Social Media – is it still an option?

Strong B2B Social Media marketing can offer the following benefits to a business:

  • Lead to an increase in word of mouth advertising
  • Helps to better communicate the company message
  • Bolster the reach of customer and audience
  • Improves trust and loyalty from customers
  • Cultivates authority and trust within your industry

There is more to Social Media than just Facebook but it can be confusing to know where to start and what is right for your business, so let’s break it down.

1. For a professional organisation, LinkedIn should be the first port of call in terms of networking with your corporate peers, discovering fresh opportunities, hiring new employees and advertising your business. Social Times reported that 61 per cent of top level executives used LinkedIn as their primary professional network compared to 22 per cent using Facebook and 4 per cent that use Twitter.

2. Invest some time into Google+ as despite its somewhat slow initial user uptake it has been emerging as a key element to a company’s overall SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) strategy. Google+ is of course indexed by Google so your business page will be found much more quickly and easily. Other features include Google+ Hangouts, essentially a video chat room where meetings, product demonstrations, customer service help and company announcements could all be held.

3. If you have a business where the visual impacts is key, then consider using Pinterest, a visual discovery tool that can be used to showcase products and ideas. Pinterest now drives more web traffic to publishers than Twitter, LinkedIn and Reddit combined. Social Media gurus Wishpond have put together a slideshow illustrating how 10 companies maximised Pinterest to the fullest.

4. So many businesses use Twitter but very few actually use it well. I often see if a new client has a Twitter account but usually I’m dismayed to find that it has not been updated since May 2012! If this is you then might as well not bother having an account as it reflects poorly on the company and makes the business look unkempt. Ensure you have a strategy in place before using Twitter or any social media platform and decide what you’d like to get out of it. Forbes has compiled a list of Twitter best practices and is a great place to start and review your strategy.

5. Content, Content, Content! The best way to attract clients to your site and keep them is fresh original content. Google loves to index relevant quality content so try and keep your company blog updated. However, long gone are the days where you can simply fill it up with spammy keywords but Google does like and look for longer content, videos, images, text correctly formatted as well as reputable inbound and outbound links. Not everyone likes to read blogs so Infographics are also becoming very popular and are fantastic way of getting information across quickly and effectively. Remember articles with images receive a huge 94 per cent more views than those that don’t!

Nico Frame is the Marketing Manager at Silver Fox Limited in Hertfordshire, the market leading manufacturer of labelling solutions. He is a huge advocate of social media and the power of the internet for SME’s. Nico has previously worked within the pharmaceutical and home entertainment industry.