How Microsoft Social Engagement Can Bolster Social Marketing and Social Listening for B2B Firms
Although the B2B industry has long been skeptical about the impact of social media for its marketing purposes, more and more B2B businesses now find value in a web and social media presence as an opportunity to establish brand notoriety and recognition among peers and prospects. After all, it has fundamentally altered the way B2C businesses interact with their prospects and customers by allowing salespeople to inform and engage them directly.
As social selling expert Jason Miller from LinkedIn states in this video from Microsoft’s Thought Leader Series, sales are about relationships, and social media offers exactly that. It’s no surprise then that 73% of salespeople who use social media outperform those who don’t, says Miller. But how to harness this potential?
The nature of B2B products and services may not allow for the same kind of direct interaction that B2C businesses experience with their customer base over social media, but the basic notions of customer service and social listening remain the same in both cases. The channels are also different: LinkedIn, for instance, is among the top B2B social media marketing tools, as opposed to Facebook or Twitter, and a presence on the web can improve your search rankings.
And make no mistake, search rankings matter. Close to 90% of the buying cycle occurs before prospects even talk to sales, says Miller. In other words, customers thoroughly research their options before reaching out to potential partners and suppliers, meaning that having a strong online presence is crucial. By contributing insightful information about products, services, industry news and trends on your social media platforms, your organization can establish itself as an industry expert and support prospects and clients throughout their buying cycle, which in turn provides them with opportunities to engage with you directly.
Social media also lets you keep one finger on the pulse of what is going on in the market, whether it is reactions to your own brand and products or to your competitors’. The Social Engagement for Microsoft Dynamics CRM module is a great tool to achieve this. Personalized keyword search and tracking let you know what is being said about your organization, your products or your industry across a variety of social media platforms. Sentiment analysis measures user opinions, identifying consensus, trends, and negative or positive spikes. You can also follow relevant user accounts, such as key influencers or industry experts.
It’s no wonder that trends in B2B marketing increasingly take social media into account. With the proper tools, social media is the key to establishing yourself as a specialist in your field and measuring effectively what users are saying about your products and services. Having then gained new leads and prospects through your online presence, you can start looking into different ways to nurture them, such as a marketing automation practice. All in all, social marketing for B2B is here to stay, and various tools are at your disposal to help you exploit the possibilities offered by social media.
By JOVACO Solutions, Microsoft Dynamics CRM marketing specialist in Quebec