Social Media B2B

In the first quarter of this year it is likely many B2B companies are about to get started with social media marketing, or at least talking about it. While social media marketing isn’t complex, the amount of tools and ideas can often be daunting. The hardest part is often sorting out all the noise and determining the few things that will actually help drive business objectives.

I thought this would be a great opportunity to help simplify the process and share a simple six step process that would help any B2B company, regardless of industry, get started with B2B social media marketing.

6 Steps To Getting Started In B2B Social Media

Step 1: Understand What You Want Social Media Marketing To Help Achieve For Your Business – Beginning with the end in mind is always key, especially when it come to social media marketing. Let’s face it, the Internet can be a time suck. If you don’t know what you are trying to accomplish, you are likely wasting time. Set one or two clear goals. A goal could be as simple as “increasing lead generation by 20%”. Look at your business plan for opportunities that can social media best support. Focus on those.

Step 2: Find Your Audience – Think of the social web as a a large ocean. Your customers are likely only a few small schools of fish among countless in the ocean. Finding out where your customers are online and how they spend their time will stop you from wasting yours. To do this you can used free tools like Google Blog Search, Twitter Search, Facebook Search, LinkedIn Search, etc. The important thing to remember is not which tools to search, instead it is making sure you are searching for the right terms. Company names are easy, but you are going to find more value from search of industry related terms that will help identify conversations on topics related to your business.

Step 3: Develop A Content Strategy – Now that you know where your customers are, what do you say to them? Developing a content strategy helps you understand what type of information you business needs to reach your goals. This steps is all about understanding what type of information is relevant and interesting to your customers and what methods of online communication is the best way to distribute it to them. This content strategy also needs to include lead generation tactics and calls to actions. Always think about the answer to this question: What action do I want potential customers to take online?

Step 4: Don’t Forget Search – Search engines matter greatly when it comes to inbound marketing. Regardless where customers are talking, it is likely that most of them are using search to help solve problems and make purchasing decisions. Use tools like Google’s External Keyword Tool to help determine the most popular terms your customers are searching for related to your business. Leverage these words in social media content and on your corporate web site.

Step 5: Establish A Digital Footprint - By now you at least have an idea of a content strategy and how you are likely to engage current and potential customers online. These are important, but we need to remember that B2B inbound marketing is all about getting found. The web is like everything else in life: the more places people can find you the higher the likelihood that they will contact you. Leverage a service such as User Name Check to help you understand all of the social outlets available. While all of these service my not be relevant to your business, building a profile on the ones that are can greatly expand the digital footprint of your business online with only a few hours of work. By including a link to and a description of your business, you will also support your search engine marketing efforts.

Step 6: Hold Yourself Accountable – While this process could be a 100 steps long, the important thing to remember is that it only works if you hold yourself accountable. At the beginning, establish a regular reporting and measurement process the could be done at the end of every month. Additionally I recommenced keeping track of how you spend your time related to social media for the first couple of months to help make sure you are spending it on the right things and not wasting it.

Are these steps helpful? What did you do to get started with B2B Social Media?

Kipp Bodnar is publisher of SocialMediaB2B.com. Follow Kipp on Twitter @kippbodnar.