How B2B Marketers Can Up Social-Media Lead Gen

Some business-to-business marketers shrug off social media as a consumer branding and sales channel, sticking to company page branding and PR announcements on social platforms. They are missing a lead source, argues Tessa Berg, vice president of B2B agency Tenlo, in a recent MarketingProfs post. In deciding investment in social outreach to snag leads, start by profiling your target customers and where they gather on social platforms. Here's a hint: 80% of B2B leads come from LinkedIn, compared with 13% from Twitter. That doesn't mean B2B marketers should exclusively use LinkedIn. For example, Twitter allows for more direct interaction with prospects. And with the proven effectiveness of video marketing, why not leverage platforms like YouTube and Instagram to stimulate interest via product or branding videos? Social platforms want to monetize their audiences so the reach of organic social activity has been increasingly subordinated to paid advertising. At the same time, many social platforms have improved targeting options for paid advertising. So it makes sense to pair organic actions with highly targeted paid social ads. Social tracking data will uncover important insights into which content and messaging on which social channels generate the best engagement and site traffic. Clear calls-to-action driving to owned content (website or landing page) will help capture leads better than a generic "Contact Us." Offers of engaging content, say a video on product installation or an infographic addressing a key issue such as sustainability, also help gather lead contact data, Berg adds. Don't get stuck in a rut with success, however; vary the types of ads and the content of ads deployed to avoid losing audience interest. One easy, effective way to create relationships with prospective customers is to address the questions they pose on relevant platforms such as LinkedIn, Quora, and Reddit, Berg notes. As a bonus, you will likely boost SEO and keyword rankings. Also, most B2B organizations already create presentations on industry trends, product updates, and case studies, and this content is prime for social sharing, especially on platforms such as LinkedIn SlideShare. For more, see our full website blog post at https://www.acculist.com/social-media-isnt-just-for-b2c-the-right-tactics-build-b2b-leads/

Social Media Pros Forecast Range of 2018 Changes

B2B and B2C marketers planning to invest more in social media marketing in 2018 will want to take a look at the trends that social media experts are predicting for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest marketing in the year ahead, as recently gathered up by Social Media Examiner. Among the more than 33 predictions featured, multiple social media pros stressed the growth and impact of video, as "even simple selfie videos filmed on cell phones are propelling businesses higher than video-less businesses," to quote one forecaster. B2B marketers will be pleased to know that LinkedIn advertising is expected to roll out video ads for business pages and geofilters for videos, now in test. Facebook, which remains the social media ad leader, is positioning to become a major player in online video. In 2017, Facebook debuted Facebook Watch for select creators (a TV-like option). In 2018, it is forecast that the program will expand to all people and pages on Facebook, and also that Facebook will likely roll out new features for video creators, perhaps including preferential Facebook news feed exposure for original native video, revenue-sharing deals, or even a dedicated video app. With the video boom, metrics will need to get more sophisticated across platforms. Meanwhile, Instagram is expected to continue surging after fast growth in 2017, with 15 million businesses using Instagram by July 2017 (up from 8 million businesses in March 2017), with 80% of Instagram accounts now following at least one business, and with global advertising set to reach $4 billion by 2017 year-end. One reason is that Instagram has been improving its tools for marketers, including InstaStories promoted within the “news feed,” the Story Highlights feature that allows pages to host static collections of previously disappearing story posts on profiles, "swipe up" calls-to-action, posts that click through to online stores, and soon the ability to follow hashtags. The bad news for marketers is that the popularity of social media will translate into rising ad costs in 2018, with pricing of Facebook and Instagram ads predicted to rise over the next 12 months. However, that cost trend should actually spur businesses hesitating to invest; marketers who commit to social media ads now will generate awareness, build audience (particularly via e-mail subscribers) and gain a competitive advantage in the increasingly crowded market. Businesses also are urged to hone ad effectiveness—for example using retargeting, AI and other techniques to ensure prospects see the most relevant messaging for their point in the customer journey. And, as costs rise and organic reach declines in effectiveness, the importance of ad metrics increases. Marketers will need to track the metrics of each ad or promoted post, combining a paid acquisition model with historical data and personalized content. For more predictions, see http://www.acculistusa.com/social-media-pros-predict-wide-range-of-changes-in-2018/

