Facebook has about 830 million users worldwide which means it reaches one fifth of the global population.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg predicted there will be 1.43 billion social network users in 2012, 63.2% of internet users will visit a social network at least once a month, rising to 67.6% in 2013 and 70.7% in 2014.
The top ten largest countries are:
1. United States 155,886,800
2. India 45,018,540
3. Indonesia 43,521,320
4. Brazil 42,199,700
5. Mexico 33,599,040
6. Turkey 31,526,380
7. United Kingdom 30,484,380
8. Philippines 27,718,720
9. France 24,100,240
10. Germany 23,251,880
The search volume on Facebook has overtaken Google. And there are not only consumers who research there. B2B is also using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and other social networks to research for products, services, industry related information and new business partners.
Social media is a great way to showcase a business and to offer a more personal insight view. A company has great opportunities to show personality to attract the right buyer persona and to get in touch with the right new future customer when this one is looking out for products and services.
Social media has proved in the past years that it can bring positive ROI when it’s done right.
As businesses understand that social media is no short term sprint than more something like a marathon they engage with more diligence to plan their steps to reach a long term ROI.
A study from Wildfire Interactive shows that social media helps grow brand awareness, increase sales and partnerships and helped to reduce marketing costs.
Infographic: Small Business + Social Media Use
Engaging in dialogue with customers via social media has become an important part of successful companies.
Smart marketers measure the value of social media channels as well. They want to know which one has the best results for their business. One of the most popular channels is Facebook. About 44% of surveyed marketers say that “Facebook is valuable because they help with new customer recruitment”.
A proven working strategy is to add lead capture pages to your in social published articles and to track the traffic, leads, lead to customer rate and revenue per generated lead. So you get a good picture of your cost per lead and adjust activities to increase your profits.
Studies show that companies which relying on online lead generation is two times more profitable than those who do not. Those companies achieve up to 62% lower costs per lead.
Get active and establish your outpost in social media today!
Seven steps to establish your brands social media outpost:
1. Start a social media presence. Complete your profile there.
2. Research for industry related B2B groups and people. Become a member and invite those people to your network.
3. Listen to their discussions. If you have something valuable to contribute than do it, otherwise go on listening.
4. Start a corporate blog. Write about topics your B2B audience is interested in. Share your blog articles in social media and ask for feedback for your publication.
5. Build landing pages and offer exclusive and valuable content for download. So you generate laser target high quality industry related B2B leads.
Strategic content marketing has proven as one of the best ways to create brand awareness. Content marketing has proven to be the best and most cost effective way to drive traffic to a company website and convert this traffic to leads and customers.
Companies utilizing content marketing strategy report n up to 2,000% lift in blog traffic and 40% boost in revenue.
The most popular ways of content marketing are blogging, social media and video.
Publish buyer persona oriented remarkable content. This can be achieved with a corporate blog very quick.
Here are some facts about the power of blogging:
1. Blogging companies get up to 55% more Traffic
2. Blogging companies get up to 97% more Inbound Links
3. Blogging companies get up to 434% more indexed pages in search engines
4. Blogging companies get up to 25x times more business leads
In the next stages you should craft buyer persona oriented…
Press releases
Pictures
Whitepapers
EBooks
Video
These pieces of content you can distribute on sites like Prweb.com, Flickr.com, Pinterest.com, Slideshare.net and YouTube.com.
Today on eMarketer an article captured my attention:
An analysis of AdParlor and SocialBakers found out that industry such as electronics, travel and entertainment are more social marketing friendly than others.
It found out also that Merchant / Banking services, Health/ Fitness and Tourism have higher CPC rates than for example Promotions and Beauty/ Cosmetics. See graphic below.
What does it mean, when an industry needs to pay more than another to get attention and does not get the click trough rates on the end of the day too?
Infographic: Small Business Social Media
Social media is about conversation and about trust. Companies who handle social media authentically and communicate this way with their audience get the most social media juice out and are also well recognized when they do paid campaigns on places like facebook.
