In our first blog on the series, we demolished the idea that Facebook is not for B2B marketers. The notion that it is only for consumers and not businesses has been proven wrong. One can provide information and it does not have to be in a formal way or lack creativity. The content can be funny, entertaining and engaging. But, then the question arises are we targeting the right kind of audience on Facebook?
Myth: Facebook is the wrong crowd for B2B marketers. The content that you post on the company’s Facebook page is just limited to the people following you. Besides, not everyone on your database would have liked your page. Bombarding your audience with advertisements to generate leads won’t work. LinkedIn is better suited as it is the world’s largest professional network.
Reality: In B2B marketing, social media is used primarily for lead generation and for establishing thought leadership. While businesses still feel that they don’t need to pay attention to Facebook, there are several reasons why this myth should no longer be present:
Massive user base: With over 1.79 billion active users, Facebook undoubtedly has the biggest audience there is. Any marketer would be foolish to ignore such a massive base. Compared to that, with just 467 million registered users, LinkedIn has a lot of catching up to do even though it has been the go-to social media platform for B2B marketers as it allows them to connect with professionals in their industries, establish new connections and find new clients for their companies. Majority of the people on social media are on Facebook and so it is highly likely that your target audience will also be on the platform.
Targeted advertising: For starters, people who have ‘liked’ your page are a limited lot. And just because the customer ‘likes’ your page does not mean that they know about the company or what you sell. Hence, it is important to market your marketing through Facebook ads. With Facebook advertising, you can reach out to a wide variety of audience, even without having a prior connection to them; something that allows Facebook to score over LinkedIn. The ads will appear in the newsfeed or as sponsored content and can serve as a casual introduction. If you are looking to score a lead, then you can set your ads to appear to those with a certain state/city listed in their profile. For the people who are interested, it will be easier for them to cross into your sales funnel.
Custom audiences: Remember, not everyone in your database has liked your page on Facebook. Facebook advertising will let you upload email addresses from your database and enables you to target the users attached to them. To set up a custom audience, go to campaigns < audiences < custom audiences < custom list. You can upload your own list of email addresses here. By matching it with those who have already liked you on Facebook, you may want to focus your efforts on those who are not in contact through the platform. This will also allow you to tailor your messages to better meet the needs of your customer.
Lead generation: B2B marketers can offer incentives to its customers through content marketing; you can entice customers to visit your websites by logging in with their email IDs. This will help build your emailing list, promote content such as e-books or whitepapers and get them to return to the website for content. FB can target people by job title, company, seniority, net income, what they majored at college etc. This will also help B2B marketers to target their offerings accordingly.
Retargeting lost causes: One of the best returns on investment is that Facebook re-targeting allows you to show ads to the consumer who has visited your website. FB advertising can help nudge those customers who have visited the website, but have not bought anything yet. By having the lowest cost per click ($0.10-$0.75) than Google Adwords ($2.50-$25.00) or LinkedIn ($3.00-$6.00), FB proves to be a cost-effective strategy for B2B marketers. You can also reduce FB ad costs by 50% or more by creating ads that have higher click through rates.
In short, Facebook is the most influential platform among social media as its ads reaches more people, grabs more attention and costs much lesser than others. So, what are you waiting for?
