For B2B companies looking for social media suggestions from other business owners, here are 5 suggestions from a startup. T. Brian Jones, President and Founder of IndustrialInterface.com shares key recommendations from his recent successful experience using social media here.
He and his partners have gone from a brand new startup site a few months ago to 20,000 site visitors in October. Brian explains how they have increased web site visitors, leads, and conversions.
We asked Brian, What recommendations do you have for other small/startup B2B companies that want to begin to use social media to stimulate leads and find prospects—but aren’t sure where to start?
1) Don’t be a business.
The Internet allows people in every job to consume information that they find interesting at work. If you can present relevant and useful information to your potential customers that is also fun and interesting, then you are well on your way to creating a valuable online brand.
2) It’s not always about marketing.
Internet users can smell marketing speak a mile away. Why? Because it’s usually meaningless drivel that conveys no real benefit to anyone. Social media marketing is all about people sharing with other people. You need to personify your brand to compete in this space. If your company is just sharing its most recent product information, then no one is going to care. Don’t be afraid to be personal, funny, controversial, and casual when representing your brand online.
3) Trust your product.
If your product stinks, then all the marketing in the world isn’t going to help. If you’ve created a valuable website and clearly share the benefits of using your products, then users will be engaged when they get there. You won’t always have to push your products on customers through these online avenues.
4) Choose the right medium.
There are a lot of popular social media sites that aren’t useful to every brand. LinkedIn is for professional networking and business information, while Facebook is reserved exclusively for fun personal interactions.
- B2B social media efforts need to be highly targeted to be successful.
5) Monitor the right metrics.
Lots of people are interested in lots of stuff online, so traffic isn’t always a key to success. Look to customer sign-ups, calls, or some other action that represents a real prospect doing something on your site. Getting a thousand people to your site is useless if no one takes the actions you need.
Great article! Social media should not be always be about marketing.
Thanks, Claudia. It is helpful to read a viewpoint on finding customers online from entrepreneurs in the trenches. Brian makes it clear that your content must provide value. I’d add, or your competitors’ will.
–Cynthia
Great article! I agree about needing to target. A lot of businesses I find are of the opinion that Facebook is the be all and end all of social media sites and overlook the smaller niche social networking sites they could be much more beneficial to their business. Thanks for the tips!
Great article. In reference to #4, you are right on the money. There are thousands of social media channels out there but they are not all going to be right for everyone. I suggest sticking to the smaller niche social networking websites to get the most “bang for the buck” so to speak.