Every business who engages in social media needs to understand that trust can’t be bought there. They need to earn it step by step, day by day and year by year.
How can a business earn trust and decrease their ad spending in social media?
1. Listen to your audience and contribute to the conversation if you have something valuable to say.
2. Develop buyer persona oriented and remarkable content and publish it online and share it in social media. Ask your audience for their opinion about the published content and listen carefully.
3. Us the unfiltered social media feedback to improve your service, support your product and your communication.
4. Develop your products and services tailored for your audience.
5. Measure all what you do and improve your doings.
These above points can earn you trust reputation and respect from your audience. Moreover it can improve your revenue significantly.
Let me know what you think. Do you have similar experiences?
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Free report: Get found and get leads the smart way.
Like market leading airlines, private air charter is in a very competitive business.
Private air charter companies need to be in front of their audience when they are looking if they want to increase business and revenue.
Private air charter companies need their audience to talk about them to spread the word about their brand.
As long their recent and future clients are talking about them, they have realistic chances to get seen, visited and to increase their business.
The challenge:
When a Google search is carried out for the search term “Private air charter” there is about 2,740,000 results.
Under these circumstances it is difficult for a private air charter company to get seen and noticed from their future customer amid of this massive amount of search results.
The solution is that a private air charter company has to stand out of their competition to attract clients like a magnet.
With the proven inbound marketing strategy a private air charter company can place them self in an unrivaled position against their competition!
When interested audience is looking for private air charter services and they go on the internet to Google, Yahoo and Bing for research. Customers also rely on recommendations from friends and business partners when they choose private air charter services. Customers go to their favorite social networks as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to do their research there as well.
Three important questions you should ask yourself:
• Can your private air charter business be found on Google from potential customer when they are looking?
• Do you know what’s been talked about you or your competition online?
• Why should a customer fly with your private air charter company?
• Is your private air charter website an asset or a liability?
Marketing has changed and Private air charter business’ need to be where their audience is on the internet. The market leading airlines are!
Private air charter business’ need to utilize the Inbound Marketing strategy for their business to get found, to get leads and to increase their customers and revenue!
Inbound marketing strategy that focuses on getting found by customers when they research online for products and services a business offers.
With inbound marketing businesses earn their way to the customer, by publishing helpful and remarkable information on a blog, in social media and forums.
Inbound marketing includes Content Creation like Blogging, Social Media Communication, Lead Generation, Nurturing, Conversion and Closed-Loop Analysis.
Content creation
Content marketing has become a significant part of online marketing strategy. Content marketing has proven to be the best and most cost effective way to drive traffic to a company website and convert this traffic to leads and customers.
The most popular ways of content marketing are blogging, social media and video. Studies show that 57% of companies which operate a corporate blog get customers through their blogging effort.
We suggest to publish buyer persona oriented remarkable content. This can be achieved with a corporate blog.
• Studies show that companies who blog receives up to 55% more target traffic than companies who do not blog.
• Studies also show, the higher the volume of published blog posts the more the traffic increases.
Social Media Marketing
A company should also be active in social media like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and hand picked niche networks Social media marketing has become a powerful tool to spread remarkable content to reach a wide audience.
For companies who engage in social media and show presence in these channels get in the position to open wide opportunities to get in touch with their audience. This leads to an increase of credibility and unfiltered feedback of the target audience and can lead to an improvement of products and services.
New studies show that up to 65 percent of today’s customers expect a brand to listen and to respond on questions, comments and complaints in social media. Studies also show that companies which use social media actively to communicate with their audience are more successful than companies who do not.
Infographic: How Airlines Have Taken Flight With Social Media
Lead Generation
Inbound marketing has a 62% lower cost per lead than traditional marketing strategies. Inbound marketing way generated leads have a 55% higher lead conversion rate than lead generated through traditional marketing strategies.
• Studies show that companies with 17+ landing pages increase their lead count disproportionately.
