Aisling Foley

Marketing consultant for B2B technology industry.

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What should B2B companies post on social media? | Aisling Foley

If you’re not using SM, you’re missing an opportunity to establish thought leadership. So, what should B2B companies post on social media?

Social media can often be a big pain for B2B companies, especially in the software and technology sectors. Many software companies struggle to see its value beyond a recruitment tool or a place to share the occasional press release. But the reality is, if you’re not using social media, you’re missing out on a significant opportunity to build brand awareness and establish thought leadership.

So, what should B2B companies post on social media?

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Attention all B2B businesses! Are you struggling to reach your target audience and increase sales? Look no further! Aisling Foley Marketing is here to take your marketing strategy to the next level. With years of experience in the B2B and technology industry, Aisling Foley can help you effectively communicate your message and attract valuable leads. Contact us today to start seeing results! #B2Bmarketing #MarketingConsultant #TechnologyIndustry #EffectiveCommunications

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‪The polling station has never been so busy. The Saturday voting working or else it’s the match bringing people in early. #ge20 #dogsofinstagram #dogsatpollingstations (at Clontarf, Dublin) https://www.instagram.com/p/B8TvUKYqWbd/?igshid=hewicg8y4rnu

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At ⁦‪@DublinCityUni‬⁩ today for #getsocial19. An afternoon of social media to dos and not to dos. (at Dublin, Ireland) https://www.instagram.com/p/BuoSMyVn-_0/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1wtf2vnic6c1f

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Tips to help grow your social media influence

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Another week. Another outdoor concert. And always me at the back. However it is The Jacksons. #dublin

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Event planning tips

Event planning, as I’m sure you know, is very time consuming. Whilst it is straightforward if you have been doing it for a few years, there are a lot of tiny elements that need completion to maximise success.  Here are some event planning tips based on my 25 years’ experience in the B2B marketing world.

A number of skills are needed in event planning. These 5 are not some of them!

Disorganised

No attention to detail

Bad communications skills

Rubbish time management

Poor negotiation skills

Here are some elements that are often forgotten and lead to last minute panic.

Accommodation

Brochures

Event team briefing

Furniture/audio/video

Giveaways/Competition

Graphics and signage

Lead tracking

Post event communication to attendees

Transportation of equipment to and from event

Walls (shell scheme or are you building or bringing your own stand)

Website update (via events page or press release)

An event, whether it be a webinar, internal conference or external exhibition takes a lot of organisation. Ideally planning should commence at least 3 months before the event. If you are taking space at a trade fair, then it is likely that that space will need to be booked 6 to 12 months prior.

By starting work on an event early, you limit the last minute stress. Because there will always be things that cannot be planned for which will contribute to that stress.

And of course, don’t forget your business cards!

https://aislingfoley.com/event-planning-tips/

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A wee bit of training @google @enterprise_ireland #mentoring (at EastPoint)

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ICT skills shortage needs returning women - TechCentral.ie

The ICT sector in Ireland will require more than 70,000 new workers over the next five years, with new graduates expected to fill only half of those positions. According to Technology Ireland Software Skillnet, a key strategy to provide these workers will be women returning to the workforce. “For the tech sector the value proposition [&hellip

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I got a selfie with a llama type thing. #stannespark #rosefestival #dublin

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The water taxi from Windsor races to the town centre.

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A lovely day and evening with a client at Windsor races. #teambuilding

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Fortunately I’ve had my swim. #jellyfish (at Bull Island)

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Tips to help grow your social media influence

You're set up on social media, your're sharing updates and tweeting away. Perhaps you've even been brave enough to tackle Instagram! But how do you grow your followers and, more importantly, your authority. Here are 9 tips to grow your social media influence:

1. Create and maintain a voice

Decide a voice and stick with it. Are you going to be antagonistic (not a good idea in my opinion, but some people have adopted that policy), funny, Oirish, serious, personal, cracking jokes all the time? Which? You decide and stick with it. And make sure your social media team know your voice.

2. Content

You absolutely must provide regular and good content. And very importantly, this content can't be all about you. And it can't be salesy. Don't have "click here to buy" buttons all over the content or people won't come back. Think about the blogs/content you read regularly and emulate that. Here's some pointers to create your own B2B blog.

3. Build relationships

Social media is a two way thing. It's not just about you pushing stuff out. You need to join conversations. share others posts (in fact 80% of updates should not be about you), communicate with others and answer questions. Posing your own questions will also help the communication, sharing and influencing process.

4. Be grateful

Thank people for sharing your posts. If they are kind enough to share or retweet, then they should be thanked.

5. Share data

Share your opinions, particularly those backed by data. People like statistics and they'll share them. Better still, do your own market research and create your own stats.

6. Watch yourself!

Keep an eye on how others see you and watch yourself. Set up Google alerts for you, your company, your brand and product name.

