by Fronetics | Mar 28, 2016 | Blog, Marketing, Social Media
A recent collection of social media facts and stats offers an interesting look at B2B company and buyer behavior.
Last month, Webbiquity published a list of 49 social media facts and stats about user behavior on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram, and Google+. These figures, collected from various studies, offer insight into how people and businesses are using social networking in recent times.
B2B companies may find several of the stats particularly interesting, and it may influence the way they think about social media marketing. I have pulled out some of the most applicable and offered some thoughts below.
Social media facts and stats from Webbiquity
88% of B2B companies use Facebook for marketing (and 96% of all B2C companies )
If you are not using Facebook in your marketing efforts, you are in a quickly growing minority. With 968 million active daily users, the largest social networking site offers a huge opportunity — actually, the most expansive opportunity available — for your business to attract, court, and convert potential customers. Here are some of our top tips for using Facebook to market your business.
93% of small business owners and marketers use Facebook.
Small businesses don’t have the time or budget to compete with large brands when it comes to marketing — but social media can level the playing field. Social media, and Facebook especially, is an ideal marketing platform for small businesses because it can be relatively inexpensive but have a high impact on growth. Your company can cultivate your brand, engage with customers, and form business relationships. Learn how two small companies saw enormous growth thanks to social media.
21% of consumers say they unfollow brands that post repetitive or boring content. 19% say they would unfollow a brand on Facebook if the brand posted too often — more than six times a day.
We know that creating good, original content is key to a successful inbound marketing strategy. But knowing how often to post to the various social channels can be one of the more intimidating obstacles to overcome. How do you know what’s too much and what’s too little? Learn how often you should post on social media.
74% B2B decision makers use LinkedIn to help make purchasing decisions.
Don’t let anyone convince you that social media channels are for personal use only: customers are online, and if you aren’t, you’re at a disadvantage. And since nearly three-quarters use LinkedIn for purchasing decisions, it’s critical that your business is strategic about your presence on the network. Check out this guide for creating the perfect LinkedIn company page to get started.
88% of B2B marketers in North America use Twitter for content distribution.
Twitter is one of the more effective channels for gaining business, and the numbers prove it. A Market Probe International survey found that 72% of those who follow a business on Twitter are more likely to make a purchase from that business, and that 82% of followers are more likely to recommend a product or service to friends and family. Additionally, 85% of respondents reported feeling a closer connection to a small business if they follow them on Twitter. Learn more about Twitter for business.
Pinterest has 47 million active monthly users worldwide, 80% of whom are women.
While Pinterest use is rapidly growing among B2C marketers, the B2B world still hasn’t quite figured it out yet. I pulled out the two above stats to show the enormous potential this channel has, particularly for businesses whose customer base is primarily women. Fronetics’ social prospecting workbook has some ideas on how to get started using Pinterest.
32% of U.S. companies with 100+ employees used Instagram for marketing activities in 2015. eMarketer predicts that number will jump to 70.7% by 2017.
The importance of Instagram for B2B companies will continue to grow. Here’s why: 90% of Instagram users are under age 35. A recent Google study showed an increasing number of Millennials on the B2B purchasing path — up to 46% of potential buyers were of this generation in 2014. Their preferences and behaviors are having a noticeable impact on B2B buyer behavior as a whole. So if your business wants to capitalize on the nearly 300 million active monthly users, Instagram should be on your radar.
64% of North American B2B marketers use Google+ to distribute content, but just 17% use it for new product launches (vs. 81% who use LinkedIn).
Americans may use Google+ less frequently than some of the other networks, but don’t count it out entirely. More people check the site than people realize, including die-hard fans of Google products and the many businesses who use the Google suite professionally.
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by Fronetics | Mar 24, 2016 | Blog, Marketing, Social Media, Supply Chain
These four supply chain companies constantly post fresh, quality content to their social media accounts.
When it excels at social media, a company’s opportunity for growth is as vast as the web itself. Today, even small businesses can compete shoulder to shoulder with their biggest competitors if leveraging social media properly.
