Social media marketing is the buzzword today and each brand is doing its best to get the desired results out of it. As we all know today the needs of a B2B company and of a B2C company are different when it comes to marketing efforts as the audience you are catering to for each is completely different. So the yardstick to measure social media success and the metrics you would evaluate would be different for B2B and B2C companies. As B2C businesses seek to sell to a higher set of audience and B2B businesses sell to a niche set of audience, the key metrics are likely to differ.
For a company which provides business solutions, it is likely to consider unique visitors, whitepaper downloads, contact information and industry data as important metrics where as for an ecommerce company website traffic and repeat shoppers against revenue made would be a key metric. Among B2B marketers surveyed, increasing the quality (49%) and quantity (49%) of sales leads are top objectives, followed by boosting lead conversion rates (41%). By contrast, B2C marketers are primarily focused on increasing lead conversion rates (54%) and driving website traffic (43%). B2B social media marketing is ultimately about leads when compared to B2C social media Spotify Streams kopen marketing which concentrates more on brand awareness and brand loyalty.
With consumers spending 6 minutes out of every hour online on social networking and forums, roughly 27% of all time spent on social media websites, marketers are beginning to tap into these sites as another conversation point to tap customers building closer relationships with them. B2B and B2C marketers tend to have different marketing objectives for their businesses; not surprisingly, they also have different views on which marketing tactics are the most effective. Since B2B buyers are more complex and have higher sales cycles when compared to B2C buyers, the social media strategy and the effectiveness metrics for B2B entails more focus on positioning and the choice of platform. While B2C buyers can easily be enticed by promos or freebies on Facebook or Twitter or Pinterest, decisions of B2B buyers are more calculated and linked to various factors. The platform of choice for a B2C brand is probably Facebook, where they can promote deals and also get fans to spread the word. On the other hand, B2B companies need to be more disciplined and professional with their approach so LinkedIn would be the most preferred platform for them.
What are the differences marketers see in B2B and B2C social media while measuring their ROI?
For a B2B company, the company’s position in the market or major trends in the industry are relevant and engaging content for social media distribution. A blog post about an upcoming event or the latest technology trend shared on LinkedIn or other business networking sites is likely to draw visitors to the blog post. Following which, occasional posts promoting products will be popular too, since readers recognize the profile as an industry expert.
Though email is still the most effective marketing tactic for both B2Bs (58%) and B2Cs (63%), that’s where most of the similarities end. A study found that 93 per cent of B2B marketers use social media to market their businesses, it still lags behind B2C (95 per cent). The study also proved that B2B businesses acquired more new business partnerships (56 per cent B2B, 45 per cent B2C), saw improved search rankings (60 per cent B2B, 50 per cent B2C) and were able to gather increased marketing place insights due to their social media efforts (69 per cent B2B, 60 per cent B2C).
For B2C, buyer’s needs are simpler, allowing companies to promote deals and contests via social media platforms. Less informative but more selling is involved when a B2C company uses social media. They rely on social media marketing for branding and PR while B2B social media marketing is ultimately about the number of leads.
B2Bs rank content creation (42%) and lead management (35%) as their second- and third-most effective tactics, respectively, whereas B2Cs rank organic search (SEO) (39%) and paid search (35%) near the top. B2Cs are more confident than B2Bs in social media (28% vs. 23%), whereas tactics such as blogging and marketing analytics appear to be equally effective for B2Bs and B2Cs.
Among B2Bs, content creation-ranked as the second most effective tactic-ranks as one of the most difficult tactics to execute (39%). Conversion rate optimization and social media also rank high in difficulty (39% and 34%, respectively.)B2Cs rank social media (46%) as the tactic most difficult to execute. Conversion rate optimization is ranked second (41%), followed by content creation (35%).