A common misconception among marketers is that Facebook isn’t where business-to-business (B2B) professionals go to engage with customers and prospects. That couldn’t be further from the truth. B2B decision-makers are on Facebook — a lot. If your food ingredient company doesn’t already have a Facebook page, you could miss hundreds of opportunities to put your business’s name, products and services right in front of your target audience.
Don’t Overlook Facebook
In fact, 42 percent of B2B marketers admit that Facebook is their companies’ most effective social networking platform. Additionally, the median amount of time business decision-makers spend on Facebook daily is 74 percent higher than other people on the platform. Business decision-makers use Facebook more weeks a month, more days a week and more minutes per day than the average person.
So how do you ensure the content your company posts reaches and resonates with your target audience? Consider the following tips for crafting successful B2B Facebook marketing content to get the most out of the social media channel.
- Be consistent — Simply creating a Facebook page isn’t enough. What brings new customers and prospects is getting your name out consistently. You have to put your business in “their” newsfeed. Check your Facebook page, answer messages and respond to comments promptly. Also, watch for Internet trolls and address issues quickly to avoid spamming your followers.
- Keep it informal and friendly — While it may not be beneficial for every brand across the board, the numbers don’t lie — casual, informal tones of voice, as a whole, perform better than serious ones, according to a Nielson Norman Group study. Think of content your audience members will likely share with their connections. The ultimate goal is to grab attention and create engagement, which in turn can help you increase brand awareness and generate more leads.
- Expand on thoughts but don’t ramble — Like LinkedIn, you aren’t limited to a specific character count, but best practices recommend keeping your posts concise and to the point. This is also a great platform for highlighting your company as an expert. Consider using the extra space to explain the “so what” to your audience. Helping your followers understand the significance of why you are posting or sharing something (i.e., how you can help them solve a specific problem) can further position your brand as a resource.
- Leverage the power of multimedia — Consider incorporating images of finished applications featuring your food ingredients, interactive GIFs with helpful insights, videos from your latest event and links to places where followers can find out more about your products or services. These elements can help draw in your viewers and create interaction with your brand.
- Use hashtags responsibly — Facebook’s hashtags are basically tags used to categorize conversations between users. You can use them to help increase engagement by allowing your content to be discovered by people outside your immediate network. However, best practices advise never using more than two hashtags on a post. Anything more than that and you run the risk of appearing spammy or insincere.
Get Your Brand Seen on Facebook
Company owners and managers are making important decisions throughout the workday — and they’re also on Facebook. As a B2B food ingredient marketer, you have the potential to reach this important audience while they’re at work. With the right strategies and content, your food ingredient company will be more likely to successfully engage with your target audience.
Need help optimizing your creative and media to increase brand awareness or generate more leads? Contact us to learn how we can help you develop and implement an effective B2B social media marketing strategy. You can also download our report, Finding Your Food Ingredient Brand’s Voice on Social Media, to learn more about tailoring your B2B marketing content for different platforms.