It is estimated that for every 5 minutes people spend online, 1 minute of that is spent on some kind of social media network. And most of your customers are on social media — statistics indicate that more than 79% of adults in the U.S. use social media each day. As the popularity of sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and company blogs continues to grow, it is vital to utilize these tools to your own marketing advantage.
When you think of social media masters, you may not think of companies in the supply chain industry. But there are a few excellent examples, and much can be learned from what they do. Here are four supply chain companies that excel at social media and the reasons why they stand out above the crowd:
1) Cerasis
Cerasis, a top freight logistics company and truckload freight broker, excels at social media because their content is fresh, posted daily, and of high quality. Simply put, they create engaging, informative content and are consistently active across all of the major social networks.
2) Kinaxis
Kinaxis, a global company offering advanced supply chain management systems to customers in a variety of discrete manufacturing industries, offers in-depth blog posts and is consistently active in social media channels such as Twitter, Google+, and LinkedIn.
3) Transplace
Transplace, a provider of transportation management services, posts informative articles and incites topics of conversation on Twitter several times per day. The company is active across all social media platforms, including their own YouTube channel.
4) UPS Longitudes
Longitudes is a blog with insights on the trends reshaping the global economy by United Parcel Service, a global leader in shipping. The blog also engages true thought leaders on topics ranging from trade to transportation and ecommerce to emerging markets. Posts are consistently new, innovative, and informative. Longitudes also has its own social media accounts, separate from UPS’s primary accounts, which distribute the blog’s content and engage in related discussions.
Why do these four supply chain companies excel at social media? Here are three commonalities that help these businesses rise above the rest:
Consistent daily posts and content
Having consistent, reliable, fresh social media posts is essential. The more active you are, the greater your outreach to potential new customers.
Think of it this way: search engines pick up on social media activities — like when someone shares content from your website on Twitter or Facebook, for example. Search engines use this to weigh the relevancy and validity of your website and your company. So, fresh daily or weekly content gives people a chance to read and share every time you publish a blog post, ebook, buying guide, case study, testimonial, and other interesting content to your social media accounts. Your marketing efforts reap the benefits of better search engine rankings as a result.
Engaging readers
You want readers to connect and engage with your social media posts. Every time they leave a comment or share or like a post, your social media presence — and your digital footprint — grows.
Quality content
Posting anything just for the sake of posting is not a good social media strategy. Content that is boring and basic will not help your business grow. Content needs to capture the interest of readers and engage them to read, share, and follow your business. Posts should be timely and relevant. This is what builds your following and your brand and generates new customers.
With social media you can find new customers and fans, connect with existing customers who can help spread the word about how great your product or service is, and drive more traffic to your website, which creates new avenues into the digital realm of marketing, company branding, and lead generation. The most successful companies today work daily to improve their social media content and reap the benefits of consistent, quality content marketing.
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by Jennifer Hart Yim | Mar 17, 2016 | Blog, Leadership, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy, Supply Chain
Source: Library of Congress
This is a guest post written by Tania Seary, founder of Procurious. Procurious, the world’s first online social network for supply chain and procurement professionals, has acquired more than 12,000 members in less than two years.
I’m trying to use a baseball analogy here, but appreciate that my headline does have other connotations!
Another analogy might be to say that we’re “getting the flywheel spinning” here at Procurious – the world’s first online network for supply chain and procurement professionals.
Now, for those of you who aren’t familiar with the flywheel analogy, it is a metaphor created by author Jim Collins in his famous business manifesto, “From Good to Great,” to explain one of the key drivers for creating long-term success in business.
A flywheel is a heavy disk on an axle used to smooth a machine’s operation to generate momentum and maintain a constant rotational speed.
It takes much effort and persistence to get the metaphorical flywheel to move, but consistent energy in one direction over time helps build momentum and ultimately leads to a breakthrough. In the case of Procurious, as with Collins’ companies, there has been no specific event, decision, action, or lucky moment that single-handedly helped us to successfully break through the “beta” stage, to where we are today.
