Four ways social media can benefit the B2B revenue cycle: part 2 of 2
By Alexandra Reid
To everyone who stopped by on Tuesday to read part one of this series, welcome back. For those of you who are just jumping in, you can read part one here. In summary, I examined how social media could benefit the entire B2B revenue cycle by enabling businesses to attract and nurture anonymous prospects and maintain and develop customer loyalty.
Today, I’ll explain three other ways that social media can benefit the B2B revenue cycle, namely by facilitating social validation, inbound marketing and advertising.
Social validation
A huge number of prospects are directed to businesses through word-of-mouth recommendations. According to a Wall Street Journal study, 92 percent of respondents have more confidence in information found online than they do in anything from a salesclerk or other source. As social networks allow individuals to vote, rank and comment on products and services online, they play an integral role in influencing B2B purchasing decisions through social validation. Always bear in mind the important role that word-of-mouth recommendations throughout your social media activities can play in helping to increase the credibility of your brand and to dispel the uncertainties of your prospects during the buying process.
Engaging a community around your brand through social media is an excellent way to encourage individuals to speak well of your products and services and highly rank them within their networks. Note that the key word here is “engage,” not “broadcast.” Your community will be immediately turned off of your brand if you use social networks to broadcast only your own messages. Instead, spend time listening to the comments and conversations of prospects, customers and other individuals in your marketplace, reflect on helpful and relevant suggestions that could potentially solve their queries and respond in a timely and respectful manner.
It is also important to understand that even brands with big communities have their critics. Despite what many people believe, opening up your sites to receive criticism is a good idea. As I mentioned in a previous post, you should not be afraid of “bad” comments, because if they’re not saying it to you, they’re likely saying it to someone else. By engaging with these critics, you are better equipped to make things right. Furthermore, by allowing individuals to rate and review your products on your website and social media sites, you’re demonstrating that you value transparency and are open to criticism, which are great ways to show your prospects that you can be trusted as a vendor.
Inbound marketing
This practice focuses on getting found by prospects through channels such as social media, word-of-mouth recommendations and search engine optimization, or SEO. Inbound marketing is particularly valuable because prospects coming through these channels are usually already interested in the brands they are seeking. Businesses that actively engage in social media increase their chances of turning prospects into qualified opportunities on two fronts:
First, because search engines rank sites based on traffic volume, businesses that actively engage with online audiences through social media have higher SEO. The higher your page rank on search engines, the easier it is for prospects to find you.
Second, once these prospects have found your business, social media plays another role in addressing their perception of risk during the buying process. Providing prospects with information outside the traditional sales or marketing context can help dispel their uncertainties about your brand.
Advertising
Social networking sites such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook offer tremendous opportunities to advertise your brand organically through status updates. Although some businesses have deemed social networks to be a big waste of time for employees, teaching your employees how to responsibly manage their social media presence among various sites can actually be good for business because you can access a wider audience through your employee’s connections.
Each time you have an important announcement to make about your business, or you publish new content on your corporate blog, get your employees to Tweet it, or mention it in an engaging way on their Facebook and LinkedIn accounts. As these status updates are likely to be posted from personal accounts, it is a good idea to have someone oversee this process. A community manager can be useful in both educating your employees on social media best practices and overseeing social media activity. inmedia currently has a community manager for hire who can help you with your businesses’ social media endeavours.
In promoting your brand through social media, it is imperative that you be transparent in your intentions and only share content that engages your following and encourages interaction. For example, instead of simply broadcasting your business’s achievements, ask your followers a question related to the achievement to encourage their response. Make sure someone qualified is available to receive and offer comments to these responses to develop an intriguing conversation.
Now it’s your turn. Do you have any additional suggestions on how social media can benefit the B2B revenue cycle?
