Last updated on April 27th, 2016 at 11:48 am
When Salesforce released its State of Marketing report, there were some numbers in there that didn’t bode well for B2B marketers. The good news is that 66 per cent of companies have a dedicated social media team, but the bad news is that roughly half of them aren’t regularly active on social media and just 10 per cent feel comfortable communicating the value of their company via social media streams.
The most fertile days of organic marketing are over and B2B marketers are facing some challenges in social media. Here’s how to overcome them while the transition completes:
- Optimize social media profiles and dominate search results
In a perfect world, the entire first page of the Google search results for your company would all be web properties owned by the company. Unfortunately, that doesn’t always happen because negative reviews can creep into the search results and dilute your web presence. Push them off the first page by optimizing your social media profiles and linking them together.
Profiles should be completely filled out with loads of relevant company info. The company website should have links to all its social media profiles on the main page, and individual social media profiles should also contain links to other social sites as well. Linking company social media profiles on third party websites can also help.
- Optimize content across all social media with OG tags
Facebook introduced Open Graph tags in 2010 as a way for people to have more control over what is shared between third-party sites and Facebook. It’s surprising how many people don’t use them because they present a big opportunity to perfect social media content for sharing.
OG tags are placed in the <head> section of your website’s HTML code, and they can be implemented with plug-ins if you’re using a CMS like Wordpress. OG tags can be used to define many things about a post so it will appear a certain way. The important ones to know are the OG tags for title, URL, type, description, and image.
- Fill your content Calendar well in advance
It seems like a really obvious thing, but it’s surprising how many companies don’t bother setting up a calendar for their social media efforts. Staying active and posting new content every day is essential on social media, and determining exactly what and when you’re going to post well in advance will help you stay on track. It will also give you lots of prep time, and it’ll give you a broad view of what you’re doing across all of the company’s social sites.
