While Facebook marketing continues to grow at lightning speed, it’s still relatively untapped territory for many high-tech marketers. Just because Facebook got its start with the college crowd in 2004 doesn’t mean B2B marketers shouldn’t be there in 2010. With that in mind, here are 4 ideas for getting more from your B2B Facebook Marketing.
1. Humanize Your Fan Page
No matter how large or corporate your company is, people still buy from other people. As a marketer, you must strike that magical balance of being professional and personable so your prospects feel connected to your product(s) and your brand. Humanize your Fan Page by uploading pictures of employees and your office(s). Give prospects a view of what goes on behind the scenes. Introduce them to engineers, customers, the product team, the sales team, and the CEO. The more they get to know you, the more they’ll trust you. And the more likely they’ll be to choose you over a competitor.
2. Consider Facebook Your Competitive Advantage
As popular as social media marketing is in high-tech B2B marketing, it’s still in its infancy. Do a quick search and take a look at the Facebook Pages for the largest software and hardware companies. While most have a Facebook presence, few are harnessing its full potential. Use this to your advantage and make your Fan Page better than your competitors’.
3. Take a Group Approach
While many larger companies have full-time social media marketers on hand, in smaller or less progressive organizations, social media still falls under a marketing manager or PR manager’s responsibility—and their plates are already full. By allowing multiple team members to update the page, you’ll increase the frequency of updates and subsequent Fan activity on the page. Just make sure you have strict guidelines in place on what’s acceptable and what’s not. I’ve seen this group approach produce significantly better results than having just one or two Fan Page administrators. Nothing’s worse than landing on a Fan page that hasn’t been updated in weeks.
4. Create an Opt-In Form with Static FBML
With static FBML, you can create a custom tab that allows Fans to subscribe to your newsletter, request a white paper, or contact a sales representative. Most email solutions have instructions on how to integrate an opt-in form with static FBML.
What high-tech organizations do you think are doing a stand-up job on their social media marketing? Let’s talk about it in the comments below!
Want to learn more about social media marketing for the high-tech industry? Join us in person or online October 26, 2010 for SocialTech 2010—the only conference for B2B high-tech marketing professionals.
Tags: B2B, Social Media
Thanks for that. I am thinking about using Facebook as a marketing tool and you have listed a couple of things that I had not really thought of that much. I will give it a go and see how it works out.
Really great basic info. Just setting up Facebook fan page now and this is very timely. Thanks to Don Crowthers for tweeting it out, and of course to Meagan Leap, the author.
[...] SocialTech 2010: 4 Ideas for B2B Facebook Marketing … [...]
Most businesses fails on social media with the lack of knowledge on utilizing the tools that can best leverage their financial spending on social media marketing. All the 4 suggestions are simple and effective. Appreciate your sharing!
This is very good advice. I have seen some amazing B2C company pages on facebook, does anyone have a short list of great B2B facebook pages?
[...] SocialTech 2010: 4 Ideas for B2B Facebook MarketingA quick read from Marketing Profs and Megan Leap on ways hi-tech B2B marketers should consider leveraging Facebook fan pages. [...]