Introduction to B2B marketing

Do you know the key differences between B2B and B2C marketing?
And the extra elements you need to include when marketing a service
rather than a product? Understanding the unique characteristics of these
different types of marketing can be a real barrier for many marketers.
So, we're first going to look at the key features and set the scene for
marketing your business using social media. If we start with business-to-
business, or B2B marketing, which is all about introducing and selling
your products and services to other businesses. It might be computer
hardware. It might be computer software. It could be other services such
as finance, law, or business consultancy. Products and services
purchased for business use, aside from basic stationery and kitchen
supplies, involve a much greater level of decision-making and input
from several people within the business. The average number of people
involved in a B2B purchase is 5.4. This also often means that the buying
cycle is longer because it's so much more involved and the process
involves direct conversations with the organization that you're buying
from. Compare this to business-to-consumer or B2C marketing which is
mostly aimed at individuals or households for products and services that
people may use in their everyday lives, like food, cleaning products, and
home furnishings. As consumers, we often purchase via third parties like
a supermarket instead of direct from the provider. And in terms of
advertising, we're usually influenced by big campaigns on TV and in-
store. So, now we know the key differences between B2B and B2C
marketing, let's have a look at the factors that make product and service
marketing slightly different. Again, it's important to be clear on what we
need to be considering before we dive into using social media. Let's
recap some marketing 101, the four Ps. It's the classic marketing mix
model, price, product, place, and promotion. And these four Ps are the
elements that all come together to define the tactics and the messages
when you're talking to your ideal customer. They're a checklist for
making marketing decisions. The price you want to charge for your
product or service, will it be a premium or lower cost? There's no right
or wrong, but these are decisions to make that are based on information
from across your industry, and where you want to sit alongside your
competitors. Product, that's about the item you're selling. What is it?
What features does it have? And what benefits does it give? Customers
are far more interested in the benefits than technical jargon. "A thousand
songs in your pocket," was how Apple advertised the iPod. They didn't
talk about how many gigabytes of music it could store. d store. Place,
that's how you're delivering your product to market. It may physical. It
may be online only. It might be both. And promotion. That's all the big
decisions around your advertising, your public relations, and your direct
marketing, both online and offline. But when we're marketing a service,
something intangible, we need to add three Ps to our mix. People,
process, and physical evidence. The people involved in delivering your
service are critical to its success. People aren't usually a visible part of
product marketing, but when you offer services, maybe it's a great thing
to outline your people's credentials. And to make sure that everyone has
received enough training to deliver a consistent, great experience to
customers. And it's that process of delivery that makes a service
experience unique. So, it can be a good idea to show customers how it
works when they're entering your premises. Or if you have an online
service, show how it works when they're considering how to sign up.
Step-by-step guides or flow charts are useful for everyone, your team
and your customers. And finally, physical evidence can help people to
remember the service they've received. This could be something really
simple, such as a notebook and pen for taking notes on a training course.
Or if you hire a great venue for an offsite meeting where people want to
take photos and post them on their social media accounts. If you need to
make some notes on your marketing mix elements right now, take a
moment, and then we can move on.

The B2B customer

What would you say if I asked you to describe them to me? Do you
know enough about their industry? Do you know how many employees
their business has, how they're structured, where they're located? When
you can clearly picture your ideal customer and understand how and
why they make their purchasing decisions, you'll be able to offer them
helpful information and really keep focused on them when you're
posting on social media. And remember, you're not talking logo to logo
or screen to screen, you're communicating with people. Just think, how
do you feel when you're being pitched to by someone that doesn't
understand you or what your job actually involves. Is often frustrating
and a waste of your time. It creates a negative perception about the
business and its people. Poor marketing, poor sales, they're just thinking
about themselves, not about you. When someone takes the time to show
us, they understand our needs and challenges, it's a far better
conversation and it's more likely to lead to a business opportunity. When
there's buying decisions to be made for work, both rational and
emotional factors are in play. The rational motivations might be practical
and financial. For example, is this a good investment for us? Will they
speed up our way of working and save our business money long-term?
Emotion also comes into play when we consider the impact of a
purchase. Will it make lives easier or will it remove jobs? Higher up the
emotional scale you might even wonder, will my job be at stake if I get
this decision wrong? As marketers we have to understand and support
the rational and the emotional. We need to put ourselves in our
customer's shoes when we're planning our marketing messages. We need
to understand their challenges before we can share our solutions and we
need to help them make their decisions by providing information that
answers any questions they might have about our business, our products
and services. How-to-guides in a written or video format are great. A
free trial or demonstration could be really useful too especially if they
can share it with their colleagues and they might be reassured if they see
testimonials from other customers or hear about some awards you've
won. It can take a long time for people within a business to make a
decision year even, so be prepared. Do some research, create a great
accurate picture of your ideal customer and think about what
information they need to receive from you when they're making a
decision to buy.

The benefits of social media for business

Social media isn't a new thing anymore, but it can feel like it's still being
discovered for business marketing. And there's many benefits to using
the platforms to reach new customers, to help guide their decision-
making process and to gain their loyalty and referrals. The first step to
truly realizing the benefits of social media is defining its purpose within
your business. What do you want social media to achieve for you? And
don't start with, how will you use a social media platform. As a trainer, I
get these requests all the time. Please show me how to tweet, or show
me how to do an Instagram story, without really understanding what it's
all about or why you might want to do either of those things. You need
to know your destination before you set off and have a roadmap to keep
you heading in the right direction especially when you're on business
time. So, start with your business and marketing strategy and identify if
and how social media can help you get to where you need to be. Let's
have a look at those benefits. The first is awareness. Over 50% of the
world's population now uses social media. So, it's more than likely that
you can reach your ideal customer on at least one of the platforms,
posting content for them to find and get to know that your business
exists. But social media is not just about businesses and brands, it's
about individuals too. You can build your own profile as a go-to expert
or thought leader. Second, being part of a community is incredibly
important. And social media has features that can help you host and get
involved in sharing information in groups, finding all the support you
need from friends, family, colleagues and peers. But my favorite use for
social media, the biggest benefit for me is insight and market
intelligence. It's such a great tool to learn more about your industry and
your audiences, and it's less expensive than traditional market research
methods like surveys and focus groups. You can use social media to get
key information on your competitors, who they are, what content they're
sharing, what their customers are saying about them and so on. And
when you share links in your social media posts, you can drive traffic to
your own website, create even more engagement and add value to your
potential customers with more in-depth information about your business.
When you're interacting on social media platforms, you can also come
across lots of opportunities that become leads for your business. People
asking questions about issues your products or services can solve for
them, for example. And if you find someone posting a complaint on
social media, see it as an opportunity, a way for you to respond and
provide great customer service. Or if it's about a competitor, you could
jump in and offer your help. When you see positive reviews on social
media, you can get really useful insights about what's important to
customers, which can help you develop your own products and services
too. So, lots of benefits that you could be using social media for your
business. Awareness, thought leadership, community building, insights,
website traffic, lead generation. If you need to develop a business case
for making use of social media in your business, show your stakeholders
examples of what others in your field are doing already. Highlight any
research that you have that shows your ideal customers are using social
media. And include examples of content that seems to be resonating and
getting results for them. So build your case and let's make it happen.

