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How B2B enterprises can generate a qualified audience for the company's Facebook page?
I'm interested in specific tools and strategies that really work (real-time examples are seriously appreciated)
Best Answer
- Recommended by:
- Yuliya Karnaukh
Whilst SEO is a key contributor in getting people to your page, its success is deeply reliant on a simple and clear call to action. Visitors must easily be able to grasp your value, product and how they can consume this in the easiest & Simplest way,
Rules to a successful Social networking campaign :
- Content must appeal and be concise, clear tag line - Keep it simple
- must have a clear call to action - webinar/purcahse/ event etc
- must allow potential respondents to understand the resources available for them to understand your offering i.e. contact details, data sheets, reviews, licensing etc
- You must follow up on these promptly and utilise confirmation pages on registration,
Without a clear and defined go to market campaign uptake will certainly limit success.
- Recommended by:
- Yuliya Karnaukh
As this is a b2b enterprise regular Facebook contests and sweepstakes are not going to work or the audience will not be a qualified one. I see only 2 options here:
1) Create accounts on specialized resources/forums and make sure that the link to Facebook page shows up in profile/signature (but not spamming it in every other post);
2) Add a link to Facebook page to the signature in your email, this way all business contacts and current clients may check out and "like" the page if they choose.
- Recommended by:
- Yuliya Karnaukh
Yuliya, another way to go is to publish a guest post on well-visited resources The Customer Collective is good enough, but you will definitely find more. The content may not be strictly exclusive, you may publish it on your company's blog as well. Can't guarantee it will bring tons of traffic to your page, but if your post is useful some people will follow you on Twitter and may connect via Facebook.
It goes all around from the integrating the website traffic (using SEO) for targeted traffic to the Facebook page. And then using targeted advertising in Facebook for the audience.
Interact with your target market using quality posts. Generate questions to initiate conversation and response. Develop a relationship, and build trust. Set yourself up a leader in your field by providing anwers to questions, that relate to your target market. Put yourself in their mindset, "What information do you feel will help them?". Give them that information.
Yuliya - let me attempt to answer your question by taking the question apart:
"How B2B enterprises can generate a qualified audience for the company's Facebook page?"
1) "The company's facebook page" sounds to me like "traffic to this new website which is now hosted on Facebook" and as such I guess SEO is one answer if all you want is traffic. By the way traffic is the number of hits, measured in a log file recording IP addresses. Not exactly what I'd consider "social" :)
2) "How an enterprise" can "generate" a quality "audience" --- three terms that are all impersonate activities. The enterprise is a legal entity, a record in a registration book. Generating means mechanically creating or something.... and "audience" means also an impersonate mass of human beings. All together old mass marketing terminology.
Now the correct answer could be "No different than with your existing website" but I guess that is not what you want to hear and it would be a huge waste of time.
Since we are "social" you may ask instead:
How can my product management team leverage the facebook platform to get closer to the 250 top users, all known by name, to get better feedback for the next generation product and ignote a discussion where others begin to chime in and....
How can my, let's say, 29 people from the support team for product X leverage facebook to support our power users and their issues with the hope that others see that as well and get inspired using our product.
Rather than trying to use Social Media and shove it into jobs that where done with traditional marketing tools, it is critical for a sustainable success to learn what this new world can do in general and then apply this to a problem or need and develop a good purpose.
Oh wow - this sounds so academic - maybe someone can put this into easier terms ha ha ha
I guess you know what I mean :)
Axel
http://XeeMe.com/AxelS
(my social presence)
Any strategy that we marketers use has a purpose behind it. I've created our company's FB business page with a simple goal of building brand and creating an expert image. I understand the concept of posting quality content relevant to my company's audience. The problem is - one has to have an audience for sharing. Right now I have 43 people as fans and half of them are my co-workers. So how do I increase this number to the point when all of my "content-creative" efforts make sense? (Also please bear in mind that the company is a B2B enterprise with a very narrow specialization).
@Valeriya - Thank you very much for your answer. You are very right - a lot of techniques that B2C companies are using to engage with their customers are useless for us. I've already tried your suggestions. Results? 43 fans.
I think that certain types of businesses may find success on Facebook; but the platform is mainly used for personal connections. But, if you take at the platform closely, they have this feature where you can post on another Facebook business page -- as a business page, which you can use for visibility + branding + making connections with fans of business pages who qualify as your target market. Still, what ends up as a winner there are those who have a powerful story to tell.. and they'd say a picture paints a thousand words. I suggest that you interact with Mari Smith, an expert on everything about engaging/marketing on Facebook, for more answers: http://www.facebook.com/marismith
In the end, it's all about posting quality updates that will engage your fans and get your target lead to like your page. Good Luck!
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Yuliya, let me propose this question differently:
"How can I get my qualified audience of businesses to invite me, a marketer, into their living room?"
Facebook is the virtual living room. Its private. Your salespeople should be there, connecting with customers as friends. Your HR should be there, looking for great talent and promoting your culture.
But not you, the marketer. This may change, but it hasn't yet, and the only exceptions are marketers selling to marketers who want to believe otherwise.
As a B2B marketer, you belong in the office, in the market, in the public. Not in the living room. And executives will quietly seethe when you violate this.