Over the last two years, we have remained committed to building something truly special for the procurement profession. Step by step we have stayed focused on our goal of building a very credible and content-rich community for our members.
Now with more than 12,000 members in 135 countries, Procurious has cemented its position as the secret weapon for professionals wanting to be part of the movement toward creating the new face of procurement.
Getting back to our headline analogy with baseball, I wanted to share some of the key decisions we have made along our journey to date to build Procurious.
Agreeing on the MVP
Just to confirm, we are talking about Minimum Viable Product here, not the Most Valuable Player. In the early days of designing this business, everything was up for grabs. Among a long list, we considered building a procurement news aggregator, a pure-play training repository called Procurious TV, and a procurement lifestyle magazine.
What we ended up with was a community platform that included a community feed, member profiles, discussions, eLearning, a worldwide calendar of procurement events, twice-daily blog, and private groups.
The end result was a powerful combination of career advancement, skill development, and professional networking opportunities to help propel today’s procurement professionals forward.
To have open or closed membership?
Once we had agreed on the core features and functionality of Procurious, we had a lot of heated debates over whether we should have an open or closed network. That is, should it be closed exclusively to highly pre-qualified procurement professionals, or open for the whole world to join?
Luckily my team convinced me to keep our network open… and it’s been an important part of our success story to date.
Of course, the major advantage to our members is that on Procurious, they gain access to a wide range of thought leaders and industry experts which then exposes them to diverse opinions on the hot topics in procurement.
Finding our fans
Every club, or community, needs a strong support base. We have been very fortunate to have a number of “early adopters” from around the globe support the building of the Procurious community. And, of course, we now have our “poster child” — Siddarth Sharma — who was surprised to learn he was our 10,000th member. Siddarth is representative of so many of the exciting procurement professionals around the globe — an MBA working for KPMG managing a small team of indirects buyers in India.
Securing our sponsors
Like a baseball club, we needed some big-brand sponsors to keep our operations humming. We have been fortunate to create partnerships with the profession’s leading institutes, associations, analysts, and technology companies. The Hackett Group has supported Procurious from the start, and The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) has joined the team this year. These relationships enrich Procurious in many ways and, most importantly, provide our members with access to world-leading research and resources.
Fielding a winning team
Lisa Malone, Euan Granger, and Jack Slade have been a powerhouse behind building this community, covering all the bases, and getting runs on the board.
Handling the curveballs
The biggest threat to our success is the introduction of a fierce competitor. But we are fortunate that we now have a loyal community that has been built on a substantial foundation of trust and commitment. This will be difficult to shake.
Our next biggest hurdle to success is to overcome the procurement profession’s hesitancy to create social media networks.
Despite the well-publicized benefits, we still meet procurement professionals that tell us “they don’t believe in networking” and don’t accept LinkedIn invitations from people they don’t know. We need to convince the profession of the multiple benefits of using social media, and then provide them with the skills to leverage the opportunity.
One base at a time
Our plan is to continue building Procurious based on our members’ needs, one base at a time.
We will be hosting our Big Ideas conference in London on Thursday, 21 April, for which you can register as a digital delegate on www.bigideassummit.com.
We are also currently beta-testing our new app, which can be downloaded from the Apple App store.
We are asking as many procurement professionals as possible to sign up to the network at www.procurious.com to join this new era and — as we like to say — get involved and get ahead!
Tania is the Founding Chairman of three companies specializing in the development of the procurement profession – The Faculty, The Source and Procurious.
The Faculty is recognized as one of Australia’s leading advisors on procurement development. Established twelve years ago, The Faculty works with leading organizations to transform and elevate the role of procurement, build high performance procurement teams and create professional knowledge networks.
