Social media is a powerful tool for both B2B and B2C marketing, but how can you measure its effectiveness and impact? In this article, you will learn about the different goals, metrics, and tools for social media measurement for B2B and B2C, and how to apply them to your own strategy.
The first step to measure social media is to define your goals. What are you trying to achieve with your social media presence? Depending on whether you are targeting other businesses (B2B) or consumers (B2C), your goals may vary. For example, B2B goals may include generating leads, building relationships, and establishing thought leadership, while B2C goals may include increasing brand awareness, driving sales, and enhancing customer loyalty.
Once you have your goals, you need to choose the right metrics to track your progress and performance. Metrics are the quantitative indicators that show how well you are meeting your goals. For B2B, some of the most relevant metrics are reach, engagement, click-through rate, conversion rate, and cost per lead. For B2C, some of the most relevant metrics are impressions, likes, shares, comments, reviews, and customer lifetime value.
Actually, regardless of whether you're in B2B or B2C, the most important thing to remember is to have your metrics reflect the nature of the goals you'd want to achieve. For example, if your social channels are for raising awareness, then you'd want to use metrics like impressions and reach. If nurturing or driving consideration is the goal, then you'd want to measure engagements, clickthroughs, clickthrough rate, cost per click and cost per engagement. On the other hand, conversion goals can be measured by the number of leads generated, actions taken, or the cost per lead / cost per conversion. At the end of the day, your metrics need to be chosen carefully to ensure that you're measuring progress towards your goal.
Another factor to consider when measuring social media is the platform you are using. Different platforms have different audiences, features, and analytics. For B2B, the most popular platforms are LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook, as they allow you to connect with professionals, share valuable content, and join relevant groups. For B2C, the most popular platforms are Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, as they allow you to showcase your products, create viral videos, and leverage influencers.
I would argue that we shouldn't be classifying platforms from a B2B or B2C use case standpoint. Rather, we should be looking at audience mindset and thinking about the kind of content that audiences are looking to consume, be it from a personal or professional standpoint, and then only figure out the platforms that are best suited to distributing the content to that specific audience, based on the parameters for reaching the audience as well as the know demographic of users on the platform. This means we should flip the switch and take an audience first approach which starts out platform agnostic, rather than segmenting platforms as B2C or B2B and choosing from there.
To measure your social media metrics effectively, you need to use the right tools. Tools are the software or applications that help you collect, analyze, and report your data. For B2B, some of the most useful tools are HubSpot, Hootsuite, and Google Analytics, as they allow you to manage your campaigns, monitor your social media activity, and measure your website traffic. For B2C, some of the most useful tools are Sprout Social, Buffer, and Shopify, as they allow you to schedule your posts, engage with your followers, and track your sales.
The measurement tools within social media platforms are already very good for helping you understand how you're doing within the confines of the platform itself, but they don't have the ability to help you understand your full customer journey because very often, your customer journey doesn't just sit within the social media space alone. This is where dashboarding tools such as Google Looker Studio, Microsoft Power BI or Tableau will help you understand the cross-platform impact of social media, by bringing in metrics from various platforms that make up your entire customer journey, to give you a big picture view of the impact that your social platforms are having.
You can also invest in a good social media listening tool. I have personally used Brandwatch and it has helped me with my sentiment analysis and share of voice reports.
Finally, to optimize your social media measurement, you need to follow some best practices. Best practices are the guidelines or tips that help you improve your results and avoid common mistakes. For B2B, some of the best practices are to define your buyer personas, create valuable and relevant content, and nurture your leads with email marketing. For B2C, some of the best practices are to know your target audience, use visual and interactive content, and encourage user-generated content.
To inspire you and show you how social media measurement works in practice, here are some examples of successful B2B and B2C social media campaigns. For B2B, one of the most impressive examples is IBM, which uses LinkedIn to showcase its expertise, innovation, and diversity, and generates over 600,000 followers and thousands of engagements. For B2C, one of the most impressive examples is Glossier, which uses Instagram to create a loyal and engaged community of beauty lovers, and generates over 2.8 million followers and millions of sales.