Start with the Basics
B2B online marketing is really about presence. Your prospects and customers want to know they are doing business with a hip company that knows enough to have presence on Twitter and other social media sites. So, at a minimum, you need to establish your online presence. Here are a few core sites where your flag should be hanging:
-Your website: Hopefully, this is more than a single page, or even just a few basic pages. I’ll elaborate on the overall website and its optimization in another article, but a website showcases who you are, and serves as home turf. You have the most direct influence on how people perceive you through your website. What are conveying to your prospects, customers, and partners today?
-Blog: This is similar to your website in that you have full control over the look, content, and presentation.
-Twitter: At a minimum, have a Twitter account live, and a semi-customized page. You can decide if you want to be a re-broadcaster of others’ news, respond to others queries, or send out your own thought leadership comments. Just be sure that you are posting on a daily and consistent basis.
-LinkedIn: Depending on your industry and how engaged contacts are within your prospects or customers, you should have a company page and product page at a minimum. Occasional announcements can correspond with your press releases or you can engage “all-in” by joining various groups. LinkedIn bought Slide Share, which is yet another form of having online presence – we’ll reserve this for a deep-dive or advanced topic.
-YouTube: For the last few years, video has been the big, anticipated wave. While viewership is tremendously high and articles in the news now contemplate the future of cable operators – video still hasn’t fully caught on in B2B. However, it is still important to put some videos on YouTube, again, simply so that your prospects and customers see that their vendor is hip with the market.
-Facebook: When it comes to B2B, Facebook isn’t the ideal platform to intrude into your prospects’ personal time. Nonetheless, you need a flag posted here. Be sure to put some effort to obtaining “fans” or “likes” to this page from internal employees, vendors, and customers to start.
-Pinterest, Instagram: By now, you must be thinking – when will this list end?! And how does someone manage all of these sites without an army of online marketing specialists? I couldn’t ignore these sites, but in B2B, this normally would not apply, unless you have tangible goods that you want to showcase to customers and prospects. Or, for example, if you are a limo company that wants to show corporate customers your fleet, or other customers enjoying your services.
At this point, we have only scratched the surface of online marketing basics. If you don’t already have presence on these sites – that is your first step. If you do not have an in-house resource to set this up, it is worthwhile to have a contractor set it up for you*. If you do have in-house resources – make sure there is a reminder or checklist on a weekly or bi-weekly basis to keep content fresh. It never looks good when you have a Twitter account that started, but has no activity for several months in a row. If you cannot maintain it – skip having the presence until you can.
Read more: http://businesstips.com/7-basics-for-social-media-online-marketing-in-a-b2b-world/