Let’s be honest a lot of partners stink at social media. The trouble in today’s social media world you can’t be seen as one of those that stink.
What we see is B2B companies (Microsoft Partners) still have a lot of catching up to do compared to B2C, especially embracing social media and tapping it appropriately. Here are five tips that successful Partners are accomplishing to help them with social media and drive more traffic.
How to be interesting
Microsoft Partners just don’t simulate. Well, that is the perception; thus, that shows through their content and social media.
My belief with the right strategy, any company, can be stimulating and no longer be boring, even the most unexciting of Partners out there.
Include real people
What we see is the lack of Partners utilizing real people, which makes everything feel like it distant and not genuine.
Partners need to make an effort to personify their brand on social media networks and content marketing. A way to do this would be like like this:
Blogs, articles, and other updates write them from a first-person perspective
Find a, or a few depending on your size and have a brand person(s) to tweet, post updates, write blogs, etc
Always initiate outreach and engagement through real people
Utilize real people and names from a customer services standpoint
Get the right resources
Microsoft Partners typically fail at social media because of multiple reasons, but the overarching reason typically comes down to not having the right person to manage their social media efforts.
B2Bs are often challenged in social media because they don’t hire the right person to manage their social media efforts.
What I see is that Partners hire someone who for one, doesn’t understand the industry and two they don’t come with the necessary social media skills for the partner's industry.
It’s essential for the person leading the social media strategy to understand the technology industry and audience they are working within. But it’s as essential to have some who has the right social media skill and knows what the right social platforms are. Why? It takes skills as B2B social and especially in the technology industry isn’t always sexy. Nor does instantly create engagement, so it takes in-depth knowledge of both social and the industry to release the benefits.
B2B’s can also be shortsighted when hiring as they focus more making sure they are posting multiple times a day so many times a week instead realizing they need to focus more on building out their brand awareness, voice and expanding their reach. It more to do with creating a social identity.
Another mistake that many B2B’s focus heavily on is leads and more leads instead of understanding you need to work on engagement and presence first and leads will come as a by-product of this process. Now I am not saying we are not thinking of leads as of course, that is end objective, but we have to go through a process with followers. You need good, no amazing content
Crappy or no content is not going to help you drive successful social media campaigns. They are like two peas in a pod; they go hand in hand when it comes to success.
According to data from the Content Marketing Institute the majority of B2B companies are doing content marketing.
But the issue, not all Partners are necessary to an efficient job with their content marketing.
I’m a believer that the better a partner is with their content marketing, the more successful they will be at social media.
The conversation around content marketing is for another time and place, but the key partners need to find engaging forms of content to share on social media.
LinkedIn is the place to be seen
Final words
I believe that Microsoft Partners are going to embrace social media more and more and become successful with it. We already see that happening out there already.
By following these simple five recommendations, you can improve your social media efforts and start seeing benefits why, as a partner, you can not be taking social media seriously as an element of your overall marketing strategy.
What are your favorite ways to gain B2B traffic on social media? Are you utilizing any of the resources that Microsoft supplies through the Microsoft Marketing SureStep program?