Making Facebook work for B2B

Somebody once told me that it was very simple to decide whether a brand needed to market itself on Facebook or LinkedIn; if it was a B2B brand, then it should do LinkedIn, and if it was a B2C brand, it should do Facebook. Alas! How wrong that person was. I didn’t say anything to him then, but maybe he would know better now.

I read it somewhere that B2B is actually ‘P2P’, i.e. ‘Person-to-person’. We all keep saying that B2B is different, it requires different strategies, it needs a different approach and all that; as if our standard interpersonal skills that we utilize in B2C altogether become redundant in the world of B2B.

The fact of the matter is, Facebook could work just as well for B2B as it does for B2C, and the thumb rule still remains more or less the same – think from the other side of the other table. First of all, accept that fact, it would go a long way in moving ahead.

Put together a content strategy, not a Facebook strategy. This would be something quite advisable for doing in a B2C environment as well. Don’t just play scrabble with letters, string together those words, put them in the form of a post, and post it! With pictures, please. If you plan to keep posting only about your product, and how it is the best in the market and how everyone should only be ordering that, you are screwed up. nobody is going to look at you or your product or your page. Only lead generating content is a strict no. set goals other than lead generation – like spreading brand awareness, building a brand, generating a buzz, highlighting customer satisfaction, etc. Sounds like a B2C strategy? Well, it remains the same for B2B too. The more people who look at your posts, the more attention you catch, higher the probability of converting one of those attention payers into a lead and eventually – the holy sales! One more thumb rule – a photo or a picture is almost ALWAYS better than posting a video or a link or a long, long piece of text.

Sometimes, it might help to create buyer personas to better understand who actually your target audience is. Figuring out the target audience is of essence in every marketing strategy, be it for B2B or B2C. Understanding the target market can go a long way in helping you figure out an effective marketing strategy. One important pointer in a B2B Facebook strategy would be to create a strong brand recognition. Look at Boeing or Airbus or Siemens or Cisco or IBM, these are all B2B brands, but don’t we all know about them, we know what they do, what they make, at least the basics. That is brand recognition. You and I may perhaps never buy a Boeing jet, but we will always know they make aeroplanes. Strong brand recognition helps generate leads. Post regularly, follow a calendar, keep current affairs in mind and never miss an update. Mark it on your calendars, if you have to.

The starter to the strategy would be building a Facebook Page, and the next step could be using Facebook Ads. Facebook Ads is similar to Google AdWords. While the Facebook page limits your reach to your followers (meaning people who have ‘Liked’ your page), Facebook Ads enables you to go beyond that. Look at the Facebook Insights, it is a very important tool in marketing on Facebook. Facebook Insights helps you understand and track the activity of everybody who comes in contact with your page, mainly your followers – their demography, their likes and preferences, etc. With Facebook Ads, you can go a step further, target your ads to appear before your target audience which you define based on the parameters that are offered and go all out.

Always, and let me say it again, always respond to comments on your page – good or bad. You might need to censor sometimes, you can’t keep everybody happy and that is ok. But keep an eye out and censor it right away. Some negative feedback is scope for improvement so take it in your stride and thank the follower. Positive comments are more than welcome anytime, so thank them profusely too. Put in effort to understand how your target audience is responding to your content. Do they like a certain type of posts more than the others. Modify your posts and your strategy accordingly. Try to understand their behavior. Do most of your updates generate most responses if posted on say a Saturday compared to any other day, or may be in the evening compared to any other time of the day? Then your audience is telling you to make sure you post on a Saturday or in the evening because that’s when they want to see stuff. Generate content that not only relates to your brand or product or service, but also helps your followers and prospective followers reinforce their own interests and preferences.

The main target should be to attract the right people while maximizing your ROI. Keep that mind, keep your eyes and ears open, be on a perpetual ‘learning’ curve, know your target audience and take the leap of faith into Facebook Marketing.