B2Bs have a strange relationship with social media. The dynamic of utilizing social media from a B2B standpoint is much, much different from the ever-so-easy application of social media for B2Cs; B2Cs keep a steady relationship with their customer-base through social media– most of their social media contacts are already customers, and any interaction on the social media platform will just serve as a reminder for repeat business with that particular social media contact– easy to establish and even easier to maintain. B2B’s are quite different.
BROAD SPECTRUM CONVERSATIONS
Even if you do manage to get a social media contact as a B2B; posts and conversation with your followers is a much trickier game than “Here’s a coupon!”– in the B2B world; coupons and discounts are almost frowned upon as they’re generally seen as compromising the integrity of your product’s value; if a product or service is constantly discounted, almost no procurement-side of a business will see the value in it (some will; most won’t), and you could do damage to the market-integrity of your company that way.
Instead, B2B social media posts and conversation should be more broad-spectrum conversation; talk about the industry, any changes to the industry, or insights that your company has on how to make an outstanding product within that industry. These kinds of posts remind your social media contacts of the value and importance of your industry, while simultaneously supplanting the idea that your company is well-experienced and a solid participant of the value that your industry provides.
IMMEDIATE SALES?
However, even though that’s the best posting strategy for B2B’s, be mindful that a social media contact does not necessarily mean that you’re going to get a sale from that contact– and even if it does, those sales don’t come in immediately. Businesses are much more methodical about their purchases and won’t make an impulse-decision that has any significant impact at all on their budget. Instead it takes a long time to convince a business that your product provides necessary value for their company, or, having that social media contact can be a great way to be the first person they turn to when they have a problem that your industry can fix.
INTERACT
In general, it’s good to think of social media contacts as roughly analogous to exchanging business cards. Just because you have someone’s business card doesn’t mean you’re going to call them up the next day and order a shipment of their product without really understanding it, does it? No; that business card is there as a source of information, and when the condition arises for a need in that industry, that card is an information resource that you have. Social media is like that, but better, since you can keep up and interact with your potential clients with relative ease. This makes for a healthier B2B relationship in the instances where your social media contacts eventually do turn into clients some of your most reliable repeat-clients.