7. Measure

There are a few free tools that help you measure your growth and help you grow your social media influence. I was very sorry to say goodbye to Klout last month. Skorr (an app) is calling itself its replacement. But it would seem that it is also trying to be a social network. (I'm not sure the world needs another!)  I will be reserving judgement on Skorr for a while. As of today (11 June 18) the website isn't displaying correctly. But I downloaded the app today and connected Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram (it doesn't allow you to chose your Facebook business page over your personal page currently) and got a score of 15. I added my Tumblr account and that rose to 35.

Aside from that, I use Sumall.com which provides a weekly report charting your progress over the previous 5 weeks.

8. Share on non social networks

You need to be seen on non social media so write for and share posts across industry publications.

9. Share achievements

If you win awards, then tell people. It's a reason for them to understand your capabilities. Of course to win them, you need to enter them!

What do you do to help you grow your social media influence?

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Google MyBusiness posts now available

Do you need another place to add your blog post? Well Google MyBusiness posts (formerly Google Maps) is the place. This is a fairly recent addition (June 2017 for most of us) and an excellent way of reaching new people as the content appears in both Google search and Google maps results.

Posting blogs, events, products/services content on Google MyBusiness puts your information directly in front of customers when they find your business listing on Google.  And it’s incredibly easy. Go to your Google MyBusiness page and there it is. If you have two or more locations, click “Manage location” and chose the correct location. If it’s a blog article, add it to both locations, use the “Learn More” button and include the blog post URL on your website.

Creating Google MyBusiness posts

You have a few options when creating a post – use as many as you can!

Upload an image

Write text (up to 300 words)

Add an event title (with start and end dates and times)

Add a blog post title

You can also add call-to-action buttons including “Learn more,” “Reserve,” “Sign up,” “Buy” or “Get offer.” Here’s Google’s support page on creating a Google MyBusiness post.

Posts are removed from the default view after 7 days, or when the event date the post refers to has passed. They do still remain on the MyBusiness profile page.

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How to write a company overview brochure

So how do you write a company overview brochure? What do you need to include? How much should you write? You can of course go down the professional route and create a lovely brochure (ideal situation), but most likely you will have a one or two pager – more like a datasheet. And in that, most companies will find that they need some or all of the following elements:

About

This just needs to be around 100 words on where your company is based, why it was founded and who you help.

CVP/Differentiator/Why

This can also include your target market as frequently your target market is your differentiator. But you absolutely must include why you are different from your competitors and why people should buy from you ahead of your compeititon. Otherwise known as your CVP (Customer Value Proposition).

Product

This is a good opportunity to provide a quick overview of your products or services. You might also want to include a “How it works” section.

Benefits

The benefits of using your products – what problems you solve.

Customers

Your customers are your biggest asset, so include their names or logos.

Contact

Usually the web address will suffice. Keep it to a minimum, particularly if you are printing as you don’t want to have to throw a few boxes of material away if you move office or change phone numbers. Adding a contact person provides an even bigger risk of them becoming next week’s green bin contents.

Imagery

Add some images and of course your logo. Images can depict your target market, or just be general “corporatey” type images. Screenshots are rarely useful. There’s a great free photo website called stocksnap.io.

Length

One side might be enough. But certainly a one page (front and back) provides a good basic overview brochure. If you have the budget, send it out to a graphic designer – particularly if you are printing it for use as handouts or at exhbitions.

That’s it. Once you know the sections to include, it’s easy to write a company overview brochure.

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What to include in a social media plan

I’ll bet most of you reading this have never even thought of creating a social media plan. You just dove right in and started tweeting. Of course ideally, we should always create plans before starting out on any marketing activities. Here’s why your tech company needs a marketing plan. And social media is no different.

But what should you include in a social media plan?

Firstly you need to chose which social media platforms are appropriate for your business. There are hundreds to chose from but in Ireland we tend to use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest and Google Plus. Here’s an infographic showing the breakdown of social media usage in Ireland as of November 2017 to help you decide. (Snapchat is included in the Social Messaging report.)

I’ve previously written about the social media channels best used for B2B tech companies. So LinkedIn Twitter and Google Plus are the main. Although we can no longer ignore Instagram. Irish Instagram account ownership now stands at 32%.  I don’t think we’ve quite reached Snapchat for us techy B2Bers yet but it’s worth keeping an eye on!

Here’s the other items you need to include in a social media plan:

Who will manage which accounts (if more than one person involved) or which days

Agree your target market

Define objectives

Create content marketing plan (who will write blogs and how often)

Define Twitter lists

Choose status update frequency

Select accounts with content you might share

Chose hashtags to focus on

Here’s a Hootsuite (one of my fave social media management tool) article on how to create a social media plan.

You will also need to define your social media policy. A social media policy outlines how your company and your employees should conduct themselves online. I haven’t written that blog post yet but when I do, I’ll link to it here!