A little over 12 months ago we had no social media accounts. That’s when we decided as an agency that being a social media driven company was right for us. Why? In the BPO space where traditional companies are focused on voice, there are opportunities to pioneer the field and deliver new exciting services for small businesses.

With no social media presence and no clients, finding a starting point in social media marketing wasn’t easy. We’ve still got a long way to go as a business, though one thing is certain, without social media we wouldn’t have the business we have today. Social Media is an ever evolving medium, so where do you start and how can your small business learn from our journey so far?

Start now don't wait

Starting out on social media as a small business is no easy feat, the channels are all different, there are design requirements, you have bios to complete, user names to choose and then the biggest challenge you will have is what content to use on each of the channels. The best advice we took on board from our early influencers was to simply get started, don’t wait, get moving. Get started today, and learn as you go. Find where your voice can be heard and start talking to that market.

Choosing a niche market

We just happened to choose probably the most crowded, over content stuffed market we could because we wanted a challenge right? Well partly, but there are niche markets in the social media spectrum for small business. There are also many niche markets still unserved or underserved. If you look around the internet today there are more blogs and content options than ever before. We happened to be focused on businesses coming online and the challenges that they face when building content to create awareness about their brand. We’ve had to adapt our offerings and fine tune our content to speak to our market niche.

What you should consider early on is your buyer’s persona to help you identify how to penetrate your market niche.

Social profiles don't grow themselves

You really can’t be everything to everyone, that’s a given. What you have to do is work out where your customers most likely are, on which channels, and build a strategy around how you intend to create content to generate new relationships and then start marketing to them. Rome wasn’t built in a day and if you’re like us when we started, you’ll have no content, no content marketing plan (that’s for sure) and no idea who to follow. First prepare the channel that makes most sense and then move to the next when resources permit.

Develop a content plan first

Without question the biggest mistake we made when starting out was that we opened up all of channels without a content plan. Im sure we’re not the only small business that’s done this. The problem is you most likely won't have the resources or the experience on each channel to adapt fast enough to change. Make your efforts worth the initial time you have by listening and learning.

Before you start delivering content on any social media channel develop a content plan. It doesn’t have to be perfect, in fact it most likely won’t be. Your content will change over time based on the feedback you receive from your early viewers and you’ll learn what works and what doesn’t. Consider the journey your customers are going to take to get to know you and build that into your plan.

We built a lot of content early that probably no-one read, that’s ok because this content was designed for search and this had a tremendous effect on us being found before we had any followers, or linkedin connections.

What content should you develop

Come up with a content idea that can be used across multiple media types. A blog is a given for a B2B company. A B2B company will clearly have opinions, advice and insights into the markets they serve and a blog offers you a chance to build a content hub outside of the social media channels, which is important. Develop your early content concepts that will take your customers on a journey to learn more about you, the products you sell, the experiences of the problems you solve and how your customers are benefiting.

If you can take one story or content idea and turn that it into 5 or more content pieces, like a blog post, infographic, cover design or a tweet, then the value of your content assets increases.

Which social media channels for B2B

Everyone jumps to Linkedin here right away, which is natural and if you’re a B2B company then you’re looking for connections that you can start conversations with via email, or voice. Linkedin is fantastic of course, the developments in Linkedin Pulse are having an impact. While it’s probably the slowest moving channel (check the business channels of other businesses, they just don’t publish that much content here). Then to reach its maximum return the channel requires that you pay for email or inMail, which can be rather costly too, and search for content being placed on this channel is not as effective as some of the others either.

Clearly Google+ is a social media channel that every B2B company should be building strategies for. The simple fact of the search capability alone is too powerful to ignore. A single post on your google+ channel is easily found on search. YouTube (owned by Google) is also an untapped gold mine and it’s probably the most under used channel by B2B companies at this stage, your customers can quickly start getting to know you on YouTube, if you’ve developed a YouTube content plan, which you should.

For our business twitter is the number one channel that drives both new visitors to our website and new engagements directly via the channel. Twitter is very fast paced, has every business we want to work with on and it’s really fun coming up with content in 140 characters or less. Like a micro blog.

Choose a channel or two at the most to start out and become proficient in building content that your audience will absorb and engage with.

