Social Media Marketing for B2B Tech Companies

By now, every company has grasped the importance of having a social media presence on the web. However, in discussions with potential clients and others, I am amazed at how many folks still have done little in social media marketing. Most have at least dipped their toe in the water, but their activity level fits into the “not enough” category.

Why do you think this is? Some business executives immediately associate “social media” solely with consumer-oriented activities on social media sites such as Facebook & Twitter. You know the stereotypes popularly characterized by the mainstream media: pictures of wild high school parties, viral invitations to flash mobs, and inane updates about what people are having for breakfast. Others may be paralyzed by a lack of experience/knowledge to utilize these social media resources. So they set up basic profiles on all the main platforms and then do little else. Lastly, some just say that they have no time to really exploit social media.

But of course, there is serious business going on in the Social Media world. You no longer are at an advantage if you are heavily using a social media marketing strategy as part of your overall marketing mix. You are behind if you aren’t!

Social media marketing is very important in B2C technology marketing. Because it is less well understood by some, I will be focusing on B2B tech social media marketing in this article.

Blogs

A Blog is the single most important step into Social Media for a B2B tech marketer. This may seem counter-intuitive, as many Blogs aren’t even resident on a social media platform (although that has become more mainstream over time). In addition to being a great way to bring traffic directly to your site, it provides content to use as “bait” for all of your social media activities. There are almost too many benefits to list here, but let’s try a few:

• New and high-quality website content that increases SEO (search engines LOVE fresh, high-quality content. This assumes a self-hosted Blog–your Blog must be hosted on your domain if you want to maximize SEO benefits to your company website)
• Direct traffic to your website
• Fast & Easy search engine crawling and indexing due to frequent Blog updates
• High-quality backlinks from sites that reference your Blog articles, as well as from happy readers who link to your Blog
• Content you can re-purpose in many ways such as publishing in newsletters and posting on appropriate social media and community sites
• Positions your company and key employees as “thought leaders” in your category

This is just a taste of what a Blog can do for you; the uses and benefits are limited mostly by your imagination. It’s a bit of work but has a high return if you dedicate reasonable resources to the effort.

LinkedIn Social Media Marketing

After creating your Blog, this is the second most important social media activity for a Business-to-Business technology marketer. Key employees should create a complete profile (for professional development purposes, if no other reason) and a profile for the company should also be created. But that’s just where the fun starts. Here are some additional important activities to consider:

Join and Use LinkedIn Groups

Other than setting up a complete and effective profile for both you and your company, another important thing is to join groups. You’re allowed up to 100, and if you choose the groups well they can be a very effective segment of your online marketing efforts. Become known and respected by participating in discussions. Most importantly, post links to your Blog content, press releases, newsletters, webinars, etc. If you’ve targeted the right groups, this will create a good number of qualified traffic to your website, company and personal profiles,  and other online vehicles. Extreme care must be taken here to avoid being too “promotional”. If you are, you could be banned from some groups and your overall effectiveness will be greatly reduced. It’s best to keep most of your posts in the “educational” category and position your company as a thought leader.

Build your Network

This is the activity where you want to go fast. But don’t hurry. The more people in your business segment you know, the easier it will be to market your product over a longer time. The key is to take a long-term perspective. You don’t build a network by being pushy or “all about you”. It’s like any other form of networking. Reach out not only to connect but to assist those in your network. In the long run, you’ll have a stronger position which will benefit your business. Also, connecting with many people and then doing nothing serves little purpose (although it will allow your profile to be found easier). The real benefit comes when you engage and attempt to turn your virtual connections into real, offline connections.

Search for Prospects

People are listed on Linkedin that you may not be able to easily find elsewhere. It’s a great, easy place to search for both companies and high-level executives that you’d like to connect with. Be very careful in your targeting efforts and try not to be too obviously salesy. Especially early on in the relationship. But if you are respectful and careful, an excellent source of targeted prospects awaits you. You’ll be able to contact them directly or connect with them through your mutual contacts.

Ask and Answer Questions

The ability to provide feedback to questions posed in your feed and your groups provides a great, low-key way to both demonstrate and improve your knowledge. By answering questions posted by others you can demonstrate your knowledge without having to appear to be bragging. Don’t be afraid to ask questions either; there are a great many resources out there to fill in the blanks in your current knowledge base.

X/Twitter Social Media Marketing

This is a great place to connect with like-minded people. Most of the time, anyway. As profiled frequently in the mass media, it’s also a great place to waste time. So unless you can become a productive and efficient Twitter networker, don’t become addicted to tweeting. Some people love it, some hate it. What’s important is to leverage it optimally for your business. I don’t waste a lot of time on Twitter. But some folks have dedicated a lot of time to this platform to great effect for their business. Especially if you have more time than money for marketing, there’s a lot you can do to gain exposure and goodwill for your business here.

At a minimum, you should post your Blog content, press releases, and other important external communications. Also think about assigning members of key departments (PR, customer service, tech support) to Twitter. This gives your users and potential customers an easy, informal way to interact with appropriate parts of your company. Above all, the real payback on Twitter is through real engagement. If you have the time and make the effort to engage your connections there can be a real payoff.

YouTube Social Media Marketing

Yes, Youtube! Everyone loves to go to YouTube to view that video of the 6-month-old baby surfing in the bathtub while smoking a cigar. Ok, I made that up, but if you search you might just find it on YouTube. But it’s also a great place to post short intro videos about your product or service. I’ve also made video versions of my Blog posts which help build your “thought leadership”. You can even put up training videos to show the depth of your knowledge in a particular area or the depth of your product or service offering. The videos are hosted on YouTube, but you should link to them and feature them on your website. These videos will give you a leg up in search engine ranking as Google loves videos and often provides preferential search result positions.

Facebook Social Media Marketing

Yes, use Facebook as well! Facebook is certainly not a core platform for business-to-business marketers. But 3 billion users shouldn’t be ignored. So create a personal profile and company page and post your Blog content and other external communications pieces there. You will get some traffic and prospects here. Don’t waste too much time here, but it makes no sense to ignore this platform, either.

I do want to finish by saying that in 2024 social media marketing for tech companies is seeing a decline in ROI. This is due to maturity and saturation, which happens with any marketing method. But it should still be a significant part of a tech company’s marketing mix. There’s certainly a great deal more that can be written on this topic. For example, I didn’t address automation at all in this article. But if you do devote significant resources to social media marketing, you should leverage automation for the mundane aspects such as posting articles.

This was just a quick look at what I think about the importance of social media marketing for B2B Software & Hardware companies. For example, new vertical social media sites and networks are popping up frequently. There may be one perfectly aligned with your market.  This is a varied and rapidly evolving topic–what are your opinions? Post a comment to share your views on this topic and continue the discussion.

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