Need Help With B2B Facebook Marketing Strategy (15 posts)

  • Hello Everyone,

    I am fairly new to managing our company’s Facebook page and am looking for new ideas, advice, suggestions from anyone willing to help. I quickly found that B2B social marketing is a lot more difficult than B2C and would love to hear from anyone who has experienced or is experiencing this same issue.
    If you have a quick minute, please check out our Facebook page below and let me know if you think.

    http://www.facebook.com/AccuCode

    I think this will be a great way to gather feedback from people who have no idea about our company. After all, first impressions mean everything so we want to know if our page stands out to you. 

    Feel free to “like” our page and offer any constructive feedback/criticism. I promise I won’t be offended

    Thanks!

  • Upon viewing your FB page, I could give you a few quick tips to increase your visibility and presence right now:

    • Invite other businesses to Like your page – especially if your target market is local.  If your Biz Page is linked to a personal profile, invite your friends and family to build your Likes. 
    • In the description on your page, include the link to your website.
    • Post more often.  You are providing information to share – with more Likes, your posts will appear on their wall for them to share. Include posts with your videos.
    • Check for Local Business “Groups” on Facebook and join and then introduce yourself and your business and set up Facebook notifications so you get all the posts from those Groups in your feed and make comments and connect with other members on a regular basis.
    • Add a tab under your Timeline with an offer – a free eBook, a Report, an invite to a video demo’ing a product or service that you know will be popular….something like that.

    Those are my first thoughts…

  • @drew-sager

    Hi Andrew,

    I’m not sure if I can imagine your target market/audience. How would you describe it please?

    Is there some competition doing similiar things like you do? Do they have a Facebook presence?

    To create better first impression I recommend you to switch the “Likes” tab with some other tab to hide it under the fold until it will reach some bigger number ;)  If you click the small arrow on the right side of the tabs, you can switch positoins of tabs and you can also change app icons – to have them with your own CI – it will help a lot to stand out.
    You can change these thumbnails after clicking the settings button on the tab and then there is “Edit Settings” and “Custom Tab Image”. Does this work? :)

    Regarding the content you are sharing – I think it is great, but I would recommend you to use more pictures, because they are the most engaging type of content. You can also pin them to your timeline – it looks really nice.

    For example the post with article about QR codes: It would be nice to share a picture of QR code pointing for example to your site, then the status and the link only as the text :)  This is a good example: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151234847892952&set=a.114456157951.118433.8062627951&type=1

    And to get more fans: I would start with existing customers (I’ve seen you have a mailing list). Then Facebook Ads – if it is possible to target your audience with Ads Manager? And by the way this is where the things are becoming complicated for B2B Pages. It is harder to target your potential customers. How would you describe them? :)

    This is really interesting article which could apply to your bussines. But I’m not sure if Ads Manager allows such precise targeting at this moment. It was some kind of “hole” in their system… It is more then 1 year old.

    http://socialmedia.biz/2011/04/12/how-to-run-an-effective-facebook-campaign-for-5/

  • @drew-sager
    Hi Andrew,
    Some great advice above,I would like to add one thought, from my experience with B2B on Facebook – make it personal.  Pictures of a company fun-day or celebration, introduce your team, show the personal experience/benefit for a customer who is in a store that uses your product (if I understood correctly). . .FB is about people, even in B2B.Good luck!

  • @drew-sager
    Hi Andrew,
    Some great advice above,I would like to add one thought, from my experience with B2B on Facebook – make it personal.  Pictures of a company fun-day or celebration, introduce your team, show the personal experience/benefit for a customer who is in a store that uses your product (if I understood correctly). . .FB is about people, even in B2B.Good luck!

  • im a retailer with   a big  social  involvement….3000  fb fans…. i   need  good info on  social media all the time…….. and was interested    some of  the  subjects a lot….. like showrooming…..   but   a lot of the topics  were  so inside the  tekk  bubble in  language it  left me out…. 

    you  use a lot of  words that   your  potential  customers   might not    use at all….so if  you  are t rying to  reach out past the  tekk  gurus for  business i  think  you  should try and  frame  your headlines    into  more understandable   words….

    i know  lots of  ways to  reach  out to  other  businesses in a local way  …on  facebook  not so sure…… 

      case studies of how   other  businesses  use  facebook would  be  great…….also  you have  lots of links,  which i just  read  were  the least popular kind of post…… 

    i would love to figure out  b to b on  facebook too….we sell to some  other  kinds of  stores   who   only   find me  thru  word of  mouth and i  cant figure out a b2b  plot  to   find  them……

  • @drew-sager being able to tap into the B2B world on facebook is tricky, in the sense that facebook is more of a relationship building platform. B2B works great on linkedin.

