Social media still matters as a discovery tool for B2B decision-makers, so it should certainly matter to demand marketers.
Research by CMI and SmartBrief found that social is a huge part of both how B2B buyers engage with brands, and how marketing organizations start conversations. In fact, the study showed that social media content is the most widely used B2B content marketing tactic, used by 83% of organizations. Perhaps this is because 8 out of 10 B2B buyers trust recommendations from peers and influencers more than original brand research (74%), eBooks (33%) and blogs (21%) – and social media supports such peer review.
B2B buyers want credible, tailored and research-driven content. Demand generation marketers who understand how best to leverage social media to distribute such content will benefit from significant pipeline growth.
4 Ways to Use Social Media in Demand Generation
Demand generation is a full-funnel approach to cultivating a desire for your products or services, using relevant content, leveraging a multi-channel customer engagement strategy and building authentic relationships. When used effectively, social media can greatly help with all three efforts.
Will McInnes, CMO at Brandwatch, writes that social isn’t just for distribution, it’s also valuable for, “researching and better understanding your industry’s current market landscape and consumers.”
The four most critical ways demand marketers should leverage social today involve much more than just lead generation, they also include research, listening and nurturing.
Role #1: Social Media for B2B Research
Jillian Ryan, Analyst at eMarketer writes B2B marketers need to “research to understand audience behaviors on social platforms to deliver targeted content to the right person, on the right network, at the right time in the buyer journey.”
These insights, according to Ryan, can be gleaned via social data mining and social listening.
Social media research is most valuable if it’s targeted deeper than just your existing social media analytics, like who’s engaging with your posts. These insights definitely have value, but they’re not nearly as deep as social intelligence can go.
Social research enables you to:
- Understand the influencer landscape
- Align your content with newly trending topics
- Assess your target audience and competitors
- Tap into the pain points that are driving discussions
When reshaped into questions, the types of insights B2B buyers gain include:
- What are your personas talking about?
- What types of content (asset categories, sources, topics) are they sharing?
- Who are the influencers in your niche?
- Where are these conversations taking place: on publications, influencer pages or in LinkedIn groups?
- Who are the trusted sources of information in your industry?
- Which platforms are actually most popular?
- Which industry events are driving the most social conversations?
- How often does your audience recommend B2B vendors? (CMI research reveals that, on average, just 5% make recommendations on social. )
You don’t need a data science team to discover trends.
Social data-mining tools can scale across huge audiences, and give you the intelligence you need – like the top five topics driving conversations among your target decision-makers. Use these insights to shape your personas, messaging and content strategy.
Keep in mind, however, that social research technologies are invaluable for macro-level insights, but they also don’t always reveal nuance. Social B2B marketers are wise to become active participants in places…
