Marketing using LinkedIn and Facebook

[section_tc][column_tc span='12'][text_tc timing='linear' trigger_pt='0' duration='1000' delay='0']

I was having a chat with a client the other day, they asked is LinkedIn any good for business to business sales… Why yes, yes, it is, was my answer. After all, I reminded him, we meet via LinkedIn and he wasn’t sitting in front of me for the bad coffee and small talk.

So, I thought I’d share a quick overview of how to use social for B2B marketing.

[nbsp_tc]It starts in LinkedIn, actively blogging and sharing content. Here’s the first inside tip, don’t sell your shit! Share knowledge, what you have learnt, the culture of your company, the challenges, the success, the behind the scenes, don’t feel you need to be selling the features and benefits, that’s what Facebook Ads, AdWords and your website can do.

I’ve said this a bazillion times, social media is social first, think of it like the first time you meet someone, we don’t jump straight into a conversation on why you would make a great friend, we start by asking about them and sharing knowledge about each other, making our conversations relatable. SOCIAL IS JUST THE SAME, be relatable, be a human, don’t be a douche, the internet is already full of them and doesn’t need any more, this hasn't really changed much since the inception of social media.[nbsp_tc]

Now that you have blogging and sharing in place, engage with other people’s content. Start to search and connect to people. Here you need to know your audience, using LinkedIn search you can target people with certain job titles, then connect to them. So simple… but wait, like an infomercial it doesn’t stop there. Once you have connected you can start a dialogue with them, still, no selling just sharing. This helps to get them familiar with your brand.

Then you can export their email addresses from LinkedIn, but I recommend you only do this with 1st-degree connections, with these email addresses you can do two things. First is to send an email newsletter that is crafted beautifully in the same way you have written your blog posts, sharing knowledge updating them on what you are up to and at this point you can include a little product promotion, but just a little. Oh, and to keep things legitimate you must let them know they are part of your LinkedIn community and or have communicated with you in the past.

The second is with these email addresses you have from LinkedIn, upload them to Facebook as a custom audience, and run a targeted ad to these people, if they use the same email address to log in to Facebook, they will see your ad. Further cementing your brand in their memory.

[nbsp_tc]This is no silver bullet, think of it as a series of gentle nudges to influence their thought on your brand, the more touch points you can create the more they are going to be familiar with your brand, and more likely to think of you when they need it.

Hope that helps, thanks for reading.

[/text_tc][/column_tc][/section_tc]