Kipp Bodnar is Inbound Marketing Strategist at HubSpot, the inbound marketing software leader in lead generation and lead management applications. He is co-author of The B2B Social Media Book: Become a Marketing Superstar by Generating Leads with Blogging, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Email, and More — the definitive guide for B2B marketers who want to master social media and drive leads.
Yes, social media is for B2B companies too.
While social media has many business functions ranging from public relations to customer service, when we look at it specifically for B2B marketing a primary function is lead generation.
Counting and generating B2B leads with social media is one way for marketers to directly contribute to their company’s bottom line.
With 73 percent of CEOs believing that marketers DON’T contribute to the bottom line, it is an easy to argue that lead generation should be a top priority.
Social media wins as lead generation tool because not only does it help drive revenue, but educates perspective customer in the process. The type of education provided by effective blog posts and social media updates provides depth and context that is difficult to match with direct mail or print advertising.
6 Ways To Get More B2B Leads From Social Media
1. Set Up A Facebook Like and Lead Gate
If you active on Facebook, it is likely you have seen some companies using a like gate. This is a special welcome page that urges a page visitor to like a company’s page. However, if you are a B2B marketer, you should take it a step further. Clear Risk a Financial Services company in Canada follows their like gate with a lead gate. This enables a company to collect lead information in exchange for some type of offer directly on their Facebook Page.
2. Incorporate Lead Generation Into Social Sharing
Social media can be for engaging with prospects and customers and for sharing relevant content with those who have opted into your feed. Too many companies fail to include lead generation updates as part of their social media sharing.
I recommend using the 10-4-1 rule for incorporating lead generation into your social media sharing. For every 10 posts you share from third-party resources, share 4 of your own blog posts and one lead generation landing page. This will help to increase social media reach while supporting lead generation.
3. Use More Calls-to-Action On Your Blog and Website
Getting more traffic to your website and blog is great. However, those visitors can’t become customers if you do not provide opportunities to convert an anonymous visitor into a lead for your sales team.
Place calls-to-action, images and text links that drive visitors to lead generation landing pages, on your website homepage, product pages, blog sidebar and at the end of blog posts.
4. Set Up and Use a LinkedIn Company Page
LinkedIn is a key tool for any B2B marketer looking to generate leads with social media. Savvy marketers have been using LinkedIn Groups and Answers for lead generation for years.
In the last year, LinkedIn made some big improvements to company pages on the network. Now as a business you can share content and engage with your company page followers. Make sure you have a complete LinkedIn company page and use email along with your other social networks to encourage people to follow your page.
Your LinkedIn Company page provides the ability to share business content with a group of prospect that are actively looking to learn more.
5. Use Social Media to Turbo Charge Your Trade Show
Social media doesn’t replace offline marketing, but it can support it. Trade show marketing is a big part of many B2B marketing budgets.
Use social media to help trade offline attendance to your trade show booth or company sponsored event. Use the event hashtag to make sure your tweets are seen by non-followers search about the event. Offer prizes and other incentives to drive more booth traffic and leads.
6. Make Your Email Marketing More Social
Email is social.
Too many marketers look at it simply as a direct response marketing vehicle, but for many marketers their email list is much larger and engaged than their social media communities.
In you email marketing it is important to understand that social, doesn’t only mean social media, yes you should test the effectiveness of including social media sharing links in your email. However, it is also important to understand that forwarding is a social behavior.
Include a call-to-action in your email that encourages recipients to forward your email along to others in their network who might find the content valuable.
Social media can be used for many things. Lead generation should be at the top of the list for B2B marketers. It is time to demonstrate our value in dollars.