B2B Buyers Social Media, And Everything You Need To Know To Generate New Business Leads...
It’s pretty obvious that over the past few years, social media has increasingly become one of the main places that B2B buyers find resources, information on your business and how much you know about solving their pain points.
There is still a misconception however that social media is a place that really only converts in the B2C sphere and that having a social media presence is a sort of unnecessary addition to a marketing strategy. Somewhere between having a blog and a mission statement: it looks good to have one, but it doesn’t make a huge difference to your lead gen, right?
Wrong. Just as there is a new wave of connected consumers who rely heavily on social media for purchasing, there is an echoed group of social media users in B2B.
In the end, let’s not forget that B2B buyers are consumers too.
A reason for the misperception that social is ‘just a consumer thing’ is the fact that most of the literature looks at marketing goals and social channels that are used in B2C.
You might be surprised by the fact that social can have just as much, if not more, impact on a B2B company than a B2C company. This is because B2B has a smaller potential customer base, a higher average price point, and a customer decision funnel that is more influenced by word of mouth and reputation.
Turning your customers into advocates and marketers on behalf of your brand pays off a lot more when you’re selling £3000 product packaging design than it does when you’re selling £2 chicken nuggets
Are there differences between B2B and B2C social media campaigns? Of course. But those differences are at the tactics layer, not the strategy layer.
Here are a few stats that we’ve gathered about how B2B buyers use social media that might make you think differently about the importance of social as part of your marketing strategy:
- 54% of B2B buyers begin their purchase process with informal research about their business problems.
- 70% of B2B buyers using social media as a research tool, and over half using social media networks to engage their peers in a conversation about brands.
- 75% of B2B buyers are influenced by the information they find on social media.
- B2B buyers that are most actively using social media to support their buying decisions are more senior, have 84% bigger budgets and make 61% more purchase decisions.
When B2B buyers are researching and browsing on social media you have a great opportunity to influence their thoughts on your brand (before they’re in buying mode) with how-to content, blogs, whitepapers and thought leadership, all of which are best promoted on social channels like LinkedIn, Twitter and, more increasingly, Facebook and Instagram.
Ultimately, you want to sell, and the people buying are on social media. So why not take advantage of a misunderstood market?
If you need any help with your social media strategy, content creation or demand generation you can contact one of our team here to find out how we can help.
