Introduction
B2B and B2C for social media marketing tools and techniques are always evolving. Lately, businesses have begun to realize the power of social media even more. While B2C companies were the first to reap the benefits of social media marketing, B2B companies were slightly slower to acknowledge the leverage that this form of marketing provides.
What are the differences in how social media marketing is done for B2C versus B2B?
There are some significant differences in the way social media marketing is leveraged by these types of companies.
Content
Blog posts, content marketing or informational literature that only has text is now being supplemented by interactive multimedia content. Infographics, video, audio, and animations are included in the content. A social media marketing post is also not a pure-play marketing post – rather it is an informational one. Something that is useful for the readers.
Content for B2C companies
Visual and interactive content such as video blogs, vlogs, and infographics are used for B2C businesses. Content creators use informal modes of communication such as humor. The social media posts only subtly introduce the company – more of the posts are informational.
Content for B2B companies
Unlike B2C companies, B2B companies can use white papers, eBooks, case studies, webinars, one-pagers, and infographics as content. B2B social media content is more professional than B2C social media content. B2B social media marketers come up with creative ways to create content that is both engaging and informative.
Channels
YouTube, Soundcloud, Pinterest, Vine, and Instagram are of the many social media channels available for B2B and B2C marketing on social sites. B2B and B2C businesses have lots of options to choose from.
B2C channels
Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram are popular with B2C marketers. Facebook is considered the gold standard for social marketing. It is common to see B2C campaigns, promotions, and community engagement on Facebook.
Twitter is a good place to use creative hashtags, videos, and images to market a business to followers. Instagram has recently grown in leaps and bounds on its potential as an effective B2C social marketing tool.
B2C businesses use YouTube to create high-quality videos. It could either be via YouTube content creators or a dedicated YouTube channel of the company. Either ways, the quality of the video production plays a big part in the viewership of the channel.
B2B channels
LinkedIn is one the main social media tools used by B2B marketers. Twitter and Facebook are also used, but more as spaces to establish brand visibility, content distribution, or group discussions.
Social Media Marketing Goals
Lead generation is the main goal of social media marketing for B2B companies. B2C companies can have such similar goals, but they mainly have goals related to brand visibility, reputation, and perception management.
B2C goals
B2C social media marketing focuses on increasing brand awareness, engaging with a user community, promoting goodwill, managing perception, and increasing brand recall. B2C social media messages are viral in nature because the effort is to keep the brand, product, or service in the minds of people longer.
B2B goals
Lead generation is the primary concern for B2B companies. B2B social media marketers use social media metrics, web analytics, and such other statistical tools to measure content effectiveness, visitor demographics, website traffic etc.
Conclusion
Businesses increase conversions with social media marketing because of its potent transformational benefits. But the truth to be said – social media marketing needs to be done with a high level of expertise. Only a social media digital marketing agency will be able to do full justice for your company in this regard. So work with the best social media marketing company to put your business into orbit.