How to choose which social media platforms to use for your business
Which social media platform will work best for you and your business?
It's not always a straightforward answer. You might be tempted to go for
the platform you find easiest to use, but this might not be the best option
because it's not about you, it's about your customers. When deciding
what social media platforms to use, there's some key questions. First,
where is your target audience? User information is always available for
each platform. You can check out their press office or newsrooms for the
latest data and insights. And there can be some really interesting key
trends by age and gender for each platform, as well as differences in
their use around the world. When you understand your target audience,
your ideal customer, you'll know which social media platform you're
most likely to find them on. Don't make the mistake of thinking that the
biggest platforms are where you need to be. Size doesn't always matter.
It's the platforms where we can find our target audience that matter. The
second question: what are your competitors doing? Which platforms are
they using? And do you need to be there too? Are there opportunities
that they're missing that you could take advantage of? And when you're
reviewing your direct competitors, I would also consider other key
players in your industry like your professional bodies and industry
publications. They're often a really good guide to understanding how
your target audience might be using social media. And what do you want
to achieve? Remember, success on social media will be about aligning
your activity with your overall business objectives. Everything starts
with knowing what you want to achieve, not with, "I think I want to use
this social media platform. How do I use it?" Do get to know how each
platform works and what features are available, and then match your
business needs with the most relevant platform. For example, if you
want to build up a network of business connections in a new location,
head to LinkedIn. Or if you want to show images of your products from
manufacturing stage through to them being used by customers, try
Instagram. How much time do you have available? One of the key
resources required for social media is time. You might be tempted to use
as many social media platforms as you can, and while this course
focuses on four, there are hundreds more, but don't even think about it.
There are only 24 hours in a day and you'll just spread your resources
too thinly. So let's recap those questions before we move on. Where is
your target audience? What are your competitors doing? What do you
want to achieve? And how much time do you have available for social
media? Now new platforms and features appear all the time, so do keep
an eye on the future, as well as what you need to choose to do right now,
but make decisions based on your needs.

LinkedIn for B2B social media marketing

LinkedIn is the number one social media platform for business

professionals. And I'm not just saying that because we're here. It's
primarily made up of company pages and personal profiles. And these
are the areas I'm going to focus on in this session and show you how
they work best together. It's probably obvious, but you should have a
page for your company, completing all the details to describe your
business such as company name, about, description, size, location and
website details. But as people do business with people, the power of
LinkedIn lies in using a personal profile to make connections. It's in the
experience section of your personal profile that you can showcase your
skills and expertise. And it's here you can create a link to your company
page. That's the first way the two areas interact. The second way that
company and personal pages interact on LinkedIn is content sharing.
When you post content on a company page, it will reach followers of
that page. But, I find that individuals within your business often have far
more connections than a page has followers. You can coordinate content
sharing via your company page, posting updates and then notify your
non marketing colleagues to share with their own connections. Here's
some powerful stats to show just how important this is. Go ahead and
use them if you need to convince any colleagues to get involved. We are
three times more likely to trust content shared by people we know than
content shared by brands. We're eight times more likely to engage with
content shared by employees than content shared by brands. And we're
24 times more likely to reshare content shared by employees than the
content shared by brands. In addition to sharing company content,
individuals should be encouraged to share their own updates. Maybe
something they're working on, some news about a recent project or a
course completed. If you're building connections with your ideal
customers on LinkedIn, plus those people that might recommend you,
any content you share or interactions you make with your network in
your newsfeed, it will all ensure you stay visible. So, do you think
LinkedIn will be a useful platform to market your business?

Facebook for B2B social media marketing

How long have you had a Facebook profile? It's one of the first social
media platforms many of us joined or heard about and it has the most
users in the world. It's a place to connect with our friends and family, but
it's also hugely powerful for businesses, B2B as well as B2C. Facebook's
focus is on building communities, both friends and family, but business
communities too. It's a place where you can search out business contacts
and join groups to either get support from your peers or to interact with
your ideal customers. As an individual, you have a Facebook profile, as
a business, you can create a page and post behind the scenes images of
your company. You can let your followers know about new products and
offers, and you can get them involved in events you're hosting.
Facebook is a good place for businesses to advertise. The targeting
criteria is all based on the information its users provide, and the self
service platform that guides you through everything step-by-step is easy
to get started with. A quick tip, you can also see what ads your
competitors are running, if you visit their page and go to the Ad Library
Report. I find this feature really useful for gathering insights and
preparing my own social media marketing plans. Like all the social
media platforms, Facebook adds new features and functionality all the
time. So I highly recommend you follow their newsroom for the latest
information. As an individual, you have a Facebook profile, as a
business, like Two Trees Olive Oil, you can create a page and post
behind the scenes images of your company. You can let your followers
know about new products and offers, and you can let them know about
events you're hosting. We all know that Facebook is a good place for
businesses to advertise. The targeting criteria is all based on the
information its users provide. And the self service platform guide you
through everything you need to do step by step. A quick tip, you can
look at a business page and see if the page is running any ads. I find this
feature is really useful for gathering insights and preparing my own
marketing plans. To do that, you would scroll down, have a look at Page
Transparency. See what amends have been made to this page. Right
now, this page is not running any ads. If it was, or there was a previous
history, I'd be able to go to the Ad Library, and take a look. Like all the
social media platforms, Facebook adds new features and functionality all
the time. So I highly recommend you follow their newsroom for the
latest information.

Instagram for B2B social media marketing

Instagram is part of Facebook's family of apps. In 2016, this photo and

video sharing app added business accounts that have advanced
functionality for running ads and access to insights data to measure how
things are working. Instagram's goal is to help companies reach their
audiences through captivating imagery in a rich visual environment. Is a
great platform for creating awareness about your business, to meet and
interact with potential and existing customers, to educate people about
your business, your products, and services, and also to humanize your
brand by going behind the scenes. Instagram is all about visual content.
For B2B companies, you can showcase your products or demonstrate
your services. It's a great place to show your team and what it's like to
work for and do business with your company. There are four places
where you can share content on Instagram; the main feed, stories,
Instagram TV and reels. For images on the main feed, you do need to
add a short caption to support the image. Let people know what you're
posting and why, and maybe engage them with a question. Instagram
stories are a feature that lets users post photos, and 15 second videos that
vanish after 24 hours. Instagram stories do not appear on your profile
grid or in the main Instagram feed. They're highlighted in a bar along the
top of your app when you look at it. Instagram TV or IGTV is a longer
form vertical video channel that's accessible from Instagram and as a
standalone app. And reels, they're short entertaining videos. I've got
some top tips for using Instagram for your business. So let's have a quick
look at my profile. I have a username, Luanwise, it's my name. I have a
bio, a short description about my business and what people can expect to
see on my account. There's 150 characters available here. So try and
include some calls to action that directs people to look at a website.
Here, the bio is a list of my services and what I do. You can only include
one website link on your Instagram account. But if you have multiple
links you wish to share, consider perhaps setting up a free account on
something called Linktree that allows you to direct people to various
pages from just one link, like this. To avoid your Instagram profile
looking like a random collection of images, it's a good idea to establish a
theme. This could be a common use of color, images that are always
taken from the same angle, or perhaps a checkerboard approach to
mixing images with graphics. You don't need to be a professional
photographer or graphic designer to use Instagram for your business. So
download the app, take a look around, and see how you might be able to
use this to bring your business to life.
Twitter for B2B social media marketing