Under Tania’s leadership, The Faculty has instigated a number of “firsts” for the procurement profession in Australia, including the development of a Procurement Executive Program through Melbourne Business School, the establishment of a Procurement Roundtable which includes many of Australia’s leading organizations, creation of an annual Chief Procurement Officer (CPO) Forum and attracting leading global procurement thought leaders to teach in Australia. She also initiated the Corporate Board for Social Procurement, which has created a foundation for leading corporations to dedicate appropriate areas of spend toward social enterprises.
Four years ago, Tania founded The Source, a specialist recruitment firm for the procurement profession. In 2013 she moved to London and founded Procurious, the world’s first online community for procurement professionals to connect, share and learn.
Tania’s fascination and commitment to procurement development started around fifteen years ago in the United States. After finishing her MBA at Pennsylvania State University, Tania became one of Alcoa’s first global commodity managers.
Prior to moving to the USA, Tania’s career was focused on marketing roles within Alcoa and Rowland in Australia, and the Walt Disney Company in the UK. Tania has an MBA and a Bachelor of Business.
by Fronetics | Mar 8, 2016 | Blog, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy
Social prospecting helps you identify potential customers outside your established audience using social platforms.
Social media should be an integral part of your marketing strategy — we know it helps build brand reputation, gather market intelligence, discover customer problems, and influence purchasing decisions. But your lead generation efforts should also include the use of social platforms. It’s a practice called social prospecting that can be highly effective in identifying new prospects.
You’ll use your existing social handles to identify and pursue potential customers that may be interested in your business but that don’t yet know about it. HubSpot describes social prospecting: “It’s about scouring the social web, identifying potential prospects, and engaging them through content to get them to your site and move them through your funnel.”
Why does it work?
Think about the size of your established audience. Now think about the total number of active users on social media: As of the fourth quarter of 2015, Facebook had 1.59 billion active monthly users, Twitter averaged at 305 million, LinkedIn had 414 million, Google+ had 111 million, and Pinterest had more than 100 million. Those enormous numbers equal enormous potential for your business.
That’s because social media isn’t just for recreational purposes anymore. More than half (53%) of B2B buyers report using social media to research purchases, in fact. Social prospecting allows you to be proactive in finding all of the considerable number of social-media-using prospects who are looking for you, too.
How do you get started?
If you already have a social media presence, that’s step one. It gets a little more complicated from there.
Fronetics has developed a free social prospecting workbook to learn how to use social listening to generate new leads for your business. We’ve identified the quickest way to find potential customers on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Google+. Every worksheet includes:
- Short preparatory work to make the actual prospecting easy
- Visual instructions on how and where to find prospects
- Pro tips that will help you get the best results
- Prescriptions (Marketing Rx) for success
- Take-home exercises for follow-up prospecting
Happy prospecting!
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by Fronetics | Mar 7, 2016 | Blog, Content Marketing, Marketing, Social Media
Your content stinks. Here’s why.
Twenty-seven million pieces of content are shared every day — and most of it is crap. To attract readers to your content, you must stand out, and I mean really stand out, among the masses. That’s no easy feat.
You may be spending an enormous amount of time and money as part of a content marketing effort, but, if no one is reading what you’re producing, you’re definitely not achieving your ROI. Consider the following points, and ask yourself if any could be negatively impacting your readership.
Here are the top 10 reasons no one is reading your content.
10. You don’t have a strategy.
Only 11% of companies without a documented content marketing strategy find their efforts to be successful, compared to 60% of companies with a strategy in place. And that number rises to 86% when the company designates someone to lead the strategy. Having a clear vision for your content and a plan for executing that vision is crucial to earning an audience.
9. Your content isn’t search-engine optimized.
Seventy-seven percent of today’s buyers use Google to research information about products. Search engine optimization (SEO) means writing copy for your digital assets so they will be prioritized by Google in web queries related to your business or products. Three of four people will click on the top five search results. So the further you move from those top five results, the less likely someone is to find, much less read, your content. If your content isn’t SEO-friendly, readers may not even have the chance to see what you’re writing because it is so far down in their search results.
