How to

How to get your Management’s support for your B2B social media strategy

B2B organizations have shown more willingness to adopt social media as compared to B2C organizations. 86% of B2B have jumped on while only 82% of the B2C have done it till now. The process of integrating and executing the social media strategy effectively is hard and slow and is mostly taken up by the marketing departments of B2B organizations. The problems faced in making the strategy include the lack of support and understanding from senior managers.

CEO’s have busy time schedules and prefer short bullet point presentations, but social media strategy is one thing that cannot be covered this way. The other issue is the nature of the marketing effort. Focus on long term relationship building and the community means that results start coming in slowly and are not there in the open.

CEOs have to allocate budgets based on performance results and they might instinctively do a few simple tests to gauge the effectiveness of the strategy but he can paint quite a dismal picture of social media. You need to have a solid argument to support your bid for a social media strategy and here are a few points to focus on.

Research by your CEO is a big NO!

The simple reason here is that the most widely searched topics will not be relevant to you. Take for example subjects like Fidel Castro, The Princess Diaries and Justin Bieber- they all show up as top of the chart in searching. This would not impress your CEO who will see social media as being about the “hip” things and nothing else.

Social media is usually filled with things related to the entertainment industry. With limited time on their hands, CEOs will focus on the most basic stuff and rule out the possibility of usage of social media for B2Bs. The trick is to keep a comprehensive list of all the forums and blogs related to your industry to show the benefits.

Facebook, is it needed? The simple answer is NO. It might be the most popular social media tool but it is not the hub for B2B conversation. The mainstream channels for B2B will still be forums and blogs related to your industry.

Be visible

Be active on all social platform including Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram. A lot of brands are too much active on Instagram. They buy real quality Instagram likes and followers to increase their visibility. Sharing videos on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter help you to reach out to more people. The majority of social media experts would support a social media strategy simply because it has a greater reach and has a low cost associated with it but they would still be cautious about making the move. Do solid research and have figures ready to support your bid. Provide examples and show your senior management how important the strategy is for the business.  What is your B2B social media strategy? Let us know in the comment box!

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