It’s an era of digital marketing; businesses worldwide are using various tools to hit their target. Nowadays, Business to Business (B2B) and Business to Customer (B2C) companies increasingly depend on social media to achieve their marketing goals. The networking platforms having billions of people online across the world have become a vital tool.
What is Social Media Marketing?
Social Media Marketing relates to techniques that target social networks and applications that help spread brand awareness and push specific products. Social media facilitates enhancing brand image and brand recognition.
Social Media Marketing better for – B2B or B2C
Social Media Marketing is beneficial for both types of business. But the results entirely depend on the way the company represents itself on a social media platform. This world of digital marketing thrives on various B2B and B2C marketing strategies. However, the policies for both types of marketing differ in their way.
B2B companies are organizations that sell products and services to other businesses. In the case of social media marketing for Business-to-Business companies, what matters is lead generation. Various social media platforms assist businesses in targeting particular customers, including people and organizations, as a whole.
B2C companies, on the other hand, are driven to affect individual customers, especially to buy something. As the name suggests, B2C is a set of companies that offer products and services to the customer, the market king. Though social media marketing, such as businesses, gains the potential to reach a massive audience.
Social Media Marketing and B2B:
Mostly, B2B marketing depends on logical process-driven buying decisions. For B2B marketers, social media marketing can be the most powerful and effective marketing channel. B2B companies have been doubtful whether to diversify on social media. But social media has the potential to offer notable benefits to businesses.
Following are some of the objectives which pinpoint the importance of Social Media Marketing in a B2B marketing company:
Boost Exposure: Increasing B2B company’s exposure online helps produce and advance brand awareness within the audience. Social media platforms enable businesses to set up a communication link with existing and probable clients.
- Magnetize Audience: Social media is a prime source of driving traffic. Clients may select social media as a primary means of communication. But it is essential to note that promotional content should be shared in a way that does not affect the audience as it could drag them away.
- Gain New Clients: Social Media assists websites in increasing traffic, which also attracts new customers. Using social media platforms to increase brand awareness and initiate customer trust attracts new customers to the company.
- Emerge Among Rivals: offering marketing insights can notably boost a B2B company’s reliability and credibility. Social media serves as a standard platform to showcase industry expertise and gain peers’ and clients’ trust. Time and effort dedicated to social media marketing initiatives, the advantages can take the business to a greater extent. The use of social networking sites enables businesses to broaden the content’s reach to current and future customers. The information also keeps both types of clients entertained and notified.
Social Media Marketing and B2C:
B2C marketing aims for emotion-driven buying judgments. Social Media marks importance in the case of B2C companies due to the mindset people have while they are on the network. Here the company’s ultimate goal is to make money, and social media helps them boost profit and sales. Thus B2C brands significantly use social media to drive traffic, sales, and brand awareness.
Social Media Platforms Best for a B2B company:
Most Business-to-Business companies use social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. These are three large networks through which B2B businesses can thrive. Let us discuss the impact of social media platforms in a B2B company.
1)LinkedIn:
LinkedIn is a social and online professional network with 303 Mn monthly active users. A business can use LinkedIn to describe its portfolio and work profile. Even more, one can share the company’s achievements through LinkedIn’s SlideShare application. It also assists in gaining more massive sales opportunities.
Some Amazing Facts Revealing the connection between LinkedIn and B2B Businesses:
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- LinkedIn is the most preferred channel for B2B marketers to broadcast content at 97%.
- LinkedIn accounts for more than 46% of all social traffic to B2B websites and blogs.
- 92% of B2B marketers include LinkedIn in their digital marketing mix
- 79% of B2B marketers see LinkedIn as an effective source of lead generation
- 80% of B2B leads come through LinkedIn
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2)Facebook:
As of March 2019, Facebook had 2.38 billion monthly active users. So having a corporate page on Facebook is a must for B2B businesses. Through this page, the company can create a group, community, promote products, push events, publish content, etc. All those things can assist B2B businesses to be positioned as a leader in the field.
3)Twitter:
B2B companies utilize twitter due to their ability to develop and share information in real-time. The platform also serves as a significant source of traffic for corporate blogs and websites, including indexing. Here businesses can use different actions to enhance user engagement. B2B companies can use hashtags to originate buzz about events.
All in all, 80% of B2B leads come from LinkedIn vs. 13% on Twitter and 7% on Facebook. So LinkedIn remains on the top of all social networking platforms.
Social Media Platforms Best for a B2C company:
Social Media Marketing plays crucial importance for Business-to-Customer companies. It assists in connecting to feasible clients, building engagement, and looking after clients. Let us discuss the social media platforms, which have become a potential tool for marketing for B2C businesses.
1)Facebook
For B2C companies, Facebook is the most prominent social media network. It is the first-ever platform to utilize digital marketing. Still, the system remains a crucial element in any marketing strategy on social media.
A business can use Facebook to post content and analyze customer requirements. Apart from this, B2C organizations can publish pictures, videos, various contests, and other things to enhance customers’ relationships.
2)Twitter
One can develop visual content on Twitter. The platform is the best option to boost the authenticity and engagement that customers feel for the brand. Thus publishing quality content, promoting the latest arrivals assists in attracting new clients.
3)Pinterest and Instagram
Both social networking platforms offer the ability of visual discovery. So the two platforms enable businesses to showcase their products or brand more interactively. Visual media is a potent tool for B2C organizations.
Pinterest allows users to share visually and discover new interests by posting (known as ‘pinning’ on Pinterest) images or videos to their own or others’ boards (i.e., a collection of ‘pins’ usually with a common theme) and browsing, liking or repinning what other users have pinned. On the other hand, Instagram allows users to take pictures, supports edit features, and has various digital filters, which resulted in the term “tweaking pictures” being coined. Users can take a photo or video, filter it to transform the image into memory for storage and posting or sharing on other popular social networking platforms.
Conclusion: It is essential for both B2B marketers and B2C marketers to use various social media platforms — their presence on those networks marks a crucial milestone in business growth. From my perspective, the best social media for B2B marketers is LinkedIn, and for B2C, Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram are the best.