8. You are using the wrong channels.
If a tree falls in the woods and nobody is around to hear it, did the tree fall after all? Stop publishing in the empty woods. Who is the target audience for your content, and where are they active? Evaluate your audience (or lack thereof) in each of the channels where you publish, and see if something is amiss. This will vary greatly by business. You can access personalized information on your followers’ social media habits through analytic programs like Google Analytics and sites like Tweriod.
Also to consider: on lightning-fast platforms like Twitter, a miscalculation of timing could be to blame. (See The Best Time to Post on Social Media.)
7. You’re not publishing often enough.
Inconsistent content is one of the primary reasons readers become disengaged with a particular publisher. Even publishing one more blog post a week can significantly boost your readership. Try a little experiment for a few months by playing with the number of times per week you publish — say, three times per week one month, four times the next, and five the next. You’ll find the sweet spot where you get the most engagement but can also handle the production schedule.
The next reasons have to do with the substance of the content itself.
6. You’re publishing a sales pitch instead of content.
Imagine you’re looking to buy a car. Researching different options online, Site A, run by Dealership A, offers expert opinions about various makes and models, while Site B talks about how Dealership B offers top-notch customer service and a no-nonsense negotiation policy. You’d probably never come across Site B in the first place because the content is irrelevant (and trite… and annoying), whereas Site A has exactly what you’re looking for.
Content marketing is your opportunity to provide valuable, expert information to people who are seeking it out. Associating your brand with that sort of expertise attracts customers — not to mention, helps them find you via organic search in the first place. No one wants to read your sales pitch over and over again, and they won’t.
5. You are not telling the truth.
I am talking about two different definitions of truth here.
For one, are you being honest? Today’s consumers can smell b.s. from a mile away, largely because the Internet forgets nothing and forgives nothing. The prevalence of user-review sites and platforms like social media means customers will always have an outlet to share their experiences, both good and bad. If your business does not provide what you promise, people will be upset and take to these forums to complain about it. Trust and transparency are two key assets in earning (and keeping) readership.
Secondly, are you being true to who you are as a business? A recent Harvard Business Review article defines successful marketers as mission-focused, not consumer-focused. Don’t produce content based on what you think your customers want to hear. The beauty of content marketing is that when you put your business mission out into the universe through content, people who are seeking that information find you. In other words, build it, and they will come.
4. You’re not offering anything of value.
DigitalTonto says, “The first step towards engagement is creating value beyond the basic transaction of payment for a product or service.” This is the essence of content marketing: a related offer of value in the form of expertise, entertainment, etc. For example, L’Oreal Paris provides free makeup tutorials on its YouTube channel, Destination Beauty, and, Apple offers free classes, product demonstrations, and tech support from the Genius Bar for product users.
The question to ask is, what is your value to your customers? Can you offer expert advice on a particular topic through a blog? Is there something about your products or your people that would make for entertaining or informative videos? Do you have access to top-of-their-field specialists that could lead a webinar series? Find whatever it is that is unique to your company, and leverage that in your content marketing to attract readers.
Because there is so much content out there, today’s consumers can afford to be partial to publishers who provide information in a way that is pleasing to them. They also have shorter attention spans than goldfish. That means things like format, length, accessibility, and voice can majorly impact whether people read your content or not. Also, be mindful that different platforms should offer different experiences based on reader expectations (e.g., Instagram isn’t the place for lots of text).
2. You’re not heeding performance analytics.
The one certain constant in marketing is that things will always change. What works for you one year will certainly be irrelevant the next. Content marketing won’t allow you to rest on your laurels, either. You should stay on top of your analytics to monitor what kind of content is successful in the present moment, and you should tweak how you’re doing things as people, technology, and events change. Keep testing new ideas to see how they are received, and get rid of old standbys that no longer pull their weight.
1. Your content is bad.
While this seems obvious, it’s worth repeating. If the quality of your content is bad, no one will read it, regardless of what value it offers. The same goes for if you find yourself saying, “it works,” or “it’s fine!” If there are 27 million options, who would choose “fine?”
