There are over 500 million users on Facebook — but few of them are there with the goal of finding vendors for their businesses. Rather, most people on Facebook are there to interact with friends and have fun. That makes it (along with social media sites that tend to attract similar users) ideal for B2C, but a little less perfect for B2B.
That doesn’t mean that social media can’t be an incredibly useful tool for B2B marketing — but it does mean that you have to plan a little differently. Just tossing a fan page up on Facebook isn’t enough.
We typically tell our B2B clients to look at the social media sites like they’re buying media. It’s good to have your information on the channels that your target is watching. However, with social media you can use tools to distribute your messages, making it easier to keep all of the channels up to date and to monitor them for potential conversations.
But social media isn’t just about posting your message out there. It’s about developing a community, interacting with people and providing value.
Social Media Meant for Business
There are, of course, certain social networking sites that are geared towards business. LinkedIn, for instance, was built to build online connections between businesses just as much as it helps to create an online network for individuals. That makes LinkedIn low-hanging fruit in terms of B2B marketing — if you can see that all of the people that you are looking to connect with are in your target market, doesn’t marketing get a lot easier?
LinkedIn just added an “Update Search” tool that allows you to search out updates from everyone on LinkedIn, not just your network. It is similar to searching twitter and can be a great way to find people in your target market and see what your competition is doing!
There are industry differences in how social media tools are used, showing you where the real opportunities are to connect. Real estate agents, for instance, have moved to Twitter in surprisingly high numbers — but they aren’t there to connect with vendors. They’re running searches to find prospective home buyers and not paying attention to much else. If your goal is to work with real estate agents, Twitter may be useful for only the briefest of initial connections.
The Benefits of Targeting
Even though users of sites like Facebook may not be exactly in a buying state of mind while networking online, they are still posting information you can easily use. What’s most useful to you? Geographic location? Industry? Travel plans? There are people posting all of those on their profiles. You may not be able to access such information directly, due to privacy safeguards, but there are plenty of opportunities to connect with such users indirectly, such as through ads or the groups they have joined.
If you have an idea of who your perfect client is, finding individuals online that fit the bill is not so difficult. It can be a time-intensive approach in some cases — making it less effective for businesses that must deal in volume — but if you need to only make a sale or two to be successful, you can definitely reach the right people online.
Image by Flickr user Sahaja Meditation