Tips for Integrating Social Media and E-mail

In today's multi-channel environment, integrating social media and e-mail is key to enhancing the digital marketing power of both for business and nonprofit organizations. A recent Entrepreneur magazine article cited six creative ways to get social and e-mail working in tandem, and provided step-by-step instructions to boot! The six tactics include: 1) uploading e-mail subscriber lists to social networks (Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Facebook); 2) retargeting e-mail subscribers/responders with social ads on Facebook and Twitter; 3) letting social networks send e-mails for you via notifications from social communities you join, such as LinkedIn groups; 4) automating e-mail to seek social shares by adding a CTA-share to an e-newsletter or leveraging personal e-mail sharing with tools such as SendBloom to get the ball rolling; 5) collecting e-mail addresses on Twitter and Facebook; and 6) creating an exclusive social group for e-mail subscribers. For the full article, go to http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/244903

Are You Optimizing LinkedIn's B2B Lead Power?

If you're a business-to-business marketer frustrated with results from LinkedIn, you're not alone. Using social media to generate qualified leads and measurable ROI is a challenge. So take a look at a recent online article for Advertising Age magazine by Sebastian Jespersen, president and CEO of Vertic Inc., a digital ad agency. Jespersen offers four tips for B2B marketers on how to optimize LinkedIn promotional investment, taking a cue from the lead-gen success of client firms like Microsoft, GE and Siemens. Tip No. 1: Measure the right part of the funnel. Understand that LinkedIn pours in fewer leads at the top but can have higher conversion rates than other channels at the bottom. Therefore, measure cost per lead or cost per conversion rather than cost per click or impression. Tip No. 2: To get conversion, create the right post-click experience. Don't send qualified traffic to a generic web page; build multiple customized pieces of content on-site and direct users to relevant messages. Tip No. 3 is a no-brainer: Use the data LinkedIn provides to target! Tip No. 4: Retarget. Successful LinkedIn campaigns get a 20% conversion rate, but that doesn't mean throwing away the other 80% of leads. Tap user behavior to retarget qualified responders on other relevant sites and get a second chance at conversion. For the complete article, go to http://adage.com/article/btob/b-b-marketers-improve-leads-linkedin/297386/

Personalization Key to E-mail's B2B Success

E-mail continues to be a medium of choice for business-to-business (B2B) digital marketing because of its effectiveness, says Patrick Kehoe, worldwide director of product marketing at HP Exstream, in a recent interview with eMarketer’s Rimma Kats. But Kehoe added an important caveat: "E-mail can be an effective delivery device, but it isn’t always an effective delivery device. You have to make sure that you’ve got the right messaging and the right personalization in it. If someone perceives that the content is not relevant to them, then they’re likely to ignore that message. We all get bombarded with hundreds of e-mails a day, and marketers’ focus needs to be to make sure that you’ve got the right subject lines, the right messages and the right content. Making it personalized helps reach specific individuals." Personalization is what sets B2B e-mail apart from many other digital options, including emerging channels such as LinkedIn and Twitter, Kehoe notes. "You can make e-mail so that it reaches out directly to an individual, and you can tailor the messaging and content for that person. That’s really tough to do when you’re using Twitter," he tells Kats. See the whole interview at http://www.emarketer.com/Article/B2B-Perspective-EmailStill-Medium-of-Choice/1010972

How Marketers Can Spur Social Content Sharing

Social sharing of your digital content not only boosts marketing ego, it boosts Google search ranking and expands brand audience, according to studies. So how do you spur more sharing? A recent article by Tom Mangan of Reputation Capital Media Services, an agency offering content marketing support, helpfully summarizes the simple advice of multiple experts. Tip No. 1: Make it easy to share by adding social sharing buttons to your blog, website, e-mail, etc. No. 2: Make it exciting to share by adding an image. Web experts agree that any image, but especially an interesting and original graphic, increases sharing. No. 3 is a standard for marketing: Write an attention-grabbing headline. For a basic rule of thumb, keep it short and include a motivator for response or sharing, such as fear, exclusivity, greed or peer approval. No. 4 is more technically challenging: Use content meta data tailored to sharing on the social platforms targeted, which should be the platforms most used by your target audience. Examples are OpenGraph tags for Facebook and LinkedIn, and Twitter Card tags for tweets. And No. 5: Time your posts to maximize sharing. To hone in on the right day and time, you can start by learning directly from your own audience through your online traffic analytics. To read Mangan's article with helpful links, go to http://repcapitalmedia.com/how-to-get-people-to-share-your-content/