Does your B2B Social Media Marketing Rock? You can play any stadium if you . . .
Understand Your Audience
Before you jump into the tactical details and start rocking out your social media plan, you need to take the time to understand your audience.
Rock concert attendees come from different backgrounds, but they all have one thing in common: they’re there to watch the performers – and to feel really great about being there.
That performer or band needs to know how to appeal to all these different demographics and personalities. The same concept applies in social media. Users from different social platforms are diverse, but they’re all on there to interact and engage with their network and brands.
As a social media marketer, it’s your job to find the harmony that draws in these users, which consist of your target audience, to keep them coming back for more.
To understand who they are and what they care about, develop audience personas by answering questions like these:
- What is their background? For B2B marketers, where do they work and what are their responsibilities?
- What are their goals and how can your products or services help them achieve their goals? What are their challenges and pain points? This is a great place to start-looking at how your solution can alleviate their pain points…exploring how YOU can help THEM.
- Where are they consuming content? What social platforms are they on?
- What kind of content do they interact with? Do they have an interest in a particular solution or product? Does a particular type of messaging will speak to them directly? And more broadly, what other topics are they interested in?
Developing audience personas requires an initial investment, but it pays off throughout the customer lifecycle—not only for building brand awareness, but engaging buyers, converting them, and then, using a unique customer development strategy, developing them into brand advocates.
Make Your Lyrics Memorable
Once you have a thorough understanding of who your audience is, you can start mapping out your B2B social media marketing strategy by determining how you’ll engage your audience across the different social platforms.
To develop engaging campaigns for social, it’s critical to:
- Set the tone, style, and delivery strategies for your content. Just like how some concertgoers might respond best to a light, soft jazz while others are looking to really rock out, your content needs to be tailored to your target audience’s preferences. Should it be conversational, prescriptive, or authoritative? What form should your content take: a text post, an image, or an asset?
- Research what topics your buyers are most interested in and develop content around it. Rock stars need to determine whether they’re going to perform songs about heartbreak, medleys about a day in the life, or a little bit of both. They might factor in what their talents are and who they’re performing for. For social media, the topics you should be writing about will be determined by each persona’s interests and how you can appeal to them. And if you ever get stuck on wondering what your audience wants to see, just ask! You can always pose a question like “What would you like us to cover or address?” within each platform.
- Understand where buyers get their information and how they want to consume it. Social media platforms are plentiful, with new platforms emerging and existing platforms updating their features all the time. So, you need to understand how to reach your target audience and with what type of content. For example, on Snapchat, your audience may be looking for light, fun conversational content, whereas on LinkedIn, your audience may be looking for more substantial reading.
- Does your audience like behind-the scenes videos or Q&A? Do they spend their time streaming on Spotify, or are they searching for videos on YouTube or with Twitter’s new #nowplaying hashtag? The key is to be consistent. When you’re consistently showing up in someone’s feed, you’re more likely to influence their next plan or purchase. In fact, did you know that 60% of Twitter followers purchase from a business and 86% say they plan to purchase in the future because of something they saw on Twitter, according to a Twitter report? That’s a pretty staggering number.
Small business, middle-market fast growth or enterprise on the way to being a category leader, each need a B2B social media content strategy, a seasoned, successful guide and a team that can show they are both agile and mobile. Use the right Persona, data and metrics that works for you. Let the technology follow.
Real and high-ROI solution – find a talented, accountable and seasoned marketing professional who can be your guide, coach, teacher and implementer. Yes, it takes some persistent effort. Yes, it’s more than worth it with a measurable payback.
We can get you and keep you on the small business B2B content marketing effectiveness and sustainability best practices path. We deliver a measurable ROI. You get the benefits!
Email us – info@sladegroup.com or call us – 512 799 4676. You’ll be glad you did.
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