Marketing vs Social Media Marketing

How does a direct mail campaign compare to a social media campaign? How does traditional low cost B2B marketing work compared to social media marketing? The answer isn’t that simple. If you’ve ever tried a brochure drop, you’d know that less than 1% respond. If you’ve ever tried cold calling you’d know that less than 3-5% engagement with decisions makers is possible. Even if you warm call you’re still likely to only be able to connect with 10-15% of your target market in the first 6 months. That’s only connect, not necessarily buy. Generally once you connect via email, or voice or brochure, thats it, these prospects might never hear from you again, or know what you’re offering. The chain breaks so to speak.

With social media marketing it does take time to build momentum, you need to be consistent, have quality content and be willing to work the channels you open. If you can’t afford 10-15 mins every day for a channel then you’re best not opening it. This also means don’t push customers to that channel unless you’re ready for them. One striking difference between traditional marketing and social media marketing is that one piece of content can be shared with literally hundreds if not thousands of prospects in the click of a button. Companies also want to get to know the businesses they will contract to, or will employ in the future, so social media gives you the chance for your customers to watch what you’re doing. Be authentic.

Social Media offers you a medium to attract new customers and take them on a journey to understand your points of difference and offer the reasons why they should buy from you. Over time social media marketing will outperform the email, voice, cold calling or direct mail campaigns because it’s like a wall of content options that customers can engage with and you can help move the customer along the journey.

Google recently reported that customers engage with an average of 10 pieces of content, up from 5 just a few years ago, before they buy a product. How would traditional marketing expect to keep up with this trend?

How to budget for your social media marketing

If you’re trying to calculate an ROI on social media marketing, then you probably aren’t listed in the yellow pages either? You have to be in it to win it. If your customers are there, then you have to be there. Our entire business is built on outsourcing and social media. To develop a budget for your efforts figure on the content generation being around 70% of your budget and the other 30% of your online or social media budget used for channel strategies. If you’re looking to become highly aggressive on any of these channels, they all have paid advertising, some of them will support campaigns, initially if you learn the tips to using the channels, then you can start without any advertising.

Take calculated risks and keep learning new things

It took our agency a few months to figure out that you can’t just schedule content via a social posting platform and expect new clients to engage. The social world is full of incredible people and is home to many experienced influencers. There is almost unlimited free resources you can use to gain the insights you need to help you learn about each channel. Take a few webinars, subscribe to the best available content and then plan to experiment with how you position your content on the channels of choice.

Organise to improve your social media presence

There are choices to make when it comes to organising content and selecting social media platforms that fit your budgets and suit your overall business activities. Planning activities, organising your content and watching what works for others will all help you improve your content efforts and brand image. You can choose to use each channel in a lot of different ways, from customer service, to informative, to curator, to mentor, leader, thought provoker and more. Choose the best option/s that you’ll be able to comfortably handle, no-body likes a know it-all or a be-all.

Consistency provides insights

Whatever you do maintain a consistent scheduling and activity plan if you join communities, show up regularly and participate. It takes a lot of time and effort, the former most small business owners (including myself) don’t have, as we’re busy growing the business. By being consistent you give yourself a better chance at reviewing and analysing how your content is performing. The more insights you can gain about the types of content your viewers want to read and share, the more chance your content marketing plans stand to succeed.

How we see our business changing

Defining content consumers are engaging with and absorbing has enabled us the insights to develop new more on target content. As we analyse the behaviours of our followers we’re learning that we need to continue to adapt to the market. We’re understanding more about what content works and how we can develop strings of content that share a common theme. The more content you can generate based around the customers journey to buy products the better off you’ll be.

If you’re a small business owner or social media manager in a small company the best advice we can offer you from the trials, mistakes and teachings we’ve learned thus far is: “once you develop the right content mix spend more time promoting and building engagement techniques than you do building more content.”

For more insights from the Transeo Team please subscribe below.

About the Author

 

About Adam Mole

Adam is the proprietor of start up BPO company Transeo and has been working with offshore and outsourcing services for more than 20 years. Adam is passionate about small business. He likes to write about his experiences in sales and startup business ventures. In his spare time you'll find him on one of Sydney's south coast beaches surfing and smiling. Email Adam at adam.mole@transeo.com.au and follow Adam on Twitter @adam_transeo.