Lead Nurturing – Lead Conversion
Effective lead nurturing increases lead conversion by up to 55%. Which does not mean that lead nurturing consist of sales pitches. Moreover effective lead nurturing is also a communication process with the future customer in which the lead receives helpful and valuable information too.
This grows the trust and increases the chances that a customer flies with your private air charter when he is ready to do so, because he knows the source as a trusted and reputable one.
Closed-Loop Analysis
All marketing tasks need to be measured to ensure you are walking the right way. During this closed loop analysis you increase successful tasks measure, improve and repeat. This ensures a step by step quality increase and a gradually decrease of marketing costs up to 62%.
In a nutshell, inbound marketing:
A. saves your business up to 62% of the marketing budget
B. makes your private air charter business stand out of the competition
C. increase brand value and recognition
D. generate a massive amount of leads
E. gets you up to 55% higher lead conversion rates
F. increase customers and sales
Let me know what you think, did I miss anything?
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When I go through the online news I am focused on information about social media. Mostly when I see information about social media marketing they are attached to the word “campaign”.
I wonder because everybody knows that communication in social media can’t be done as a campaign when it should be done successful. It should be authentic and ongoing to bring positive results.
But sadly for some people out there social media is still seen as some kind of marketing message blasting machine and not as a valuable source of connection and communication with recent and future customers.
Old fashioned marketing and PR agencies have jumped on the social media bandwagon and try to replicate their business from yesteryear to social media. This does not work. Why? The answer is very simple: They need to focus on what is important for the target audience and not what’s important for them (to sell more)!
Business which do not move forward, mentally and technologically have their enormous share on this invaluable marketing spam. They still think if they bother their target market long enough with old school marketing blasts than the target audience will buy some day. They also do not care about what their audience thinks what they like or dislike.
To get the attention from their target audience brands have to be interested what their audience is interested in. To learn what this might be needs brands to get connected and to communicate with them in social media “without try to sell anything”.
Do you know the old saying: Listen and learn!?
If brands are not willing to listen in social media their audience will turn to their competition which is willing to listen for sure. When brands are not willing to listen and to learn it simply shows that they do not care about their buyers. And why should their buyers than care to spend their money with them?
Infographic: Small Businesses Using Social Media
Recent studies show: People b2c and b2b expect brands to be actively listen and engage in social media, in real-time!
Brands should not trade a campaign against a holistic marketing strategy which also includes an authentic social media real-time communication. The “Campaign-Only Mode”does not work in real-time!
What brands also can do to improve their reputation is to care lesser about what they want and care more about what their buyers want, because this is the crucial point. This works only in real-time!
“Worldwide social network ad revenues are still going strong and set to grow nearly 50% this year, according to eMarketer estimates.” by Emarketer.com
The revenue spending on social networks are increasing this is a fact. More and more businesses discover that social networks are a great communication tool to get in touch with their audience.
B2C and B2B have realized that the business decision makes are active in the social web and try to reach them by paid advertising.
It is a good approach to be visible where your audience is around. But the way how you are visible is more important than a big ad budget.
Moreover a big ad budget does not mean you will be successful with your lead generation campaign. The opposite is more likely the result.
Smart marketers use PPC only for short campaigns, and not as a substitute of a holistic strategy.
Why? Because PPC has no log term value for marketing, when you stop your PPC your lead flow also stops. Another point is that you do not earn any trust in the market with PPC. Anybody can bid for the highest keywords. You can’t buy trust and reputation by bidding the highest price per click!
When it comes to led generation than “nothing beats the inbound marketing strategy”!
Studies from the past five years revealed that a seriously executed inbound marketing strategy results in up to 62% lower cost per lead an in an up to 55% higher lead conversion rate.
Inbound marketing consists of content creation, content distribution, content marketing, Social Media communication, Lead generation, Lead Nurturing, Lead Conversion, and Closed-Loop Analysis to refine and improve the activities.
Furthermore companies who execute an inbound marketing seriously build trust, their brand and are recognized as a reputable source on the web. They get found on the web when future customers are looking, instead of pushing them with dump old fashioned sales pitches.