Are you a Twitter user? I love it. Yes, it's super fast, and it can be hard
to write what you want to say in such a small number of characters, but
it's also a great platform to go to if you want to find out exactly what's
happening in the world as it's actually happening. On Twitter, you can
follow other users and see what content they're sharing. You can also see
who's engaging with it. And by engagement, I mean liking, commenting,
and sharing. It is fast-moving, so you need to post often on Twitter, and
at the times your followers are most likely to be online so that your
tweets don't get missed. Twitter is a social media platform that has
multiple uses for business, from creating awareness through to customer
service. In fact, because it has so many uses, some organizations opt for
multiple Twitter accounts depending on their products, services, and
marketplaces. For example, a law firm might choose to have separate
profiles for their different areas, such as employment law, construction
law, and residential property services. Twitter is also great for events,
for organizers to promote their events and for attendees to share their
new knowledge and network with others during and after. You'll also
find a lot of people posting on Twitter around key dates, such as
International Women's Day, International Coffee Day, World Mental
Health Day, etc., many of which can be relevant for your business to get
involved with and be part of the bigger conversation. But the real power
behind the value of Twitter is the hashtag. This symbol groups
conversations by making a keyword become a clickable link. Using
hashtags can help people find your posts, and lets you find insights
around key topics. I've got a great example for one of my marketing
friends who works in telecoms. She was asked to review a new and
important industry report and give feedback to the board. But instead of
doing that, she found the hashtag people in her industry were using to
share their thoughts on this big report. She gathered the tweets from her
key competitors, and put together her review for the board based on
what people were actually saying about the report. Isn't that just so much
more valuable and insightful than her repeating some key points from a
large document? Let's take a look at how to search for a hashtag on
Twitter. I'm going to search for the Two Trees Oil monthly subscription
club. I just open twitter.com, and I type in the hashtag into the search
box. I can see posts that come under top, latest, people, photos, and
videos. I can see here that the top post is announcing a new competition
to win a free membership. And the latest post, the most recent one, is a
reply to a question. People use Twitter to share their thoughts and
opinions, and you can find and use that information for your own
business in real time.

Generating awareness for your business with social media

Letting people know that your business exists and is ready and waiting
for new customers or repeat business is an ongoing task for all
marketers. Social media is a great platform to generate awareness and to
stay visible for when someone might be in need of your products and
services. The AIDA model describes the process people go through
when they're looking to buy something. AIDA stands for awareness or
attention, interest, desire, and action. We can picture this buy-in process
as a funnel. Some people will drop out the process if the product or
service isn't right for them. And that's why it's wider at the top than the
bottom. Whenever you're making a purchase, you will go through the
AIDA process, often without even thinking about it. For B2B marketing,
the AIDA process, we can understand that our potential customers need
to receive some information about our products and services at each
stage to help them move towards the next one. Social media is probably
used most often at the awareness stage. The stage when people are
recognizing that they have a problem to solve and have lots of questions
before they find the right solution. As people use social media as a place
to search and ask for recommendations, this is often the marketing
channel where they first become aware of your business. Awareness is
often the objective use for social media advertising to promote content to
more people that match the criteria of your ideal customer, to get more
people into the top of your funnel so you can guide them towards
making a purchase. So think about what questions do people ask you
early on in that buying process? Are you posting those answers on social
media so that you can reach people at the first awareness stage of
AIDA? Are you adding budget to your post to push them to as many
people as possible. Awareness posts, answer FAQ's about your business
or about areas of expertise. Sharing content like this, lets people know
what you do and it's easy for people to find. Awareness posts could also
include pictures of your products, your customers enjoy them or behind
the scenes storytelling. People will enter the funnel at many different
times so it's content that you need to keep posting on social media to you
encourage more people to take action at some point.

Engaging and nurturing business audiences with social media

Let's stick with the four-step AIDA model: awareness, interest, desire,
and action. Once a potential customer is aware of your business, your
products, and services, once you're on their radar, you need to keep
showing up and sharing information that shows you're the go-to experts,
the people with the products or services that they need to consider
buying. On social media, this is when the links you're sharing in social
media posts will drive people to click through to your website for even
more detailed information. And this is when you can get involved in
discussions and posts and answer questions about being helpful and
supportive. Groups on Facebook and LinkedIn are a great place to do
this. On Twitter, Tweet chats that are focused around specific topics are
also a brilliant way to have online discussions. Many organizations run
their own weekly chats around their expertise or as a local business, you
might find something relevant. I live in the southwest of the UK, and
every Tuesday, nine till 10 p.m., there is #southwesthour, where local
businesses can get involved. This is the time that you can start having
detailed, one-to-one conversations with people that show an interest
sparked off those posts. Look out for any triggers you can respond to.
When you see posts about award wins, say, "Congratulations." If you
see a new piece of content, offer a compliment about it. If it's LinkedIn
and you spot them viewing your profile, send a message to say, "Hi,"
and ask if you could help them out with anything. We call this type of
activity social selling. But it's not actually selling. It's all about
developing relationships with your potential customers so that you're the
natural first point of contact when they're ready to buy. You're engaging
with them and you're nurturing them. And remember, it can take weeks,
months, and sometimes years for a B2B sale. So this is really critical to
keep showing up and not letting people wander (laughs) into the arms of
a competitor. It's all about building the know, like, and trust factor.
Personal relationships are important in B2B marketing. We buy from
people, and since the buying decisions for B2B are big decisions, it's
critical that we do business with people we know, like, and trust, and it's
also more fun.
 Using social media search to find new business prospects