Do an honest evaluation of your content, or have a neutral outside party do so for you. Is it original, substantial, and well-written? Make sure that your content is edited, and that it is free from grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, and awkward phrasing. And remember that you get what you pay for. Professional writers can be expensive, but there’s a reason for that — theirs is a specialized craft, and very few people can do it well. If you want people to read your content, you should make sure that it’s worth reading.
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by Fronetics | Mar 3, 2016 | Blog, Content Marketing, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy
Source: Rosaura Ochoa | Flickr
Here’s how marketers can launch a B2B social media program that grows business.
A recent Harvard Business Review article discloses that a number of B2B CEOs still believe social media isn’t right for them, that it’s a tool for the B2C segment. In reality, many B2B marketers successfully leverage social media to engage potential customers, gather market intelligence, build brand awareness and reputation, discover and intercept customer problems, and influence purchasing decisions before sales calls are ever made.
In short, if you are not in the B2B social media game, you are missing out on enormous business opportunities.
Getting started with social media can seem like an intimidating task, especially if your C-suite is skeptical of the benefits. Here are six steps to launching a B2B social media program that will grow your business to its full potential.
1) Speak in the right terms.
Convincing management that you want your team to spend more time on social media to gain “followers” or get “shares” might be a hard sell. To win support, focus your argument around the factors that are most important to them. Lead generation, lead nurturing, conversions, sales, ROI, profits: this should be the vocabulary with which you approach this conversation.
2) Create a strategy — and put someone in charge.
Only 11% of companies without a documented content marketing strategy find their efforts to be successful, compared to 60% of companies with a strategy in place. And that number rises to 86% when the company designates someone to lead the strategy. Working with an experienced marketing consulting firm, like Fronetics, you can develop an inbound marketing strategy that aligns with your business objectives. And whether someone on your team heads up execution or you outsource that responsibility, the leader should continually monitor analytics and tweak the strategy accordingly. Which brings us to…
3) Determine which analytics to track.
In the B2B world, it’s not about shares, likes, or impressions, though those numbers speak to your brand exposure. (Read more about so-called “vanity metrics” here.) Leads generated, conversion rates, sales, and ROI are going to be the things you’ll want to track. If you have a good, flexible strategy in place, these metrics will help you adjust your efforts to ensure you’re achieving your business objectives.
See: The Six Marketing Metrics Your Boss Actually Cares About.
4) Develop quality content.
Twenty-seven million pieces of content are shared every day — and a large portion of it is crap. A social media presence could be pretty pointless unless you’re using it to push content that is original, high quality, and representative of your brand. One of the biggest mistakes B2B companies make is using social channels to push a sales pitch. You’ll quickly lose your audience, who is turned off by a strong sales pitch. Social media is about engaging your audience, building brand awareness, and offering valuable information.
See: Three Elements of Good Content.
5) Decide which channels are right for your business.
Who are you trying to reach, and what are you trying to tell them? These are good questions to ask when trying to determine which platforms will comprise your social media program. There’s a wealth of information out there about which channels are used by whom and when. You’ll also want to choose channels that you’ll be able to maintain regularly and which play to your strengths. As an obvious example, if you don’t have the capability to make videos, YouTube probably isn’t for you. Remember, you’ll likely want to work through several different channels to reach a maximum number of potential customers.
See: Which Social Media Channels Should Your B2B Business Use?
6) Follow your competitors.
Following your competitors is a great way to stay up to date on what they’re doing, especially if you don’t have a ton of time or money for competitive research. And when I say “follow,” I don’t mean “copy or imitate.” I mean subscribe to their blogs, engage with them on social media, and like and share their content that you find meaningful for your audience. This way, you become part of the industry conversation happening online, and you know exactly what your potential customers are seeing from (and how they’re reacting to) your competitors.
See: The Role of Social Media in Supply Chain Intelligence.
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