Five Ways to Win with B2B Content Marketing and Social Media

“Five Ways to Win with B2B Content Marketing and Social Media”

Marcom Productions presents…Point of View…the on-demand webcast of B2B marketing best practices. I’m Rich Cunningham. Five Ways to Win with B2B Content Marketing and Social MediaFive Steps for Developing Your Content Marketing Plan

Marketing Performance Services

Lee Odden is the CEO of TopRank Online Marketing, a digital marketing agency specializing in helping companies grow online business and community. Lee is also the author of “Optimize: How to Attract and Engage More Customers by Integrating SEO, Social Media and Content Marketing.In this Point of View, we look at Lee’s five tips on how to make the most out of your content marketing efforts on the social web.

Lee Odden, CEOwww.TopRankMarketing.com

MarcomProductions.com

While experimenting with social media applications and platforms is a practical first step, many B2B Marketers seem to think that it’s a strategy. Goals, audience, and approach can allow for social experimentation but also provide companies with some structure and accountability toward achieving business outcomes with social content.Social content plans don’t need to be set in stone. In fact, with social media content, it’s important for such plans to be adaptable and capable of analytical input and improvements as social network participation increases. A plan will help marketers better evaluate and scale their social media initiatives as well.


www.TopRankMarketing.com

1. Planning

Companies that view social media platforms simply as a distribution channel for self-promotion often fail to create value for the very customers they’re trying to reach.B2B marketers can achieve much better success with social content by empathizing with customer needs, interests, goals, and pain points across the buying cycle. Seeing things from the prospect’s point of view will help B2B marketers develop a content and social media approach that serves as a solution or facilitator to creating the kind of social content that resonates, engages, and gets shared. As prospect-centric social content gets shared, many of those who engage will refer or become customers.



2. Prospect Centric

B2B marketers have a tendency to expect social communities to behave the way the brand wants them to. The guideline Lee shares with B2B marketers that want to foster community and engagement is: “Give to get.” That doesn’t mean, give a sales pitch to get a sale.Instead, provide something of value before expecting anything in return. In fact, it’s smart to find out more specifically what consumers and those who influence them find valuable as inspiration for a social content plan. Deliver useful information, listen to how audiences respond, and make adjustments. Then repeat.



3. Give to Get

Educational content can be promoted with a hub and spoke publishing model. Themed content is published into a repository that represents a “go to” resource for topics that the brand wants to be known for. At the same time, that content can be promoted through spokes or social channels among communities that are interested. People often rely on content promotion to discover what’s new. Promotion can attract traffic, social shares, and links, which can all serve as useful signals to search engines and improve both standard and social search engine visibility.



4. Promotion

A missing piece of this puzzle is the importance of ongoing monitoring and analysis. There’s a process that Lee calls, “The cycle of search and social improvement” that involves creating and optimizing social content. As useful content is created and promoted, it gets shared and attracts fans, friends, followers, and subscribers.As the community grows, even more sharing of links and traffic is involved with brand content. The increase in engagement, search visibility, and social sharing provides a rich set of data with which the brand can improve content creation. It’s a cycle of hypothesis, implementation, and analysis that can improve how effectively a brand is able to refine social content effectiveness at inspiring business outcomes.



5. Analyze & Optimize

“Five Ways to Win with B2B Content Marketing and Social Media” is an article by Lee Odden, CEO of TopRank Online Marketing, and author of “Optimize: How to Attract and Engage More Customers by Integrating SEO, Social Media and Content Marketing. You can reach Lee online at “Top Rank Marketing – dot – com.

Lee Odden, CEOwww.TopRankMarketing.com


“Five Ways to Win with B2B Content Marketing and Social Media”

Marcom Productions presents…Point of View…the on-demand webcast of B2B marketing best practices. I’m Rich Cunningham.Five Ways to Win with B2B Content Marketing and Social Media

Marketing Performance Services

Business

Five Ways to Win with B2B Content Marketing and Social Media