Prioritizing Social Media Management for B2B

Are you struggling with balancing all your social media platforms? Are you finding that there is just too much work to be done and not enough hours in a day? The last thing your business should do is give up and stop managing your social accounts. It would help if you made it a priority to better manage your social media accounts for B2B. These five steps will help you manage your social media B2B marketing strategy.

Step 1: Create SMART Social Media Goals

The SMART acronym stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound. S.M.A.R.T. is a tool frequently used in marketing to help plan, set goals, and measure success. 

You must be specific with your SM marketing goals. You set your goals so they can achieve your overall business objective. Do not focus all your time on the likes, follows, posts, and comments, but otherwise, focus on how your social media is generating leads. Ask who are you targeting and how will you target them?

How do you know if you have reached a goal if you do not measure it? Measuring a goal helps you meet deadlines and stay focused. It also helps you track your progress and gets you one step closer to achieving your goals. Ask yourself how many goals should I set? It's important to measure outcomes, not actions.  

Everybody wants to set the bar high when it comes to reaching goals. However, you have to make sure you can achieve these goals in a realistic manner. With social media, it will take time to figure out the best way to approach goals. B2B marketers should focus on their business objectives, vision, and values. If you find you are hitting your goals faster, then maybe think about increasing the complexity of your goals. Ask yourself how do I accomplish this goal, how realistic is the goal?

It’s important to note that every goal should have a deadline. Deadlines are created so you can be one step closer to achieving your goals. Of course, make sure to set your deadline in a realistic time frame. Ask yourself when should I start scheduling a deadline?

Step 2: Recognize SM Marketing Challenges

Nice! You established your goals, so your next step involves identifying your social media challenges. Many challenges B2B marketers come across for their social media are finding the time, measuring the ROI, and finding relevant content to share with their audience. 

Finding the Time

With all the demands on our time, it can be difficult to carve out time for tweets. It is crucial to develop a schedule to help create time for social media. There are many applications and platforms to help produce and manage social media content. Many platforms have the capabilities to do all your social media in one place to save you time and headaches.

Hootsuite and Buffer are two social media management platforms that allow you to schedule a specific time to post your content onto multiple social media channels. That way you can avoid the headaches of waiting until the last minute to come up with good, relevant content. And our favorite tool, HubSpot, will even automatically post your content at optimal times throughout the day, based on your audience engagement and other metrics. 

Measuring the ROI

It’s important for B2B marketers to track ROI and what social media posts are generating leads. Of course, it’s still important to keep in mind the number of likes, comments, and shares, but monetarily it is more important to focus your efforts on lead generation. Lead generation is where you can clearly follow and track your success. 

Finding Relevant Content to Share with Your Audience 

Try to implement relevant content that pertains to your business into your social media strategy. Use outside sources to help you connect and engage with your audience. Add input to every curate content; this will help establish trust and communication.

Step 3: Choose Your Beneficial Social KPI's

Social media KPIs help businesses recognize how well their campaigns are executed and if they have to modify their strategy. To be successful, focus on the major KPI’s, and narrow it down to one or two. The main goal of social media content creation is to generate leads. Generating-leads leads to new customers, which leads to your business making more money. 

The most important KPI’s to measure on social media include:

• How frequently people engage with your brand

• Where people become aware of your brand

• The rate of engagement that changes into conversions

• The overall impact of your customers

Add Web Extensions

It is a smart idea to download and add web extensions to your computer. There are many extensions to help you better manage, edit, and produce quality information for your audience. Think about downloading extensions that will help with your social media management. These extensions could include help with grammar and sentence structures, time management that will track how many hours you are spending on a particular project, SEO and Hashtag suggestions. There are many easy-to-use, helpful extensions that will benefit your overall business efforts.

Step 4: Listen and Engage With Your Audience

Take time to really listen to your audience. What do they need? What struggles or problems might they have? How can your business alleviate their problems? Don’t just listen to your customers; make sure to also pay attention to your competitors. What do your competitors do differently than you? How can you stand out from your competition? Focus on keywords and hashtags that both your target audience and your competitors use. 

Continuously engage with your audience. You should always respond and communicate in a timely manner. Give helpful replies, so your audience knows you care about them. Find others who are looking for answers, then provide them with helpful tools or direct them to specific forums or blog posts. Recommend your audience to CTA’s and provide a workable link. 

Ask yourself where your audience's conversations are happening, then focus your efforts on those particular social media channels. Not every industry or business has to use every single social media platform. What makes the most sense in your industry? Pay attention to your competitors. What social media platforms are they using?  Find where your target audience is and begin to engage and answer their questions. 

Listening and engaging will take up a lot of your time. However, it is an essential part of your social media marketing strategy. It is not productive if you are doing it in each network separately. Find a social media management tool where you can listen and engage in multiple streams at the same time. This will overall help your strategy be more effective and efficient. 

Step 5: Create a Social Media Editorial Calendar

Creating a social media editorial calendar is the most important tool when it comes to prioritizing your social media management for B2B. A SM editorial calendar will help keep your social media organized across all social channels and on track. An editorial calendar is an excellent place to brainstorm new ideas. 

• It's smart to always attach an image to text. Links should also have some type of imagery associated

• Social posts should follow the 30/70 rule. 30% of your brand content and 70% curated content for your audience. Curated content could include blog posts, news articles, webinars, press release, etc

• Use a platform that will help post all your social channels at once.

Key Takeaways

Prioritize your social media content across all channels to engage with your audience and generate new leads. Use helpful SM management tools that will benefit your business by staying organized and producing new enticing content. Create S.M.A.R.T. social media goals to help you plan, set achievable goals, and apply the work ethic. Recognize your social media marketing problems. As a B2B marketer, make time, measure the ROI, and find relevant content to share. Focus on the important KPIs, and be sure to continuously modify your strategy to properly execute your campaign. Be sure to listen and engage with your audience. Do this in a timely manner and provide your audience with relevant, helpful tools and information they may be having questions about. Most importantly, you will benefit by creating a social media editorial calendar. Find a platform that provides you with a one-stop-shop for all your social media channels. Do not give up on your social media business efforts; find resources that will help you in the interim but also in the long term. What are you waiting for? Start prioritizing your social media management for B2B today, and watch as your business will grow!

Interested in more social media marketing tips and tricks? Check out our handy social media branding checklist!