After speaking with many business owners and management teams over the last couple of years I’ve heard the same thing, “we are selling B2B so Facebook is not where we should be focusing our marketing or social media strategy”. Many of you selling in the Business-to- Business (B2B) space may be thinking the same thing, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Let me tell you why, and how using Facebook to reach your B2B prospects will help keep you one step ahead of the competition and a missed opportunity for so many companies.
Facebook is the social media platform that is more than simply “social media” nowadays; it has turned out to be a completely new marketing tool for B2B marketing. B2B companies in any sector or industry should make sure Facebook has a spot in their social media marketing strategy.
Let’s discuss why it’s essential and how Facebook is good for B2B marketing.
Facebook is one of the strongest social media platforms since it enjoys the highest number of users, with high levels of engagement (if done right) and precise targeting rates regarding ad placements, along with geo-targeting capabilities amongst other options.
In 2015, a Social Media Marketing Report was published by Social Media Examiner that included an assessment survey of around 3,700 marketers around many varied sized businesses marketing via social media. Many of which were more focused on B2B marketing for generating leads and establishing brand leadership. The most used platform by B2B marketers second to LinkedIn (41%) was Facebook (30% percent).
There are two core reasons why ALL companies selling B2B must consider Facebook as a key tactic in marketing plans and strategy
#1 – Advertising Intelligence
Facebook is turning out to be one of the leading platforms to capture prospects. With 15.5 billion Facebook users and more than 1 billion active users every day, your target audience is there. You just need to find them.
Lifestyle, work and persona profile characteristics coupled with strong analytics make for smart marketing. Just because we hang up our jackets, suits, ties and messenger bags when we get home, or when we surf through our friend’s news feeds, are we not marketers, bankers, brokers, salesmen or financiers anymore?
The key factor with Facebook is that it allows you to build laser targeted “custom audiences” with persona specific messaging. So, you can sift through all unqualified users to reach your target audience.
#2 – SEO
Any business in operation these days needs an optimized website that operates as a fine-tuned lead generation engine. Any analytics, marketing or CRM platform is likely going to tell you that your highest-quality leads and MQLs are coming from your website. So, the idea is to generate as much traffic to your site as possible, right?
With 15.5 billion users and more than 1 billion active users every day, Facebook is a dominating the web authority that will help many not so newsworthy companies implement link building strategies to drive people to content, and most importantly, conversion points on your website. What better way to broadcast your ebook, blog or infographics. The best part is that Google credits you for it, which will improve your Search Engine Ranking Page (SERP) listings. Investing into Facebook ads will further increase traffic to specific landing pages or posts to add a push to organic search results for targeted keywords.
How does Facebook help B2B Marketing?
#1 – Facebook Ads
We have discussed a lot about generating leads and reaching prospects, but Facebook advertising is serving two other purposes; i.e. retargeting your market specifically and retargeting your lost customers. A customer who sees your product or service, but doesn’t purchase anything shouldn’t be considered a lost case. Facebook Ads help you encourage those customers coming back to your site.
By using the Custom Audience feature given in Facebook Ad service, you can now target visitors who visited a particular URL before. It doesn’t have to be your web page; it can also be a landing page. If a customer didn’t follow CTA on landing page, your Facebook Ad could retarget him or her.
To utilize this feature, you must already have a Facebook website custom audience set up. As a fresher, here are the steps to follow.
- Go to “Facebook Ads Manager.”
- Click “Audience.”
- Select “Create Custom Audience.”
- Select “Under Website Traffic” and select “People Visiting specific pages.”
- Now go to Visited Page and tailor the URL components for matching what you intend to target
- Click “Create.”
Once the ad is created, you are asked to put a particular bit of coding from Facebook, referred to as an offsite pixel, into the codings on the pages to be tracked. Anyone visiting that page will be added to Custom Audience list in your Facebook Ads Manager, and Facebook will display ads to them, by the kind of ad that you have already created.
#2 – Facebook Videos
Facebook Videos enable you to share content from your YouTube account. Videos allow B2B businesses to discuss the best product features and practices in a different and more compelling forum.
#3 – Experts Tab
In B2B marketing, developing thought leadership and credibility through online content is a major part of successful marketing. The Experts Tab gives an innovative use of the platform. Using this custom Facebook tab of Experts, your business can create a digital expert panel displaying experts and their newest blog posts, tweets and relevant Facebook updates.