Most of the time, we think about social media as a place to go scrolling

until we find something interesting and relevant, which is great, but it's
not focused or proactive. If you know what you're looking for, there are
some easy ways to search out information that will be really helpful to
your business. Let's say, for example, your ideal customer has an office
manager and it's them that gets asked to find products and services to
make life in the office better. That office manager is heavily involved in
the decision-making process, so as a business, it's our task as marketers
to find them on social media, make them aware of our business, and start
having conversations. So how do we go about finding them? Let's have a
look at LinkedIn first. On LinkedIn, I simply use this search bar at the
top. I'm going to type in, in speech marks to make my search more
accurate, office manager. We can see in the dropdown that here I could
be searching for jobs, people, or groups relevant to office managers. I'm
going to take a look at people. I can see 25.8 million results on LinkedIn
for people who have office manager in their profiles, so I need to refine
this a little bit further. I could do this by location. I could look, for
example, at office managers who are based in London in the UK and
start to narrow this down. Just over half a million results. I could also
see how many I'm already connected to. 90 results. And it's at this point
that I could send messages if I was prospecting or make new
connections. Twitter has a great advanced search tool. I suggest simply
googling Twitter advanced search to get this box to appear for you. You
can see here that you can search for words, phrases, specific hashtags.
I'm going to search the specific phrase office manager. I'm going to get
results where people are mentioning the word office manager or it's
included in their tweets but if I go to people, this is where I can see
people that have put it in their title and in their bio, and my objective
here would be to probably follow them, hoping that they would get
notified, have a look at my profile, and follow me back and start to see
my content. I've got in front of the office managers that I'm looking for.
Instagram works a little differently to Twitter and LinkedIn as you can't
really search profiles but you can still search for keywords, the magic
hashtag. I have a wonderful example for you to share. When I was
writing my first book, I was sharing my progress on Instagram and a
publishing business who had a service that could help me with
proofreading showed up. It was relevant to me. It was helpful. Their
message was short and simple without being pushy. It was perfect.
Think about who your ideal customers are, what they might be posting
on social media, how you can search for them, and how you could leave
comments like this one on Instagram to introduce your business.
 Using Facebook and LinkedIn groups to find new business
opportunities

Do you use groups on social media? You can find them on both
Facebook and LinkedIn. Groups have some really great uses for
business. There are groups where you can network with your industry
peers, post answers to people's questions and get answers to your own
questions. You can also find groups where your ideal customers hang
out and you can use those groups to watch the discussions and find out
more about them. You might even be hosting your own group. The
benefits of groups come into play when you can dive into discussions
and get involved with offering people helpful advice. Not only are you
being helpful, but you're showing up as the go-to expert for your subject
and people will start to notice you. It's all part of building the know, like
and trust factor that makes people want to do business with you. Let's
first take a look at Facebook groups. I've used these for local businesses
when people might be looking for services and asking for
recommendations. To find relevant Facebook groups for you to join, just
go to the search bar at the top and enter some keywords. You might also
enter the location. Here's an example of a discussion in a marketing
group where I often hang out and answer questions. It was a perfect fit
for me. Somebody asking a question about LinkedIn ads and I had a
piece of content that I could use to show and be helpful. This is social
selling in action. Showing up in the right places, being helpful and
building relationships. If the conversation continues in a group, you can
reach out with a private message and build the relationship further. At
some stage arranging a virtual coffee or a real life meeting. The same
process applies to LinkedIn groups. You can find groups to talk to your
peers and your ideal customers. As I work with many marketers, I join
groups where I know other marketers are going to be, such as groups
hosted by my industry associations. My clients will follow the same
advice. They will find groups where their potential customers are
hanging out. The groups might be focused on job function like
marketing or they might be more focused on their industry. But it's not
all about being reactive to other people's questions. You can post your
own too. Let's have a look at this example in this group. Start
discussions that help you answer business questions or share some top
tips. Conversations really do help to build business relationships. And
that's how opportunities can be uncovered. If you're not yet using groups
on Facebook or LinkedIn, why not take a look. If you are, I hope I've
given you some fresh ideas to get greater results from them.

The importance of content for B2B social media marketing

So, you've got great-looking social media profiles set up, but what about
posting updates? That's the most challenging part, deciding what to say a
week in, week out. But it's critical. We know that potential customers are
doing their own research about the products and services they want to
buy. They'll be asking friends and family for referrals, they'll be asking
colleagues and peers for recommendations. They will be over 60% of
the way through their decision-making process before they contact your
business. And this is why content is so important. Your potential
customers and referrals will see your content before they have a
conversation with you. ith you. So the content needs to be good. It needs
to show up when they're searching and answer any questions they might
have. Think about the content you search for, and how you feel about the
content creator. If it's useful content, the creators become the people and
companies you trust, right? The people and companies that you might
just do business with one day. If you're not sure what content people
need, take a look at what your competitors are posting, and more
importantly, how people are engaging with your competitors' content.
You only want to take inspiration from the stuff that's getting results.
For a useful tool that lets you know what people are searching for
online, try answerthepublic.com. answerthepublic.com is a great website
that helps you discover what people are asking about. You can simply
type in a topic, for example, social media influencers. When you search,
you will get a report very quickly to show you what questions people ask
about ask around d aboutpic. And it will provide the answers in a
question format: who, what, when, why, and how. You get a series of
questions that you can use to shape your content. You can see from this
graphu you can also helpfully download a CSV file and work from that.
Social media is an incredible tool for sharing content, whether a short
post or a longer article. Content on the social media platform itself, or
perhaps a link on social media directing people to read more on your
website, it's all important. And it's not just about words. Hey, you're
watching a video right now. Social media can include video content,
both live and prerecorded. You can share audio content too, links to
podcasts, and voice messages via direct message, for example.
Interactive-like quizzes and polls are cool too. People just can't help but
get involved with them. Content is king, especially when the decision-
making process in B2B is long and the investment is high. high. So, let's
start creating a social media content plan, and make this happen.

Defining the key messages for your B2B social media marketing
content

When it comes to deciding on content to post on your social media

accounts, I find it's really useful to have a few key messages or themes.
Not only does it help me to stay focused but it helps my followers too as
it keeps them more engaged if they know what they're going to get from
me. There's nothing worse than a social media account that posts so
many random things you forget who they are and what they do. I suggest
picking three to five themes that give you enough flexibility and variety
but also some consistency. Let me show you what I mean. I often use the
themes your industry, your specialist subject, your community and
initiatives you support. For your industry, what's going on in your
industry? What stories or events might your followers want to know
about? For example, if you're in recruitment, you might share
information about the latest salary survey report. If you work in
employment law, are there any high profile cases taking place you can
refer to? Adding your own comments to industry news is a good value
add for your followers. Your specialist subject. So mine is social media
for B2B so it's highly likely that you'll find content on my social media
accounts when a platform adds a new feature or if there's some new
trend reports out. If you were looking for an expert, you'd want to know
that they were up to date. So as the expert, I need to demonstrate via my
social media content that my expertise is B2B for social media. Let's
take a look. So on my LinkedIn profile, my headline which you can see
right here under my photo says what I am, says what I do. I'm a
chartered marketer. I'm a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing.
I'm an author of a book called Relax! It's Only Social Media. I am a
LinkedIn Learning course instructor and I'm also a marketing consultant
and trainer. I let people know what I do and when I have a look at my
most recent activity, my posts, you can see here that I'm sharing news. I
am sharing news about LinkedIn Learning courses. I'm sharing content
of monthly roundups from people that I work with and I admire. I'm
talking about key dates that are relevant to my business and I'm sharing
articles that I've published. If we have a look at my Twitter profile, I
have a clearly branded image of myself and some awards and accolades.
I have a bio here that says I'm a chartered marketer, fellow of the
Chartered Institute of Marketing, trusted adviser, speaker and trainer, I'm
a LinkedIn Learning course instructor, an author and a coffee addict and
when you scroll through my content, you can see that I am sharing my
expertise. Here, I've pinned a recent piece of content that's a roundup of
how the social media platforms have responded to COVID-19. I'm also
sharing recent content of trainings that I'm being given. Your
community. Very often, businesses have a key role within communities.
That might be industry specific. For example, an accountancy software
provider that brings together business owners for information and
support. Businesses who employ large numbers of people locally also
have an important role in helping the economic growth of an area and
some might have initiatives to support other local businesses or projects
to help improve skills, digital connectivity and lead generation. Could
you share information from your communities to show them support and
show your followers that you're part of something bigger and
interesting? Initiatives you support is another good key message because
most businesses have a charity or a cause that they support. Maybe you
host a cake sale or run marathons to fundraise. Maybe you have some
amazing green credentials and awards. Don't forget to let your followers
know all the interesting parts of your business. It's not just your products
and services they're interested in when they choose to do business with
you. So we've got some content that's a bit about you but not all about
you, we've got some specialist deep dive expertise and we've got some
broader community content too. Perfect. Having some different themes
also helps you to see that you don't have to create everything yourself.
It's okay to find and share content from others. In fact, it's more than
okay. It's really important for both you and your followers to have a mix
of content. It saves you time and also shows that you're well read on
your subject. Maybe these things will work for your key messages too.
Have a look at the content you're posting on social media right now and
see if you have some themes already there. Try out a few different ideas
over the next few weeks and see what works for you. Watch and learn
with social media, see what others do online and what you like and what
you don't like but most importantly, keep laser focused on your own
objectives, post content that's of interest to your ideal customer, what
they need to know and what creates triggers for conversations so that
you can turn your social media posts into opportunities to do business.
 Creating a social media content calendar for your business

