February 13, 2023
The silver bullet for successful B2B social is…well, debatable. But we can’t just throw technical jargon into post content and expect it to perform to its optimum level – the solution is in fact much simpler than that.
I know you’re thinking; “oh here we go, another blog that tells me I need to ‘push boundaries’ and ‘take risks’ yada yada yada..” – well, you’re half right. Being memorable means doing something out of the ordinary. You don’t need to constantly push the corporate message. You don’t need to talk about your goals for 2023. You don’t need to claim you’re a sustainable business within the first 5 words of your posts…
Because, quite frankly, no one gives a s***.
So, what should I do?
If you want to reel off this jargon at your CTA link or perhaps even further down the touchpoint journey, fine – but you can’t lean on this stuff. It’s dull. Every brand is doing it. It’s not setting you apart – in fact, it’s fairly transparent and makes standing out harder to do.
Break the social boring – use your visuals to your advantage. A mascot? Why not – some major B2B players use them superbly. Fast-paced, colour filled ads with wordage tailored to the young folks – yep, some major B2B brands are doing this very successfully.
Now we’re not suggesting you do a TikTok where one of your staff members is clad in branded gear doing a tightrope walk between the Empire State Building and the Freedom Tower (that’d be cool, though) – but do you have to be married to branding guidelines, tag lines and corporate speak? The answer, quite simply, is no. It’s not memorable. Brand recognition is everything – and if you’re not memorable, you’re not winning.
A few years back we worked with our client Fujitsu on an attention grabbing social campaign, where we threw a guy out of an airplane from thousands of feet up and he flew for ages in a wing suit in order to break a world record… I’ve not even told you why, but you might be thinking about it, picturing it – or even thinking of doing a search for it… or better yet, ‘what has this got to do with Fujitsu? How is a guy flying through the air, in a wing suit – for ages – promoting Fujitsu’s services?’
Well, the world record attempt reached the BBC, Sky News – and more. Social campaigns can go beyond the pale if they’re bold enough – and what better way to increase brand awareness than to hit national broadcast networks.
You think you know everything, don’t you?
Here’s some research LinkedIn recently shared with us:
- In a recent survey, 84% of people wrongly identified a B2B brand – why do you think this is?
- If you’re not leading with ‘whys’ and ‘hows’ in most of your posts, you’re facing an uphill battle for attention.
- 63% of companies want to work with established brands. How do you think these brands become established?
- 58% of tech buyers scroll past B2B ads when they see them.
- Static imagery is losing its place – carousels, videos and animations are dominating social media user attention.
- 89% of brands like companies that are perceived as good employers – increasing the chances of them buying from such brands.
- Ads that use quantitative data and stats see a 39% increase in open rates compared to wordage only.
- Service ads should be 150 characters or less – let the visual do the talking and say goodbye to ‘see more’.
- Make your CTA clear – always use one and hint at what they user will find if they engage. No surprises, or it’s no likey.
Social is multi-faceted – you can do a mix of the above and more – but what’s telling is that you don’t need to be consistent to the point of absurdity. If we go by the rule of 5-9 touchpoints, we don’t need 8 posts where each will cover all bases. You simply can’t do it.
Whether your aim is to sell a service, recruit staff or increase brand awareness – there are so many ways to do it wrong, but there are more ways of doing it right. Social is a blank canvas – you are not really limited. There’s no editorial rules. You have seconds to get the attention of someone who is browsing their feed because they have 5 mins before their next meeting – they don’t care about you, nor are they looking for you – and if on the rare occasion they are, your posts still need to be impactful and tell a story that keeps them scrolling – or better yet, clicking.
We saw a quote recently; “people don’t want to buy a drill – they want to buy a small hole in the wall.” Solution first – we agree! If you don’t agree – or just want a chat about social – contact us here.