Infographic: Inbound Marketing on the rise
Companies who utilize inbound marketing simply leave their competition behind them in the dust. Inbound marketing is brain versus budget, and in the long term the brain always wins!
Generation Y, young, digital-savvy consumers, are the 18- to 34-year-old age group which has grown up with internet and social media. They communicate about product and services with their friends on social networks. They read and write online reviews and are more likely to recommend products.
They have higher wages and are more likely to spend their money on luxury goods as well.
A survey done by American Express Business Insights find out that Generation Y increased their spending 31% in 2011 over 2010.
Famous brands have discovered this trend and are more active their where Generation Y is around on the web. This is about B2C.
But how about B2B and what can they use this information for?
As Gen. Y goes older they will get more influential jobs and positions in companies and this is what makes them interesting for a B2B approach.
For you if you are in B2B, you should follow the examples of the big consumer and luxury brands and establish your outposts on the web and in social media.
As those Gen. Y users actually do not have influential positions they are an interesting community for you and your human resources to get new talent for now. This also gives you the opportunity to play
You should build a strong network all over the coming years, establish your business as a trusted and reputable source and grow awareness for your B2B activities.
This will let you enough time to learn their interests and to learn their way life, so you can speak their language when it comes to do business with them. This knowledge and the existing connections will make you business much easier within the next twenty years.
Your today’s activities will be your investment in your businesses future. In the first step you improve your human resources and get in touch with talent where they are around on the web and in social media. And for second you learn a lot about their interests and what they appreciate and what they do not like.
Infographic: WHO ARE THE MILLENNIALS?
Marketing takeaway tip: Improve you online presence by become active in social media. Start publishing valuable target content through a blog, video, eBooks, and whitepapers. Improve your website and make it a great marketing hub to communicate with your audience and to attract Gen. Y job seekers for your business.
Or How Mobile Devices will Make 90% of Your SEO Efforts Obsolete in the Future
In the past it has been important for a business to have good SEO in place to get found on the search engines through their target audience. Businesses optimized their websites and published content with keywords on a frequent basis.
In the last years content marketing has emerged and a new era began on how to manage it to get found from customers who research on search engines and than in social media. At this time buyer persona content creation is a must for businesses to increase their chances to get found on the web.
Companies need to spend enough diligence to identify their buyer personas because of to reach their lead generation goals. Smart content marketing is a critical factor to attract the right buyer personas to a company website and convert them to leads and during a lead nurturing process to revenue!
But a new way of search has emerged where some of these tactics above does not fit anymore. Mobile devices have spread around the world and statistics show that about 260 million devices are in use actually and this number will grow by 2014 to more than one billion.
When people are on their mobile device they do not go to the web browser to research for a restaurant or retail store.
They rely on their mobile apps from Foursquare, Yelp, Gowalla, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other which give them information instantly and also location based information where how to hit a great location. Also in the B2B sector more CEOs are researching for products and services on their IPads, IPhone; Blackberry and Android. This trend is increasingly growing.
Search traffic will decrease and companies who are active on location based services will get an increase of traffic as people use them preferable.
Consumer Trend in Mobile Purchases
2009-2010, % of consumers making 1 or more m-purchase
Source: Oracle / ATG
What does it mean for businesses?
For a business this means to get engaged on those social networks and services which already are very popular and have mobile apps active. This is the way to get and most important to stay in front of the future customers.
Infographic: Mobile Warming
Marketing takeaway to profit from this increasing mobile trend:
1. Optimize your website to be accessible from mobile devices
2. Sart to collect mobile phone numbers to enable your mobile marketing through personalized SMS
3. Adjust your email marketing and the email messages to be easy readable from mobile devices
4. Build your digital outposts and get engaged in social media, in location based services and rating sites
5. Develop your own mobile app to stay in touch with your audience directly
With this above activities you can significantly improve your visibility on mobile devices and attract more future customers to your business.
What do you think? Are you actually active to reach your target audience on their mobile devices?
