B2B companies who adopt social media marketing are able to reach current and prospective customers more efficiently, and track the effectiveness of their marketing dollars.
Business-to-business (B2B) companies are increasingly aware of the benefits that can be gained from engaging in social media. And believe it or not, there are lots of B2B companies still on the fence about adopting social media. They’ll get there – in fact, maybe this is what they need to get started.
In nearly every marketing study, the number of companies who plan to adopt or increase their social media presence is increasing.
A lot of B2B companies I speak to have indicated that one of the biggest barriers to launching a social media campaign is not knowing how to get started. Some of that is due to a lack of personal and institutional knowledge of social media best practices.
Getting started setting up a social media campaign should not be a problem, thanks to Optify‘s 21-page e-book “How to Build a Social Media Campaign.”
“What is Social Media Marketing? Conducting a social media marketing campaign means actively starting conversations online, pushing content, asking questions, driving traffic and expanding visibility. As you create links and blog mentions, interested consumers see these and click through.”
Despite being only 21 pages, the e-book covers a lot of ground and is more a primer on Internet marketing than just social media. The guide consists of 7 chapters and can be a great start for B2B companies new to social media, as well as a good refresher for the more experienced.
Step 1 – Plan Your Campaign – Surprisingly, this is the part that many social media campaigns don’t seem to have. In just one page, the guide shows you how to address your goals, audience, message points, social media channels, timing, measurement and crisis planning.
Step 2 – Create Great Content – Content is the most important part of any social media marketing campaign. Social media expert Jay Baer has framed social media and content this way: “Content is the fire. Social media is the gasoline.”
Step 3 – Set Up Landing Pages – This covers where on your site to place all the content that the social media will help generate, as well as how to ensure the content can be easily found by search engines.
Step 4 – Create Optimal Lure Language – Each social media channel like Twitter or LinkedIn requires different types (and lengths of messages) to invite visitation to the content on your site.
Step 5 – Distribute Links via Social Media Channels – Covers onsite and offsite optimization. Onsite refers to what you do to optimize your social media presence on your website, whereas offsite optimization is everything that helps with your different social media channels.
Step 6 – Track & Monitor Your Campaign – That which can be measured can be improved! The guide includes a concise matrix of measurement and analytics that should be considered, along with the tools that can help accomplish that.
Step 7 – Iterate and Refine – Social media marketing should not be a “fire and forget missile.” Given the rich measurement data generated by social media marketing, you should constantly measure and do more of what’s working. And less of what’s not working.
What do you think? Please share your comments below.
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