    I like the suggestions Diane, Lada and Tamar have given above. You have to connect with other businesses first in order to attract them to your page.
    Now, you must ask yourself these questions:
    - What your ultimate goal on facebook as you are looking to connect with other businesses? Is it partnership/collaborations? Is it leads?
    I have had a look at your page, and here are the things missing or you’re doing wrong:

    • No strap-line on your cover image to quickly tell visitors what you do in a matter of seconds.
    • Your tab icons are not properly customized with calls to action.
    • You are posting random news from different sites within your industry.
    • Your about section is cluttered with too much info; and like Diane said, there’s no website link (This helps drive traffic as well).
    • Your business page is not claimed on facebook (Big privacy issue here).
    A few things you could do…
    • Get on business groups within your niche (Just like Diane said), and build authority there.
    • Get on pages within your niche that have more fans and engagement going on, and become a fan.
    I have a facebook training manual that focuses on fan pages, and also covers how to sort out the missing things I shared with you above. If you like, you can click here to find out more about it.
    PS: @annfurnivall this could also be a good resource material for you too.

    Best regards,

    Otoabasi U.

  • There is some really good advice in this thread.  I am about to launch a Facebook page for my new business, so this information is very timely for me.  Thanks for all the great tips!

  • @otoabasiumonting  great idea on  getting on places in your  business  niche…. i have  been doing that  for  several  years and it  is a  good  thing….im always looking for more tho….i need  some in the  wider general  retail area, but  havent  found  any   good ones lately….

  • You’re welcome @annfurnivall. Focusing on your niche is very vital for your business growth.

    You just have to keep looking, and it might be based on your keyword terms (Just a thought). Have a good one.

  • The most important thing is understand following:

    1. You fans wants to consume it regularly, so build a series, its like cheese, you need to develop the taste for it. One series for customers using image gallery to increase the shelf life of your series.
    2. Have something like (again a image gallery to increase the life span): 50 Technical tools for startups, SMEs.
    3. Fun series (generally on Friday to Sunday)
    4. Have a plan for 7 days, each day is specific for some type of post.
    5. Show your creativity, innovation to make a mark (What will geeks do on 15th September, something like that.
    6. Have a customer quiz, will you make a good deal as a customer
    There are many many options, the most important thing is to organize the plan. 
    Thanks,Aji Issac

  • You are right in my backyard @drew-sager  - I live up near Boulder :)  I used to work down at Agilent Technologies off of Lincoln.  Any hooo :)
    Fantastic suggestions in this thread!  I agree with @otoabasiumonting that you have to make sure you know your goal with Facebook.
    It looks like you are liking the pages of your target customers.  Are you interacting there?  Although it’s probably not the same group who is managing the pages and probably not the same types of posts.  

    One of the pages that I really like for a B2B tech example is http://www.facebook.com/salesforce – they make it really fun. 
    One other question, do you have an e-mail list of your customers and are you inviting them to like your Page?  

  • Thanks for all the great tips everyone! You guys had a ton of great ideas that I will definitely be using going forward. 

    @ladik_ as far as our target market goes, it depends which one of our products we are talking about. But to give you an idea we typically go after warehouses who have inventory management needs, airlines for keeping track of mail delivery, and also brick and mortar retailers just to name a few. I also liked your idea about getting a list of our customers e-mails to help increase our page likes. However, do you think an e-mail blast asking them to like our page would be most appropriate? I’d hate to make them annoyed by this…

    @annfurnivall thanks for the insight regarding the use of our techy jargon. I guess I use it a lot without realizing since I work for a tech company. I will start making sure that I speak in terms that everyone can relate to. This actually gave me a great idea to create a quiz or post that’s along the lines of “10 Tech Terms You Should Know”. 

    @otoabasiumonting I appreciate your observations and the suggestions you made. I was a little confused when you said our business page is not claimed on Facebook. I’m not really sure what this means or how I go about fixing this so that there aren’t any privacy issues. Thanks!

    @andrea-vahl Hello neighbor! Boulder was a great town to live in, I miss it deeply. That view of the flatirons doesn’t get much better anywhere else. Anyways, thanks for your advice. I will make it a goal to start engaging with our target customers pages frequently. 

  • @drew-sager are you on LinkedIn? I regularly use LinkedIn to help grow my fan base on Facebook– Sending a message in LinkedIn to all of your connections asking them to check out your Facebook page helps. Post your page link  on groups and discussion boards-

    On your page– def hide your Likes– swap it out with your events or something–

    Use more pictures and not so many links. Be more original with your content- it helps to establish your business as an expert in your field. Dont limit yourself to posting only your business or industry related posts. You have to give your fans a reason to stay– throw in some fun content or general interest posts.

  • Reward your fans with freebies. Yes, business also like freebies: white papers, market studies, demo programs…


Add your voice to the discussion

Existing members: . If you do not have a SME account, .