Inbound marketing is the marketing strategy that focuses on getting found by customers when they research online for products and services your business also has to offer.
With inbound marketing businesses earn their way to the customer, by publishing helpful information on a blog, in social media and forums.
Inbound marketing includes Blogging, Social Media, Lead Conversion, Lead Nurturing and Closed-Loop Analysis.
Most business has not the resources and the knowledge to execute a powerful and result driven inbound marketing strategy.
They have not good writers on their staff to produce buyer persona oriented remarkable content like blog articles, whitepapers, how-to’s and eBooks on a regular basis.
Also they do not have in-house SEO experts to help them to choose the most relevant keywords to better get found in the search engines.
Moreover the knowledge about social media communication and an effective community management is not in place as well.
But the most important fact is the time to get all the required things done.
Studies show that business who try to do inbound marketing without professional help fail within three months.
What did they win when the do not hire a professional inbound marketing agency? Simply nothing! They waste time resources and money for no revenue results.
If you want to profit from inbound marketing than you should think about to hire professionals who can do the job.
What do you get by executing a professional inbound marketing strategy?
A. S ave up to 62% of your marketing budget.
B. Stand out of your competition.
C. Generate a massive amount of leads.
D. Get up to 55% higher lead conversion rates.
E. Increase your customers and sales.
How much does it cost to hire a professional inbound marketing agency?
This is a god question. The same one like how much is a car? What kind of car do you want? Do you want an old car or a brand new Ferrari?
Inbound marketing hourly rates start with $100 per hour, depends what to do.
You can calculate to spend between $2,000/m – $3,000/m for about minimum of six months, depending on the services delivered. Because any serious inbound marketing agency will need this time frame to set your marketing on the right track to help you to reach your revenue goals.
On the end of the day is inbound marketing the most efficient and the most cost effective marketing you can get for your buck.
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Social media is a great way to step into two way conversation with recent and future customers.
In these times it seems that everybody wants to step into social media.
In my opinion social Media is not for everybody! Why you will ask? And I will tell you from my point of view:
Social media marketing for small businesses can increase their brand awareness and reach massively. Everywhere in the net small businesses are trying to get a piece of the social media marketing pie and acting nervously to not get left behind.
My experiences are that most of them should better look to have a clear and good in time working email response first. Yep. I know that’s not nice of me.
But this is the simple painful truth. Most of them who are looking to step into social media conversation simply do not have their email conversation under control.
So how can they think to be successful in social media where they are required to answer in real time to profit from it, when they are not able to answer email requests within business hours?
Most online shops I have contacted need more than three hours to respond, some much longer and some do not answer anyway. But most of them are in social media. What a waste of time!
Imagine this, there is a future customer who has a question about a product he wants to buy, but he does not get any response in the worst case!
Social media success lives of real time communication, like in the real world. When you are on cocktail party and somebody asks you a question, than you can’t wait until tomorrow to answer. The same with social media!
Businesses which do not have their email communication under control and are not able to respond very quick, or better in real time, do not need to think about social media marketing yet. They better improve their email communication and when this is working well, in real time, than they can step into social media.
If you feel you have what it takes to step into social media marketing than here are several question for you to clear before you start:
- Ensure that your email communication is working and you do not produce angry prospects
- Is your email response time under one hour or better, than you can step into social media
- Who is responsible for email communication and social media conversation? You should have a minimum one person in charge of each one
- Do you have social media policy in place?
- What kind of content does your business publishes on regular basis on the web?
- Do you have goals set for lead generation through social media?
- What will be your activities to generate leads, do you have landing pages in place and how about a lead nurturing process to make paying customers out of your leads?
- Do you have set revenue goals for your social media marketing? If it does not bring in dollars than it makes no sense!
Alterian Annual Survey Infographic
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The influence of user generated content on purchase decisions is increasingly growing. Especially the digital natives 18 to 34 account for this trend where products and services are recommended to friends, business partners and family.
User generated on-site content created by internet users includes reviews, comments, stories and questions.
