Aseem Badshah
Leaders on Social Media
Laurie Anne Nilo, Social Media Manager, Measured
As the social media manager, I am on the front lines of our marketing team. This means I am the first to hear feedback from customers and prospects and can spot trending topics that we should hop in on. I can communicate it back to the team so we can inform our strategy as a whole.
Lisa Marcy, Head of Social Media, Marketo
Social media channels are as critical for a modern marketing organization as any other channel. The majority of B2B audiences are actively using social media (over 76% of U.S. adults using the internet engage on one or more social media platforms, according to data from Pew Research).
If you’re looking to meet your audience where they are, you need to be on social media. Social offers a unique way to drive brand awareness and preference, respond in real-time to customer inquiries, and authentically engage with audiences.
Drew Milam, Global Social Media Marketing Sr. Manager, F5 Networks
Social media provides a marketing touchpoint for an organization to reach (new and existing) customers at every funnel level, helping to further their journey and drive engagement. Your ability to use your brand as a spokesperson or personality through social media is a more humanizing way of connecting with your audience and enriching the experience of engaging with marketing content.
Additionally, the opportunity to extend the reach of social media content and assets by empowering employees, influencers, SMEs, and thought leaders to be advocates on behalf of an organization can have a huge impact on their professional networks.
Shelley Cernel, Senior Marketing Manager, KnowledgeTree (of SAVO)
In today’s increasingly connected world, the power of social media can help B2B organizations relate to and engage more intelligently with buyers. As buyers become more social, companies need to adapt. Prospects seek feedback and recommendations from their peers, and sellers and marketers need to be a part of that conversation. It also helps us in marketing gain better insight into our buyers’ problems and challenges, enabling us to create more relevant content.
Brooke Ballard, Head of Marketing, Inside Sales Team
I have mixed emotions about social media marketing for b2b. There, I said it. It’s time-consuming, and the results are difficult to measure. Social media for B2B means something different to everyone – Linkedin, Twitter, and Facebook all require different strategies and have varying degrees of success. The traditional “post and hope” method isn’t an effective way to generate the interactions you’re looking for. As a marketer, I see social media as a database of potential leads.
Taking note from psychologists, there’s much to be inferred from social media activity and that, coupled with geo-targeting, helps us narrow down on relevant audiences. Grateful for tools such as Socedo that take the manual work out of finding those prospects based on our company criteria.
This ensures that your time will be well spent. Sparking an interaction with the right person at the right time might be just the thing that propels them into your sales cycle.
Shawnna Sumaoang, Director of Marketing, Highspot
Social is here to stay, and it continues to be a great channel for Highspot to engage with prospects in a low-pressure, timely way. It lets prospects consume content in bite-sized chunks, and due to the hyper-targetability of social networks, we can reliably deliver the right content to the right audience.
We can even narrow content based on account-level granularity, which is an advantage for marketers that use an account-based marketing strategy.
Adam Hutchinson, Head of Marketing, Socedo
There is a strong correlation between social media growth and organic search traffic, not to mention influencer relationships, PR credibility, and brand recognition. Social media impacts around 24-26% of my MQL pipeline, either as a direct source of leads or as an indirect channel among many on which a prospect engages with us in their lifecycle.
That’s already a quarter of my pipeline, which will only increase. The trend is clear: brands that create person-to-person experiences are winning in the market. Speaking openly, honestly, and directly with your audience must become the new normal.
Parting Thoughts
The first obstacle many B2B marketers face when they turn to social media is finding their audience. Ten thousand Twitter followers mean very little unless they’re followers you care about, and hopping on trending hashtags will make a lot of random noise. It’s easy to throw up your hands and declare, “Social media just doesn’t work for my industry!”
But the truth is that almost everyone is on social media these days. Just ask your competitor.
B2B marketers need a different solution for social media. Please find out how Socedo can help you build your audience and turn them into leads in a free trial.