As a B2B marketer, you may not always be the expert about your
business, and that's okay. You don't need to be a manufacturing expert or
know everything about law or accountancy to market a business, but it
does mean that you can't create all the content you need for social media
by yourself. Your role is probably more like that of a newsroom
manager, journalist, and editor. Let's look at how to create a social media
content calendar for your business, and how to help you plan what you
need to create and when to post. I tend to plan monthly and write
weekly, allowing enough time to gather inputs from others and get any
approval sign-offs I need. But first, you need to decide how much
content you're able to create and share. Maybe one or two long articles a
month, daily short posts on LinkedIn, Monday to Friday, and three to
five posts throughout the week on Instagram and Facebook, perhaps. It's
best to make this all as manageable as you can with the resources that
you have available. Start small and scale up. To manage the social media
content, a simple Excel spreadsheet will do the trick. If you're managing
social media across a larger team, you may want to look at some
specialized content marketing software, but to begin with, let's start
simple. You can find this file in the exercise files. This is the simple
overview template that I start to work with and I will adapt this for every
client that I work with, depending on their resources and their
requirements. I have the first tab on my Excel spreadsheet as a month by
month overview. And then I keep a list of my master content. I keep a
content inventory, so I know what I've got to work with and can refer to
it any time, knowing the type of content it is, what the key message is
that it sharing, who it's intended for the stage of the buying process, any
links and any notes. I also have a tab for the individual social media
platforms I'm using. In case I want to use this to write my tweets, write
my Facebook updates, write things for LinkedIn or Instagram, perhaps
as well, it's very simple, I can change the dates, the days, and the times,
put my messages in there and circulate this for approval. So I would use
this. Perhaps set something up similar for yourself and make sure it
works for you. I also have an ongoing notebook of content ideas. They're
usually based on frequently asked questions, things that come up day-to-
day that I can note down. Most of those will be what I call evergreen,
which means they could be created at any time, they're not date specific,
which is great, but there is often content that's date specific. It could be a
product launch, a business milestone, or some awards you're involved
with. It could be a key day like World Intellectual Property Day or an
that's happening like Learning at Work Week. These will be fixed in
your content calendar and you can then fill any spaces with other
evergreen content. It's important to stay agile with your content so that
you can adapt to any world events or news topics that start trending on
social media. If you have a plan, you can adjust it. COVID-19 as a
global crisis caused many marketers to adjust their content calendars as
the world changed, and this is okay. If you don't have a plan, you'll
constantly be looking for content to post which can be super stressful
and ineffective, so let's avoid that and create some plans.

The importance of thought leadership content to B2B social media

marketing

We all see people in business and the world that we admire, people we
follow on social media because they share such great knowledge and
insights. We may or may not have even met them or worked with them,
but that's what's great about social media. It's a global resource. Another
term for these industry experts we admire is thought leaders, and they
stand out from behind their company logo as someone who has
something important to say and should be listened to. Just think. As a
buyer, if you were choosing between potential suppliers, and individuals
from one company regularly published thought leadership content that
was well-researched, with innovative ideas and the latest data, this
activity would really make them stand out from their competitors, right?
Some stats for you. Research by Edelman and LinkedIn shows that
almost 50% of B2B decision makers spend one hour or more reading
thought leadership content per week. 89% of decision makers say that
thought leadership can be effective in enhancing their perceptions of an
organization. And again, almost 50% say that thought leadership can be
effective in influencing their purchase decisions. So, for business
professionals wanting to be seen as a thought leader, it's not a term to be
used lightly, and it's not something you can make happen with just one
post. First, you need a strong online presence. Whether that's a webpage
or a LinkedIn profile, you need to show a strong career story that gives
credibility to the information you're sharing. If you're using a Facebook
page, Instagram account, or Twitter, you need to have a bio description
that clearly shows people who you are, what you do, and why people
should listen to what you have to say. Then, it's all about consistently
sharing great content, from short-form posts to longer articles, sharing
links to great research papers, presentations, doing video interviews, etc.
But consistency is the key here. Thought leadership content, it captures
attention, it builds trust, it builds influence, and thought leadership
creates many business opportunities, from introductions and referrals, as
well as direct sales of your products and services. It brings messages into
your inbox, and it can help you to start new business conversations. So,
a brief intro, but will you start working towards using social media to
become a thought leader in your industry, or perhaps support your
colleagues to be seen as thought leaders? The stats are so compelling,
and it's an important positioning to achieve in B2B.
 The anatomy of great B2B social media content

