A few years ago, social media was only associated with individuals or B2C companies. Then, B2B companies, realizing its potential, started using social media as well. Approximately, 18 million companies have created a business profile for themselves on LinkedIn.
Now the question is, in what manner do companies use social media? How much Organic Social and how much Paid Social do they do? Are they getting the most out of their company page? Have they taken care to add followers from their target market and influencers?
If you happen to be the marketing head of a company, then, how do you use social? Where do you stand in the social usage ladder?
- After creating the profile, you haven’t posted anything for ages.
- Use social media only for advertising.
- Post during important events with some advertising and keep quiet for a long time.
- You have a strategy and an active social media page with regular posts and advertising.
What is the right approach that you should take? Certain social platforms do not display all posts to your followers, so organic social media can take you only this far and you need to do Paid Social. Yet, you cannot avoid it because it has clear benefits.
Here, we throw some light on the top reasons why B2B companies should harness the power of organic social media and use it regularly to reap its benefits.
Branding and validation
Besides your website, your company’s social presence speaks a lot for your brand. When prospects visit your website, they also tend to visit your company’s social channels and read the ‘About’ page and a few posts. Social media posts communicate your brand’s values and creativity. If not earlier, before the purchase, prospects definitely check up on your social media profiles and posts.
Hence it’s important to maintain a good social profile. When you create your social profile, the “About” section can act like a magic wand for branding, if done creatively and effectively. Publishing creative posts and informative content like a blog, provides you the opportunity to establish your company’s brand and as an expert in the industry.
Distribute content
Use social media to publish your content – be it a blog or Infographic or a video. It’s a great way to get all your content out there so that at least some of it will reach your followers.
SEO and Traffic
Creating a social profile and linking it back to your website, gives links to your website. Posting content like blogs on social media allows you to establish these links again. Your social posts also show up in Google search if you have used the right keywords or hashtags. All this helps you to improve your brand’s ranking on search engines and drive more traffic to your website.
Build community and Engage
Grow your social media community and spread the word about your business. Engage in conversations with the fans that are related to your brand. With the right community management, your B2B company will attract new fans and followers. Unite these audiences over their shared interest. Engaging methods like polls and contests make people hang out on your social community often.
Connect with, Retain and Attract Employees
Your social media page can work as a great platform for employee engagement. Socially enabled companies are better at attracting and retaining employees and they have a higher employee engagement rate. It is also seen that companies that regularly post on social about the achievements of their employees, awards and so on – pleases employees and grabs more attention. Posting videos of employee activities can create a community spirit within the organization and this is visible to even outsiders as a healthy organization.
Holistic marketing demands combining organic efforts with paid social media to create maximum impact. While social advertising will get you quick leads, the organic efforts will help you build brand and generate traffic. Publishing content at least twice a week in social media will reap you sweeter benefits.
Want more reasons for B2B to use organic social media? Or all these factors have already inspired you to make social media your daily companion in B2B business? Please hit the share button if you liked reading this blog.