Planning Your B2B Marketing Approach to Social Media

The popularity of B2B social media marketing is spreading like wildfire across the world of B2B commerce. A new report from CMI shows that B2B marketers have increasingly recognized social media as an essential platform for initiating relationships with new business accounts. As one would expect, LinkedIn reigns supreme over the pack, with over 90 percent of B2B marketing professionals distributing content on their site. Not far behind is Twitter, at 85 percent. Of course, these are social media platforms, so marketing on them requires a certain finesse and premeditation. At the same time, many B2B companies have found out the hard way that simply being present on social media isn’t enough. If you want to raise awareness and increase impressions for your brand on social media, how to social media marketing it’s absolutely crucial that you plan out a content strategy in advance. Many B2B social media marketing campaigns put their primary focus on racking up as many interactions (users clicking on ads) as possible. After all, it’s easy to set firm goals based on how many users click through to your site. While this is the best method most of the time, an interaction-based approach may not actually be the best use of your resources for all elements social media marketing 2014 of your campaign. The main drawback is that it’s dependent upon your ad budget. Every single click costs money, so once you blow through your budget, your ads will cease running, and your company’s visibility will promptly vanish into the ether. Eyes on your brand logo are worth nothing in the abstract, but making first contact can bring value down the road. Impressions are an overlooked KPI that B2B companies need to learn to embrace, at least on occasion.

New Apple hire suggests upcoming shift in social media marketing strategy

According to his LinkedIn profile, before being scooped up Tran was an intern at Apple from May to September this year, during which time he helped shape Beats by Dre's social presence with the launch of instructional product videos posted to Twitter. Tran, who is now a Digital Marketing Program Manager, frames the support channel as the company's "first proactive customer care content strategy." This particular flavor of Twitter-based best social media marketing customer outreach is largely uncharted territory for a conservative brand like Apple, making its involvement all the more unusual. Traditionally, Apple prefers not to heavily engage with customers through social media platforms, but more recently warmed to the idea with the debut of Apple Music. Along with the Beats by Dre Support channel and Apple's official App Store Twitter feeds, the iPhone maker in July activated a Snapchat account for Apple Music, using it to push out promotional video content for Beats 1 Radio and streaming exclusives. It's not clear what role, if any, Tran played in Apple's most recent experiments. From his credentials, marketing by social media however, Tran's forte is in social media marketing. With an education from UC Berkeley, he interned at marketing firm Prezi and tech giants Flextronics and Samsung. Tran still consults at Berkeley's Haas School of Business, where he also teaches a course on marketing and networking. Aside from a vague job title not much is known about Apple's new Digital Marketing Program Manager. Tran offers a tantalizing description of his position, however, saying he is "bringing the power of social and data to Apple."

Enhance your Small Business Marketing Strategy with Social Media

Once you have identified your goals, the next step is to define your target market/audience. For example, you may want to reach white women between the ages of 35-45 that are married with 3 kids and have a combined family income of over $100,000. A target audience of "males between 50-75" is simply too broad and too large of a market. Armed with this information, the next step is to select three to five social media platforms social media marketing from which to start marketing. The key: your target market needs to be actively using the platforms you select in order for them to be effective. Rather than setting up accounts on hundreds of different sites, it is best to start off small and test and grow these sites. Managing more than five sites requires a much larger staff and investment to maintain. To narrow your list down, take a look at alexa and view the Top 1000 sites in the US (or the country in which you’re looking to market) and focus on social media marketing strategy those social networks first. These sites may not be right for your target audience. Spend some time reading about their demographics. This information can typically be found on the social network, or are a quick Google search away. Again, the key is that your target audience should be actively using the site.