Time to Get Social

With so many social media platforms available, selecting the right one for your business can be confusing. Without a strategy behind social media, pages fizzle out, and the potential success is not realized.

Why invest in social media marketing? Your audience is on social media already. In 2021, 82% of the United States population was on social media.

Marketers can leverage social media channels for B2B brands to extend the company’s reach in a place where the audience is already spending time. It is estimated that adults spend an average of two-and-a-half hours on social media each day, making it a prime method to reach consumers with content that interests them.

Start at the Beginning

Before jumping into social media, set yourself up for success by choosing the platforms that best serve your business and help you reach your goals.

The first step in setting up a social media presence is to conduct a social media audit to establish benchmarks and goals. Use these four questions to guide your decision to begin using social media as a building materials manufacturing company.

1. Who is your audience?Which social media channels to use for your business should begin with where you audience is. Who do you sell product to? Who installs your product? Who sees your product? Who interacts with your product daily?
   Certain platforms may help you better target different segments of your audience. LinkedIn is a professional networking platform. Instagram and Facebook are more geared toward visual content. Your brand’s content can be adjusted to be engaging and interesting to the target audiences on your selected platforms. Some channels may allow your business to connect with more of your audience and be more valuable in your strategy.
   For example, Facebook is best for showcasing company culture and personality to employees and their networks while LinkedIn serves as a valuable tool for recruitment and connecting to industry leaders.
2. What content do you have available?There is a difference between social media marketing and content marketing. Social media marketing requires fresh content to feed the machine. Creating content for social media marketing can come from repurposing existing content.
   Photos and video are imperative for social media. Without visual content, social media content is overlooked and will not reach the audience you’ve set out to engage. This is particularly the case for platforms that include Facebook and Instagram.
   Creating and then curating a variety of posts will drive engagement on all channels you ultimately choose. For instance, mixing product features, case studies, and company news along with your organization’s culture and expertise shows your connection to the industry and establishes relationships with your customers.
   Once you’ve established a collection of content to use for social media, you can begin to plan content calendars for each month to schedule content at optimal times for performance and to ensure content to spread out.
3. What are your goals?Do you hope to build brand awareness? Enhance customer communication? Each social media channel available to you has its own rules of engagement and its own strengths in terms of who it reaches.
   Understanding your goals will help to select the right mix of channels and create the right content for those channels to reach your target audiences. Social media metrics can be helpful to measure the performance of individual posts and the number of views. For example, if your goal is to reach architects and one million homeowners have seen your post, a highly engaged post has not achieved your goals in terms of impacting your target audience.
   Facebook and Instagram are optimal for engagement and building relationships with photos and videos that showcase company culture and personality. LinkedIn leads the way as an outlet for recruitment efforts and sharing thought leadership pieces with professional networks who are primed to connect with industry and company content.
   Set specific and measurable goals that you can work to achieve with social media to guide your budget and your work. Successful engagement on social media is possible with a developed strategy, curated content, and knowing the strengths of the channels you’ve selected.
4. Where are your employees at online?Chances are your employees are on social media. When employees interact with their company on social media, it increases visibility and positive perceptions of the brand. Beyond raising brand awareness, it can contribute to growth in sales as well as staff recruitment and retention. Knowing where they are and how they interact can help guide your selection of the social media channels to emphasize on behalf of the brand.
   Your employees also represent where your competitors spend time online and how the industry engages online. How often do leaders in your industry want to see content? What kinds of content do they engage with and talk about with their networks?
   Particularly on LinkedIn, your employees can be your biggest advocates to share your brand’s messages as trusted voices to their networks and extend the reach of your brand.

BLD Marketing can guide you through the entire process from defining your audience and your goals to developing content and building a social media presence for your brand.