‘LinkedIn is Facebook for grown ups’ I’ve heard that statement a few times over the years and 12-15 months ago I might have agreed but not anymore.
Are you using Facebook marketing?
Most of my clients are looking to achieve one primary aim – locate and engage with new customers. Is this you? And if it is, are you always looking in the right places?
If your company operates mainly in the business to business sectors (B2B), i.e. your customers are other businesses, rather than consumers, then you’d be forgiven for making an assumption that LinkedIn is pretty well the one and only place you should be spending your time, if social media marketing is part of your business development and marketing strategy.
But hang on a minute – have you considered these facts about Facebook:
- 1.4 million active users
- 2 billion pieces of content are shared each day
- An average user has 300 ‘friends’
- 1 in every 7 minutes spent on-line is on Facebook
- Largest user age range is 30-64
Who is your target audience? Are they professionals, managers, key decision makers in companies and are they aged somewhere between 30 and 64? Did you know that 1 million teenagers are leaving Facebook every year, to go to sites such as Snapchat, Instagram and Twitter - Mum and Dad have definitely taken over the playground. The professional LinkedIn user, by day, is just as likely to be the social Facebook user by night and probably at the weekend.
Check out this case study about Sandeep Kumar, who set up his first dental practice in 2003 and has gone on to establish and own a further 5 ‘Smile Stylist‘ practices in the West Midlands area, all hugely successful businesses, both in the Private and NHS sectors. He is also an advisor to the “Heart of Birmingham Primary care Trust” and runs one of the largest NHS practices within the PCT. Sandeep uses Facebook paid Ad marketing to target his predominantly female customers, many of which are professionals and who will expect to invest an average of £3500 for his expert cosmetic dentistry products and services.
How much does Sandeep spend on Facebook Ads? A typical campaign might set him back as little as £16 to an upper limit of £50, from which he has brought in more than 100 new customers. That’s 100 new customers spending £3500 each!
Then there’s Nimbus Motorsports, who, amongst other things, sell safety gloves to marshalls at race meetings. Until Chris Kitchen, from Nimbus, attended a Facebook workshop, run by Linked2Success, Nimbus would do what many merchandisers do – they’d set up their stall at a race meet, sell some product, then pack up and head round the country to one meeting after another. Check out their case study and see how by using Facebook’s unpaid page facility, really effectively, they brought in orders from all over the UK and Belgium too and made further savings also by not having to travel.
Now, consider this for a B2B social media strategy:
- Use LinkedIn to locate and engage with your target audience
- Use Twitter to follow your LinkedIn connections
- Use Facebook to keep you top of mind with your audience
1. Use LinkedIn to locate and engage with your target audience
Once you’re clear about who your target audience is; which industry sector they’re in, which companies they work for and what their job titles are and where they’re located geographically, then use LinkedIn’s various search options to find them, invite them to connect and begin the process of sharing relevant content – content that they consider to be of value and makes a difference to their business.
2. Use Twitter to follow your LinkedIn connections
Twitter can be used differently to LinkedIn. Consider following your LinkedIn connections on Twitter – you can listen to their conversations and gain useful insights into their thoughts and activities, clues which may help you engage with them more effectively. Imagine, for a moment, that you’re a motor vehicle sales executive and you overhear one of your target professionals tweet that they’re having problems with their car or the garage they deal with. Maybe you gain an insight into the fact they’re travelling around the country a lot, because they’re tweeting about their journeys or the destinations they’re heading to. Could you message them via LinkedIn with some useful information on how to be more fuel efficient when driving long distances or perhaps send them a comparison case study, demonstrating how a particular contract hire deal can be more financially beneficial for high mileage drivers?
3. Use Facebook to keep you top of mind with your audience
What if you used LinkedIn and Twitter to invite your audience to visit and ‘like’ your Facebook page – maybe you could start canvassing your prospects and customers to ask if they use Facebook? You could then regularly post content that would be delivered to the palm of their hand, via their Facebook App. Better still, why not create a Facebook advertising campaign to target Facebook users by; gender, age, location, job, interests, likes hobbies, whether they have a family and if so by the age of their children, where they go on holiday and much, much more.
Times have changed, most of your clients are social and by social, I mean they’re using more than one social media platform but for different purposes.
Just as brands understand that their consumer audience is likely to be found watching TV, reading a magazine or listening to the radio and then creating Ads for each of these mediums, then there’s every chance that the professional business person, today, will be found on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.
Avoid creating a one-dimensional social media strategy and increase the chances that you’ll be seen, frequently, by those you’d like to become your customers.
Have a great rest of your week and I look forward to hearing from you, please leave your comments and if you liked this post, would you share it using the social media buttons provided.
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Steve Phillip is Managing Director and co founder of Linked2Success, specialising in measurable social media sales & marketing support for businesses.
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