Since you now know what your social media company won’t tell you, let’s dig in to the basics of Social Media for Business-to-Business companies. This short article will help you start to decide if you will be doing the social media yourself (internally) or if you need to contact the pros.
WHY you should be online and social media focused:
- From Millennials to 70-year-old CFOs – they are all online doing “something” – so, we aren’t talking about a small demographic group.
- A prospect or current client has already searched for your company online on one of their social networks of choice. The image you portray influences their perception of your business.
- If you aren’t putting a message “out there” then prospects are finding NOTHING – or worse – they are finding your competition.
- If clients are passionate about your product or service, then you already have an online following – maybe, you just don’t know it yet – and you aren’t using it to your advantage. Don’t believe me? Login to Twitter or Facebook and do one or two searches for your company name.
- Traffic to your website coming from your social media will help your website gain in Google rankings. This effects how quickly and easily customers find you.
- Do you ever hire new employees? Have you lost good employees to the competition? This happens a lot in the construction and engineering business. Surprisingly, employees are customers of your business too, and they search for and review prospective employers on social media: LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook mostly. If you aren’t there and your company has NO voice, you might be tempted to think that you are okay. What you may not be considering is people can still make posts or ‘rant’ about your company, and it is all neatly indexed and searchable online. So, if you have past employees with an ax-to-grind, they may have posted some unsavory information about your company.
- Your local or national competition is probably already there. Don’t get beat by the competition by not showing up.
The Must-Have Platforms of B-to-B Social Media:
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Depending on your business you may also use:
[clear]Then there are probably industry specific Social and Share sites that you should consider. For instance:
- One of our clients, Jefferson Door (a great local Louisiana company) utilizes houzz.
Now before we even tackle what you should be doing on the above listed sites, we need to discuss where else you should be looking to make sure your company is represented well in the social world.
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Don’t forget about Local Search if you are a regional company (for instance, your local newspaper has a website that may reference your company, and they may even have a rating system too). No matter where you are in Louisiana: Baton Rouge, Lafayette, Hammond, Belle Chasse, New Orleans… Local listings count.
The bottom line here is to make sure you cover the basics with your social media strategy, and then keep it up! Yep, you have to maintain it. Social Media is… social. Meaning you can “socialize” once and then drop off the planet and expect your strategy to work. You have to keep at it… posting, blogging, pinning, submitting, etc.
If you are looking for help, then get in touch for a real consultation with a local company. If you are ready to Do-it-Your-Self, then login to see our Guide to getting your Business to Business Social Media up and running.