A Study from Bazaarvoice shows that today up to 51% of internet users purchase decision is influenced by user generated content. It is influenced by their social network, family and friends.
Today people research on the internet and in social media about a brand, products and services to get the best deal for their buck.
It is crucial for any brand to know what these future clients will find about them on the web. What kind of ratings on rating sites, product reviews in their network, the brands communication from a blog, video, social media, press, etc.
What will these future customers find when they research about your business. Can this information they find about your company influence them positively to buy your products? Or will they influence them to buy the products from your competitor?
On the web you are what you publish, what are you? — David Meerman Scott —
Brands need to follow the general principles of authenticity and transparency and they need to understand there is a huge group of consumers right now who just do not trust them. They need to be open and give their audience the opportunity to talk about their brand. This will become the standard to the long term.
What brands can do to step into brand talk:
- Be where your target audience is around
- Listen to the conversation
- Respond to the conversation
- Publish and share buyer persona relevant and remarkable content on the web and in social media
- Ask for opinion about your products and your business
- Ask for any suggestions for product and services improvement
- Be authentic, be honest and be helpful
- Keep the conversation on run
The most important point:START IMMEDIATELY before your competitor does! A later uphill battle will cost you much more and it is doubtful that you can overtake them.
All of the points above increases trust, credibility and reputation of your brand. This is the currency on the web! When you are smart and build your currency the right way than you can gain a massive competitive edge.
What are you actually doing to get seen and found on the web when your target audience is looking for products or services you also have to offer?
Do you utilize one or all of the above suggestions to improve your chances on the market? If not you should start right away! It’s a mouse click economy; your competitor is only a mouse-click away.
Social media has become a significant part of serious marketers lead generation strategy.
Companies who engage in social media increase their reach massively. And there is no matter if they are B2C or B2B.
Social media is public communications channel where companies can get great unfiltered feedback.
Companies need to understand that social media is not for “pushing your messages out “.
To be successful and to reach a positive ROI with social media, companies need to communicate and to listen to their audience.
It is simply untrue when someone claims that his customers are not active in social media. They are active in B2C and B2B and they research online for products and services.
The only question is: What will they find when they research for products and services you also have to offer, will they find you or your competitor?
Studies prove that B2C and B2B profit likewise from social media engagement.
A study from Wildfire Interactive shows that social media helps grow brand awareness, increase sales and partnerships and helped to reduce marketing costs.
Engaging in dialogue with customers via social media has become an important part of successful companies.
Smart marketers measure the value of social media channels as well. They want to know which one has the best results for their business. One of the most popular channels is Facebook. About 44% of surveyed marketers say that “Facebook is valuable because they help with new customer recruitment”.
Moreover they have stated that Facebook fans have higher conversion rates and they make more frequent purchases.
How can you measure the ROI of your social media marketing?
• At first you can do this by increase of your revenue
• As a second way you can measure are “Likes”
• You can measure social media mentions of your brand
A great way is to add lead capture pages to your in social published articles and to track the traffic, leads, lead to customer rate and revenue per generated lead. So you get a good picture of your cost per lead and adjust activities to increase your profits.
Studies show that companies which relying on online lead generation are two times more profitable than those who do not. Those companies achieve an up to 62% lower cost per lead.
LinkedIn is now permitted to use your name and picture in any of their advertisements. So they can use this throughout their whole network for their marketing purposes!
First - You can forbid it by change your privacy settings this way:
1. Place the cursor on your name at the top right corner of the screen. From the small
pull down menu that appears, select “settings”
2. Then click “Account” on the left/bottom
3. In the column next to Account, select the option “Manage Social Advertising”
4. Finally un-tick the box “LinkedIn may use my name and photo in social advertising”
5. and Save
Or, the Second possibility –You can use this as an opportunity to let market LinkedIn your business throughout their whole network for FREE! Simply let them do the branding job for your business and paying not a dime for this!
How does this sound for you?
Here is how it works:
You simply change your photo to a branding tool! Use your photo by inserting your brand LOGO how I have done here with my LinkedIn photo. That’s it.
