B2B companies use social media to increase brand awareness, drive website traffic and generate leads. According to the Content Marketing Institute, 87% of B2B brands use social media to engage audiences and distribute digital content to prospective and current customers. If you’re looking to increase engagement, it is important to have a strong social media strategy. Here are six core elements to keep in mind when you implement your social plan.
1. Make sure you know your audience and the social channels your customers and potential customers prefer. If you don’t have the bandwidth to manage all major social channels out there, pick two or three your audience seems to prefer and concentrate your presence on them.
2. Polish your social channels to perfection. This includes having a custom design or background, aligning your logo to fit the space provided, filling out accurately all fields of content, and making sure everything is consistent with your company messaging, website and brand.
3. Create an editorial calendar for your posts. News can change based on company developments, but having an ed cal handy won’t hurt. This is meant especially for holidays, national industry days, charity events and so on.
4. Monitor engagement regularly. Show your fans and followers that you are on top of it and respond to their comments promptly. Setting up email alerts will help you monitor your social media activity closely.
5. Track your analytics. If you consistently look at the analytics, you will get a better understanding of peak times when your audience is more likely to engage, which kinds of posts they find more interesting and how often you should generate activity.
6. Lastly, don’t forget the visuals. It has been proven that posts that include appealing images generate more engagement. Make sure you own the rights of the image or use public domain photos. It’s a good idea to set aside a budget for a stock image subscription.
There is no perfect formula out there to guarantee social media success. Once you know your audience well and have created solid social media channels for your company, monitor the analytics and engagement and enjoy the social space. Also, remember that you need to be ready to experiment with your posts, visuals and timing. Happy sharing!
This post was contributed by Antonia Genov, Account Executive at Clearpoint Agency.