Creating a post for social media that captures attention and stops the
scroll is harder than it looks. The number of characters you can use is
limited and different for each platform. The size of images you can use
is also different for each platform and there are file size limits too. So,
these things change all the time. Why not create your elf checklist ist to
refer to when creating your content? There is no rule book, but there are
some best practice guidelines, and here are my top tips. First, be
personable. Use words such as you, we, and us, as it can show your
audience that you're on their side. Keep it real by using tural language.
You might have a tone of voice and design guidelines for your business
already, so look to them when you're creating your social media content.
Avoid capital letters unless you want to look like you're shouting. Use
good spacing to make it easy to read online. Break up your words with
paragraphs and full stops and bullet points, e it easy for people to read.
And do check your spelling and use good grammar, especially when
you're posting on behalf of a business. Most importantly, let people
know what you want them to do after reading a post. Do you want them
to answer a question? Do you want them to click through to a download
or a document in exchange for an email address? This is important to
include. And to make it interesting, use a mix of words, pictures, and
videos, whatever is the best format to get your message across. And the
magic of social media is all about hashtags. They are a great way to let
people know what your post is about, but also for people who might be
searching by hashtags, they can find you that way. And next, tag people
in your posts. If you want to mention businesses or individuals, start
with an at nt than sign and get them involved. It neatly sends them an
invite and notification to let them know they've been tagged, so it's an
excellent way to get yourself noticed and to get them involved with your
post too. Let's have a look w examples. I've taken these from my account
so that I can share them with you. On LinkedIn, this was a post. I've
made it very clear who it's for, "Calling social media marketers". I've
told them that I'm hosting event and I'm collaborating with someone, so
I've tagged thee post. I've told them when the event is, the day, the time,
how to register, and that it's free, and I've included a hashtag to let
people know what it's about, hashtag Social Media News, and an image
to grab attention. A tweet, again, this one was about an event that I was
involved with, and I've been able to tag in or at-mention on Twitter, the
host of the event, the local Federation of Small Businesses. They'd
invited me back to host. It's on the 7th of October. I've included the title,
a link to the event so people can register, and an image to grab attention.
There are two hashtags included, one to make it clear that it's a webinar
and one that it's a local hashtag, relevant to businesses in Gloucestershire
in the UK. Facebook has fewer limits around its postsoostmoreree
freedom for you to post, but again, you can tag people in, as I have done
I've mentioned tthe t published. I'm sharing content with my audience.
I've tagged the publisher, Social Media Examiner. I've told people what
it's ab tabout and included a strong image, and a link so that people can
go to read it. All of these are in my tone of voice that fits ith the style of
content that I share. And an Instagram example for you. Slightly
different, still an event, but I wanted to illustrate what this event was
about, so I posted a picture of some books that I've read. I've asked
peoplethea the question, "How's your to-do list looking this week? "Is it
under control or overwhelming?" I'm part of an event. I've mentioned
who the event is with. This is what it's about. You can get the events
page link from my bio and join us, with some hashtags that are related to
the content and the event itself. I'm storytelling about my business as
we've talked about throughout this course, and bringing it to life across
all platforms in many different ways. I hope you're now set to create
some great social media content for your business.

Mistakes to avoid when creating content for B2B social media

Don't we all see content online that makes us flinch? Simple mistakes
such as wrong spellings or poorly cropped images? Wonder how it ever
got through an approvals process? It's really important to pay attention
to every detail, check spelling, grammar, make sure links work, check
every post if it's scheduled and when it goes live. Big mistakes I often
see in social media content are fake news and clickbait headlines on
posts. They're a big turnoff. They won't convert well if you don't have
substance behind the headline. Timely content is great, but getting
involved in high profile news stories that just aren't relevant to your
business, isn't cool. It's called news jacking and it can really damage
your brand reputation. But by far, the biggest mistake I see on social
media, particularly in B2B, is forgetting the call to action. You need to
let people know what you want them to do when they've seen a post. Do
you want them to contact you, download something from your website,
answer a question, or get involved in a discussion? This is social, so
think social. Look to start conversations and look to get people involved
in conversations. Don't just post a link and disappear, never to answer a
question or respond to a comment. And another big, big mistake is
trying to sell too early. You need to woo your customers a little and
build the relationship before you propose marriage. Cold, direct
messages trying to make a sale or book a call before you've even
introduced yourself or asked a question is really off-putting. So, to avoid
these big social media mistakes, it's quite simple. Keep laser focused on
your own objectives. Post content that's of interest to your ideal
customer. Don't get distracted by big news stories and think that you
should get involved. Focus on creating conversation triggers, be social,
and try and turn your posts into business opportunities by including a
call to action. Perhaps create a quick checklist to make sure you've
included key points. Calls to action, check details so that you can avoid
any mistakes that potentially could damage your brand reputation.

The importance of social media listening for B2B marketing

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- [Narrator] The importance of social media listening. My favorite quote

is from Stephen Covey's "7 Habits of Highly Effective People." He said,
"Most people do not listen with the intent to understand, they listen with
the intent to reply." Which is so true. When working on social media,
most of our time is spent planning and posting content. But there's
proactive ways of using it as a way to gather information and discover
opportunities. Social media listening is when you use social media to
find information that's of value to your business. Find conversations that
you can get involved in to be helpful, and to introduce your products and
services. Listening is a bit more detailed than monitoring your own
accounts for mentioning and responding to notifications. It's proactive
rather than reactive. For example, we could listen for people that
complain about a competitor's product or service. This could give us the
opportunity to offer help and support with our own products and
services. We could listen for people asking questions or looking for
recommendations. You might spot some of these on accounts and users
you're already following, but there are many more users on social media,
so unless you search or listen for them, you could miss out on something
important. Is there an important topic in the news that people are talking
about that's relevant to your business? Would you like to understand
more about it, and more importantly, how people feel about it? Of
course you do. So how do we do social media listening? Most simply,
we look for conversations around specific topics that are relevant to our
business, our products and services. And the key to getting started with
social media listening is the hashtag, the symbol that turns keywords
into clickable, searchable links. We can do searches for hashtags on
most social media platforms now. It allows us to find the conversations
around the topics that we want to find out more about. If you're using a
social media management tool, such as Hootsuite, you could set up
hashtag monitoring as a separate stream for Twitter and Instagram. For
Twitter, there is an amazing tool called Twilert where you can set up
questions, sentiment analysis, to receive email alerts whenever
something comes up on your topic. But before you dive into an
enterprise level tool, plan what you could listen for and how you could
use that information to bring opportunities to your business. To set up a
Twilert, you can create this very simply, thinking about the questions
that you might be looking for. I might be looking for people who are
asking questions about LinkedIn. I can type in my keyword, I can type in
question. I can see that there's a lot of responses around this single
keyword and a question, so I might decide to narrow this down, perhaps
by a location, so that I can just help people local to my area. I can do
this, find where I live, near enough on this map, and save the location.
So I'm now getting people who are asking questions about the keyword
of LinkedIn in a local area. I click Next, and I could literally give this a
name and get this emailed to me whenever something appears.

B2B social media marketing best practices

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- [Narrator] B2B social media marketing best practice. There's no set

rule book or silver bullet when it comes to marketing or social media. I
wish there was. But it's important to be familiar with some best practice
guidelines. For me, it's all about study, watch, learn, and do. I love
watching what other people are doing. I find that reading industry news
sites, attending events, watching webinars, is the best way for me to
learn. When you read articles or you hear other people speak, they're
sharing so many great insights you can take away. I also love to look at
industry awards, to see what brands and campaigns are shortlisted, and
which ones win, and it's often those details of those campaigns are
profiled, so you can read up on them. And then it's about applying those
learnings to your own business strategy and business needs, all while
staying focused on your customers and the objectives you've set. Create
your own internal guidelines to follow. It might include your tone of
voice, words to use, and words to avoid. You might include the style of
images you prefer to use in social media, whether it's photography or
vector graphics, along with a chosen color palette. And then, test and
measure. Let your own data guide you. The answers you're looking for
are usually within your own data, so look at your analytics. What's
working well? What's not? Measure what's important, not what's easy to
find. Focus on outcomes and not outputs. The data you find will help
you decide what to keep doing and what to do more of, and your data
will also guide you on things you can stop doing, or areas where you
need to make some adjustments. As any social media user knows, it
changes constantly, so you need to stay up to date with what's going on,
what's changing, what new features are available, what are going. And I
find the best places to go for these changes are the social media
platforms' own newsrooms, plus websites such as Social Media Today,
TechCrunch, Mashable, and Social Media Examiner. My best practice
top tip: create your own rule book. Document your processes and ways
of working. Review it regularly to see what you can update, and change
as you watch and learn. Test out new features, gather insights from your
data, set your own standards, and apply them consistently.

