social media platforms connect businesses with prospects and existing customers. They paint a picture of your audience's needs, spread your brand message and inform future marketing goals.
And, with social media marketing, you can position your product or service right in front of the very people who need it. Sounds great! But how can you gain more reach?
Growing an audience is one of the biggest challenges for businesses on social media.
Think about your channels. What’s really in it for your followers? Unless you are creating content that genuinely delights, people won’t be prepared to follow or subscribe.
To date, there are 25 million business profiles on Instagram.
70% of Instagram users use the platform to check out a brand they’re considering and 35% check their feeds multiple times a day.
On top of that, 400 million people use Instagram stories daily and one in five organic stories from businesses gets a direct message.
Over the past ten years or so, we’ve seen social media move from being an early adopter’s marketing experiment to a tried and trusted channel for both B2C and B2B marketing.
But that doesn’t mean you should rush in and use it without thought – like any communications medium it has its benefits and its drawbacks.
And like any marketing medium, there are things it’s great for, things it’s not good for, and things it should never be used for.
Until recently, Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Millennials have been the target demographics for most modern businesses when marketing their services/products.
However, businesses should consider the purchasing power and the burgeoning influence of another: Generation Z. Generally considered to include people born between 1996 and 2014, they are the rising demographic armed with an economic force to be reckoned with. So, turn your attention to the effects of the youngest generation of consumers. Many B2C and B2B businesses have already started.
94% of content marketers are using social media as part of their strategy. And for good reason - 54% of buyers use social media to research potential vendors and solutions.
But social media is a crowded space, and the challenge is getting your content heard above the noise.
To really illustrate this point, here are some stats about what happens on social media every minute;
Facebook has been getting a pretty tough time of late in the media and the courtroom. Fake news, scandals and security breaches meant its reputation took a battering.
In January 2018, Facebook's algorithm changed drastically to prioritise posts that create meaningful conversations and interactions, especially between friends and family.
Great news for Joe Public, but not so great for businesses looking to gain new customers via Facebook marketing.
The new algorithm makes it much harder for business pages to get seen unless you have a very engaged audience who frequently like, comment and share your social posts.
For the vast majority of people in the world, social media is an everyday part of their lives.
Here in the UK, 66% of the population are active on social media; in January 2018 that was 44 million people.
And, that figure is still rising, and is up 5% on the previous year.
We all know what a major part the big social apps such as Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter and LinkedIn play in many people’s personal and private lives – the average time spent on social in January 2018 was nearly two hours a day.
Today, images are a priority when it comes to bulletproof content marketing strategies. Visual content tends to generate more engagement than written content - partially because pictures are so memorable, easy to consume and easy to share. They are perfect for sharing a message that sticks.
Social listening is the act of analysing conversations that take place on social platforms involving a specific brand or industry.
Not to be confused with social media monitoring, social listening allows brands to hone in on their target audience’s most common frustrations, challenges and values, extracting key insights that help design a more appealing content offering.
Perfectly described by Dan Neely, CEO of Networked Insights, “Monitoring sees trees; listening sees the forest.”