Now LinkedIn is very welcome to use my photo throughout their whole network as long as they want.
I only can say THANK YOU LINKEDIN for this tremendous FREE marketing opportunity and God bless you!
By the way, you can do this on Twitter, Facebook and other networks as well.
— Let me know what you think and how your results are.
In the beginning of the internet it was a source of information and today entertainment and shopping have accompanied this attitude. But research is still the main factor when it comes to web use.
Before social media people went mainly to search engines to research and to find products and services. Today in times of social media the products and services find them through discussions, content sharing and recommendations from friends and followers. And even on the road these information are accessible through mobile devices.
This evolution of information technology also arrived to the B2B companies.
The search volume on Facebook has overtaken Google. And there are not only consumers who research there. B2B is also using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and other social networks to research for products, services, industry related information and new business partners.
Nobody says that a product or service with a volume of hundreds of thousands of dollars has to be sold on Facebook. But the first contact can be made there and the further discussions and negotiations can be took offline to close the deal.
Social media is a great way to showcase a business and to offer a more personal insight view. A company has great opportunities to show personality to attract the right buyer persona and to get in touch with the right new future customer when this one is looking out for products and services.
All social media sites also have mobile apps; their reach also spreads wider and is working 24/7. Not only teenagers are surfing on social networks through their mobile devices. B2B decision makes do this as well and their number is increasing!
How can you and a B2B firm leverage this information above for your business?
1. Start a social media presence. Complete your profile there.
2. Research for industry related B2B groups and people. Become a member and invite those people to your network.
3. Listen to their discussions. If you have something valuable to contribute than do it, otherwise go on listening.
4. Start a corporate blog. Write about topics your B2B audience is interested in. Share your blog articles in social media and ask for feedback for your publication.
5. Build landing pages and offer exclusive and valuable content for download. So you generate laser target high quality industry related B2B leads.
The Social Media marketing return on investment is a major factor why businesses choose to step into social media marketing and the two communications here.
Social media has proved in the past years that it can bring positive ROI when done right. Some successful examples are Intrepid Travel, Easy Lunch Boxes,SnapRetail just only to name some of them.
As businesses understand that social media is no short term sprint than more something like a marathon they engage with more diligence to plan their steps to reach a long term ROI.
Successful brands look at social media engagement as a plant which needs to be cultivated over the time to grow to an unlimited range.
BzzAgent has discovered that about 61% of brand advocates would buy products up to one year after social media campaign has expired. This proves that social media marketing and two way communication lasts longer than ordinary one marketing blasts from yesteryear.
This does not mean that social media has become a “push the button cash machine”. Not every campaign will be successful. But like everything on the planet the volume of activities and their step by step improvement ensures a growing success.
This does not mean that brands should fire one campaign behind another. This means that a brand should carefully listen to its audience. When they listen carefully their audience will tell them which campaign could be appreciated to become a possible success story.
In the mean time a human and authentic communication should be the priority.
A good way to start a smart dialogue is to ask open questions. To ask the audience about their opinion about services and products will open discussions where a brand get the opportunity to respond in a professional, authentic and human way.
No matter if there are critics or praise. Every feedback is a chance to showcase the brands standpoint and get in touch with the recent or future customer.
Brands that listen to their audience and improve products and services to fit their audience’s needs are one step from that to be the long term winners. The growing trend for custom products proves this. The one size fits all strategy does not work anymore this is for sure!
Any business can use social media as a source of unfiltered information and as powerful business intelligence tool to predict trends, for support and product development.
The others who do not will be left behind, and they deserve to vanish because they do not care a shi* about their audience and never have. Social media also points this out and separates the good from the bad once.
In this new world the customer B2C and B2B wins and the brands who care. And that’s good!
The inBlurbs Inbound Internet Marketing blog covers all of
inbound marketing - SEO, Blogging, Social Media, Landing
Pages, Lead Generation and Analytics.
Facebook has about 830 million users worldwide which means it reaches one fifth of the global population.