Managing the potential risks of B2B social media marketing

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- [Narrator] Managing the potential risks of B2B social media

marketing. Despite the many positive vibes about social media, it's
important to note that there are some risks involved and you need to
know how to manage them. Legally, conversations on social media are
no different to real life conversation. In the business world, there have
been cases of employees criticizing their colleagues or employers online,
leaking confidential information, or undermining their own credibility
by sharing personal views that are just not compatible with their
professional role. Possible damage to brand reputation is one of the
biggest risks of social media. Sometimes people may post comments that
are not positive about you or your business, so we need to make sure that
we have notifications and alerts set up so that we can manage any issues.
The ease of posting on social media, especially from a smartphone, can
mean that sometimes things get posted when perhaps they shouldn't.
Pictures from a work's party perhaps, or pictures of confidential
documents that are open on a computer screen when taking a picture of
the office to post. Other problems that can occur include defamation,
discrimination, obscenity, harassment, data protection issues, trade
description, intellectual property, and copyright breaches. None of these
issues are unique to social media, but when posted online, they can
spread quickly. But please, don't let a fear of getting it wrong prevent
you from using social media for business and reaping all the benefits it
can bring. Do some preparation, make a plan for when things might go
wrong, drafts some template responses when you're thinking calmly
rather than in the heat of the moment. Think ahead about what situations
might arise that could cause any negativity for your business, your
people, your products, your services. You might already have a PR crisis
plan, but make sure that also includes social media. Create an internal
social media policy. It doesn't need to be a super long document, a
simple guideline with some do's and don'ts can work really well. And if
you're not sure, have a Google search for database of social media
policies. You can find lots of examples online from both public and
private sector organizations. Have discussions internally about what
feels right for you, and perhaps what doesn't. I've often facilitated
discussions about what a business should and shouldn't do on social
media. There is no rule book, so it's up to you to decide. We would use
ideas from looking at what other people are posting, and stories in the
news to have a conversation around, is this okay? Or is this not okay?
For example, we might say yes to content from broadsheet publications
and no to sharing content from other sources like red-top tabloids. We've
said yes to using stop photography, but no to posting memes that feature
certain celebrities. As part of your social media policy, it's also really
good idea to include training. That way, you can answer any concerns
and empower people within the business with examples of what they can
do, and not just a list of what they can't. Don't let this be a one-off
training, the world of social media changes all the time. So it's important
to keep everyone up to date internally because their input and support
from your colleagues is critical to your success as a social media
marketer.

Tools to help manage B2B social media marketing

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- [Instructor] Tools to help manage B2B social media marketing. We've

learned so much throughout this course already and now I'd like to share
my favorite tools to help you manage your B2B social media marketing
activities. Planning for social media doesn't have to all be digital. I love
a good notebook pen and set of sticky notes for capturing ideas and
planning things out. If you're working with colleagues to gather
information for your social media content, I highly recommend face-to-
face or virtual conversations over coffee and cake so it can be more
relaxed. And to make those conversations easier for you, to say frantic
scribbling, why not use a voice recording app to take notes. Two, I often
use our Rev.com and otter.ai. They're on my phone, I can record the
conversation, upload the file and get a transcribed document within a
few hours. It's that easy for me to edit into social media content, and if
I'm asking other people to get involved, it saves some formality and fear
because if you ask others to write, and they're not used to it, it can take
them back to school days of writing assignments that will be graded.
When I'm looking out for content from other sources that I could be
sharing on social media, I set up alerts for key words and key topics. I do
this every time I start working with a new client or on a new project.
Setting up good processes from the start, I find saves a lot of time later
on. I use Google alerts to monitor keywords, company names, brand
names, et cetera. So if anything gets mentioned online, I receive a
notification about it. I also like to use Feedly which is a reader to pull
together news and articles from a variety of online sources, such as
newspapers, industry magazines and blogs. They're all in one place so I
can review them and decide what can be shared. And it also keeps my
email inbox free of clutter. I can just go to Feedly, have all the articles
they ready and waiting for me to look at and I never have to go
searching for new content. when I've got all my content ideas ready to
go, I might use an image library such as Adobe Stock or Unsplash to
source a suitable image. I might work with a graphic designer or I could
create my own simple graphics using a tool called Canva. It's great for
creating your own branded top tip posts and showing testimonials.
Finally, I use a set of tools to help best manage my time. I put as many
posts as I can on a timer to go out so I can carry on working on other
things. B2B doesn't tend to move so fast as B2C social media. So I can
check in a couple of times a day for notifications and respond to any
messages. You can check your directly on some social media platforms,
Facebook and Twitter. And there are many shackling tools available for
managing multiple social media platforms and accounts. Including
Hootsuite, Buffer, MeetEdgar, ContentCal, Agorapulse, and many more.
Each have different features and pricing levels. It's worthwhile thinking
about what you need first then trying out a few different options to see
which ones work best for you and your business. I use Google alerts to
monitor keywords, company names, brand names, et cetera so that if
anything gets mentioned online I can receive a notification about it.
Here's how I would set up an alert on my own name. I can edit that if I
wish to, to decide how often I want to receive the alerts and where I
want them to be delivered to. I also like to use Feedly to pull together
news and articles from a variety of online sources such as newspapers,
industry magazines, and blogs. They all come into one place so I can
review them and decide what can be shared. Here, I have my Feedly
account set up into categories. I have business news, marketing news,
those Google alerts on my own name, and anything related to social
media my specialism. I can see here, lots of resources that I've
categorized under this heading and articles that are just ready and
waiting for me to have a look at. The BBC news has articles, I can scan
through the headlines and see if there's something relevant for me to
read, that's of interest or anything that I want to share on my social
media platforms. It keeps my email inbox free of clutter, and I can just
go to Feedly and have all the articles there ready and waiting for me to
look at. I never have to go out searching for content. When I've got all
my content ideas ready to go, I might use an image library such as
Adobe Stock or Unsplash to source a suitable image. I might work with
a graphic designer or I could create my own simple posts using a tool
called Canva. In Canva, everything is set up ready. I can select whether I
want to create an Instagram post, a Twitter post, a LinkedIn banner, a
quote, a thumbnail, it's very easy to use and it's great for creating your
own branded top tip posts and testimonials, for example.

