I know how frustrating it can be to read articles that leave you with more questions than answers. That's why this article is all about providing clear, practical solutions.
In this blog, my focus is to highlight the crucial need for B2B companies to shift their attention towards social media marketing, more so than any other marketing approach. I'll be looking ahead to 2024-2025, a period I predict will be defined by the rise of B2B influencers. This trend is not just a passing wave but a fundamental change. Companies that are already embracing this shift are seeing a significant increase in lead generation and growth. Let's explore how and why social media is becoming an indispensable tool in the B2B marketing arsenal.
3 Reasons B2B Companies Should Use Content Marketing and Social Media in 2024
84% of C-level and VP-level buyers are influenced by social media when making purchasing decisions
55% of B2B buyers use social media for researching opportunities, appreciating social proof in their decision-making process
With just six hours a week spent on social media, 66% of marketers found it brought new leads (Articulate Marketing, 2023)
Still not convinced B2B content marketing works? Here are more stats that might just change your mind:
Companies and Buyers on LinkedIn: 90% of B2B companies and more than half of B2B buyers use LinkedIn
Rising Importance of Instagram: 67% of marketers plan to increase their organic use of Instagram
Facebook's Reach: 72% of adults use Facebook, important for B2B despite its B2C strength (Articulate Marketing, 2023)
Think about this: The landscape of B2B company ownership is evolving with more and more millennials stepping in. How do they make their purchasing decisions? The answer is through social media. These young business owners are turning to platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram not just for networking, but also for researching and conducting business. It's time to tap into this trend and align your marketing strategies accordingly.
Then Why B2B Firms Hesitate to Allocate Budgets for Content Marketing
We're all familiar with the basic but crucial parts of content marketing like Building B2B brand awareness and brand value online, but the real questions for most B2B companies are:
"How can I figure out the return on investment (ROI)? What shows me that it's effective?"
"Creating content takes a lot of time, and as a CEO or founder, I just don't have that time."
Let's address these main two concerns:
Calculating The ROI
Yes, figuring out your ROI from social media can be tricky. It's hard to track everything. For example, when someone sees your post and shares it, and it eventually leads to a sale through word-of-mouth. How do we track that? Tools like Metwater, and Brandwatch, can help, but they're expensive – around $7,000 to $8,000 a year, which is a lot if you're an individual or a small business owner. But don't worry, there are other great ways to measure your social media ROI.
You have a few options to calculate your ROI. If you prefer something simpler, try a Google Sheet – I've got a free one you can download from my website (Social media ROI calculator), but if you want to be more accurate here are the things you need to consider.
How To Measure B2B Content Marketing ROI:
There are essential metrics to measure that can help you calculate the ROI of your content marketing. The good news? You don't need to break the bank to get these insights. By tracking various key indicators on your own, you can gather a wealth of data without hefty investments. The next step involves bringing this data together for thorough analysis. This is where affordable analytic dashboards come into play. Tools like Buffer and Socialinsider, offer a cost-effective way to consolidate your data for a comprehensive view of your marketing efforts. Focusing on targeted campaigns is crucial. This approach involves aligning various content pieces towards a single goal, such as launching a podcast to generate leads and boost brand recognition. While it's challenging to measure every aspect, especially word-of-mouth, leveraging these tools to track essential social media ROI statistics will provide valuable insights and give you the results you are after. Let's explore these metrics and learn how to use them effectively for informed decision-making in your content strategy.
Traffic Metric:
Website Traffic: Google Analytics is a free and powerful tool that provides comprehensive data on website traffic, including page views, user behavior, and source of traffic.
Social Media Traffic: Social media dashboards like Buffer, Agorapulse, or Brandwatch can track this data. Additionally, PathSocial is particularly useful for gaining insights into profile views and interactions on platforms like Instagram.
Growth in Followers and Subscribers: Social media dashboards like Buffer, Agorapulse, or Brandwatch can track this data, but most social media platforms provide native analytics to track follower growth.
Tracking Leads:
As mentioned before, focus your campaigns so you can accurately measure your data. Once you know the amount of traffic you received over a month, you can determine how many visitors actually became leads. This can be identified by actions such as contacting you directly or providing their contact information, like an email address, to access valuable information or offers on your landing page. Tools like Google Analytics and Facebook Pixel are instrumental in this phase, but most of the other platforms mentioned previously likely provide this information as well.
Sales closing rate:
The sales closing rate is a measure of the effectiveness of your sales strategy in converting leads into actual sales. It varies significantly based on whether you're dealing with high-ticket or low-ticket items.
For high-ticket items, where sales are less frequent but more significant, tracking might often be done manually or with specialized CRM tools.
For low-ticket items, where sales volume is higher, automated tools that integrate with your sales operations can efficiently track this data, providing real-time insights into your sales performance. (CRM, Google Analytics, and etc)
Lifetime Customer Value (LCV)
In the realm of online branding and content marketing, understanding the Lifetime Customer Value is crucial. LCV isn't just about direct sales; it's also about the long-term value a customer brings, influenced by your content.
Content Impact: A single piece of content, be it a video, blog, or social media post, can not only generate leads over time but also give insights into the quality and engagement level of those leads. This helps in tailoring future content to maximize customer value.
Investment Tracking:
Utilize budgeting and financial management tools (like QuickBooks, Xero, or FreshBooks) to keep track of these expenses. Larger businesses might use ERP systems that integrate various business processes, including finance, HR, and operations, for a holistic view of business investments. This helps in understanding the total investment put into your content marketing efforts and its ROI.
Once you have gathered all this data on a social media dashboard, you can calculate your ROI manually (you can also use the Excel sheet I created for this purpose), or you can utilize these software tools to do the calculation for you.
Overcoming The Time Required to Make Contents
Making content takes a lot of time, and as a CEO or founder, you might not have that time. I get it, and I have some solutions for you:
Get Help from Your Marketing Team: If you have a team, let them handle it. You can find out how to do this here: B2B Content Marketing Strategy: Step By Step Guide
Plan Your Own Content Calendar: It's easier than you think. Learn more about it here.
Repurpose Content: One great way to be efficient is by reusing your content. This means you take one good piece of content and turn it into many different things. This is really helpful because on social media today, it's not just about having great content, but also about having lots of it. Now, what type of content is best for repurposing? It's podcasting. Podcasts are perfect for this. Start by recording a podcast. Then, use that one recording to create a whole range of content. You can make YouTube videos, short clips for social media, blog posts that are great for SEO, as well as images and quotes. All these come from just one podcast episode.
You can do this yourself (learn how) or you can consider using podcasting agencies. The good thing about agencies is that most of them cover everything from launching to growing the podcast and you can get the result faster. We also can help you with this. At Venture Podcasting We specialize in launching successful, brand-building podcasts for B2B companies. If you are interested, feel free to check out our website for more info.
Here's why the period of 2024-2025 will be significant: I predict it will be marked by the rise of B2B influencers (The B2B digital transformation).
Because It's time to jump on board. 46% of B2B companies are upping their content marketing budget in the next year. Over two-thirds of senior marketing leaders plan to keep or increase their brand spending, knowing it helps with long-term sales and keeps their brand on buyers' minds. Moreover, your target audience is becoming increasingly younger. We're moving beyond the boomer generation; for the younger crowd, social media is their primary mode of communication and interaction.
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We specialize in launching and scaling highly successful B2B podcasts that not only establish your brand but also drive profitability. If you are interested, feel free to check out our website.
Connect with Sam Hajighasem for more content on LinkedIn.