Setting SMART objectives for social media

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- [Narrator] SMART objectives for social media. Are your business

objectives SMART? By that, I mean are they specific, measurable,
achievable, relevant, and time-bound? It's so important to make sure that
any business marketing or social media objective covers these five areas.
And it sounds simple, but in practice I often find that business owners or
marketers find it difficult to include all five factors. Without them, you
have no specific direction to guide you, and you need to know what
success looks like before you can achieve it. "To create more awareness
about our business" isn't SMART. It's not specific, it's not measurable,
and it's not time-bound. Here's an example of a SMART objective. "To
generate awareness about our core service, and capture contact details in
our CRM system for 1,000 new ideal customers over the next 12
months." Stating the core service makes it specific, the number of new
ideal customers makes it measurable, let's assume it's achievable and
relevant to the overall business strategy, and by including "over the next
12 months," we've made it time-bound. So once you've set your business
level, your marketing level objectives, and they're SMART, how can
social media fit in? Well, for creating awareness, you could post content
that shares information about the core services. You could post images
that reflect your ideal customer, so they can picture themselves doing
business with you. You could run paid ads to reach more people that
match your ideal customer criteria, and help achieve that 1,000 contacts.
And you could post links to your website for further information so that
they have to exchange their email address for a download. These ideas
would all help to achieve those SMART objectives, and for your
business to measure the benefits of using social media.

How to measure social media marketing ROI

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- [Instructor] How to measure social media marketing ROI.
Measurements are everywhere. If we're driving, we measure our speed.
If we're trying to lose weight, we measure calories. We keep track of
time until birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays. Understanding
measurements in business is essential. Return on investment, or ROI, is
a business performance measurement. It looks at the benefit or return of
doing something. In numbers, it's usually calculated by subtracting the
cost of doing something from the value you're creating, dividing by the
cost of the investment and multiplying by 100 to get a percentage, which
is an easier number to understand. So if you spent 100 pounds on a
social media ad and it generated 1,000 pounds of sales, your ROI would
be 900%. But if your 100 pound spend generated only 10 pound of sales,
your ROI would be -900%. Your return didn't cover your costs. Now,
these calculations are quite crude because a social media ad doesn't work
in isolation to generate sales. While running an ad clearly has a cost
attached to it, more often social media is seen as something that's free to
do, with few costs attached to it, apart from a marketer's time and maybe
a few online tools. Also to note, there are many posts that focus on
awareness, which is a harder area to measure. Measures like ROI do
help keep our business and marketing activities on track by setting
benchmarks and allowing us to compare different campaigns against
each other. They also help us to know when we might need to make
adjustments. Let's have a look at some other measurements you could
use alongside ROI calculations. The most common metrics used in
social media are around the number of likes and followers, but they don't
really tell you what's working or what isn't. Engagement metrics, that's
the data that shows how people are interacting with your content, is
much more useful. It's a measure for the social part of social media and
can include likes, shares, retweets, mentions, comments, replies, and
direct messages. And you can find all of that data in your own accounts.
The social media platforms are said to prioritize posts in their newsfeeds
using engagement as a signal. So it is important to focus on this and to
set your own benchmarks for measurement. If your content isn't getting
good engagement, something's wrong. You're either focusing on talking
to the wrong people, you're not sharing content that people are really
interested in, or you're forgetting to let people know what to do with a
call to action as part of your post. The main point about social media
measurement isn't just to prove that your activity has a high value or
ROI, but to learn from your own data, to use your results to continually
improve, and increase the value your business gets from social media.
And remember, social media is probably just part of your marketing
activity, so make sure that the numbers you report relate to the overall
big picture and show how you're helping achieve your business strategy.

Tools to help measure success in B2B social media marketing

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- [Instructor] Tools to help measure success in B2B social media
marketing. How do you measure success in B2B social media
marketing? First, foremost, I believe the priority should be to measure
against your objectives. Let's have a look at some tools to help find the
data you need to find those measurements. Each platform has its own
data insights. On LinkedIn, you'll have a personal data dashboard for
your own profile. It will show you how you're doing for search
appearances, people, looking at your posts, and people visiting your
profile. How many people visiting your profile is a great stat. It can
show you a graph where you can look at your performance week by
week and see how you're doing. You can click into each area to find out
more details as well. When you're appearing in search, where do your
searches work? What do they do? What keywords have they used to find
your profile? And views on your content, who's looking at your content?
We can scroll down and have a look. We can see where people have
come from, their job titles, and their locations, all really valuable
insights to help you measure what matters to your business and identify
whether you're achieving your objectives. For Facebook, you can find
insights for your page. There's a neat overview tab that shows a
summary of performance over the last seven days. Or you can toggle
that to show the last 28 days. You can dive deeper into many areas of the
insights as you scroll down through them. And you can export data into
spreadsheets to find exactly what you need. On the Instagram app, you
can find very similar insights showing viewing numbers for your posts,
stories, reels and videos, as well as all the content interactions, the likes
and comments from your followers. You can also get a breakdown of
your followers by location, age, and gender, and see what times they are
most active on Instagram, which helps you to know when you need to be
posting your content and interacting with them. On Twitter, from your
own profile, you can go to Twitter Analytics to see a summary. Along
the top you'll see a 28-day summary of how you're performing in
comparison to the previous period. And this is by the number of tweets
you're posting, how many people are seeing your content, visiting your
profile, mentioning your name, and whether you've added any new
followers or not. The summary is along the top. You can then scroll
down and see month by month how you're doing in terms of those stats.
And if you want to get really granular and look at tweet by tweet, you
can do that straight within Twitter Analytics too. You can change the
date period and export the data to a CSV file if you'd like to do that also.
Whatever data you need to find is most likely going to be within the
native analytics area for each of the platforms you're using, but it doesn't
stop there. Don't forget, social media is just part of the picture. If you're
sharing links to your website, then make sure you also have a look at
Google Analytics Within the acquisition section of Google Analytics,
after you've selected the date period you want, you can check out how
visitors got to your website. When you see social in the list, you can
click on it to get a breakdown by each platform. You will see how many
visitors come to the site from each platform, How many of them are
first-time visitors, and how long they spend on your site too in the
sessions section. If you had goals set up for specific activities, you could
measure conversion such as information downloads or e-commerce
transactions. Finally, you've probably got some internal reporting
systems too that are capturing inquiries, sales, et cetera. Use these tools
all together to measure your B2B social media marketing success, and
remember the measurements that matter are the ones that align with your
overall big-picture business goals.

Build a business case for social media

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- [Luan] Throughout this course, we looked at lots of ideas for creating

awesome social media content with strong calls to action and also some
useful tools to help make it all happen. Don't forget to start with
SMART objectives and the importance of M for measurement. Share
your planning and get your colleagues involved, too. Social media is not
just for the marketing team. If you need to dive deeper on any of these
topics, have a look around LinkedIn's Learning Library. There is so
much in here for you. You can also find resources on my website,
www.luanwise.co.uk. If you have any questions, you can use the Q&A
feature or get in touch with me via social media. You can find me on
Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook @luanwise or
linkedin.com/in/luanwise. I'd love to know how you got on. So good
luck from me, Luan Wise, and thanks for watching.