What B2B Marketers Need to Know (Winter 2015)
Winter 2015: The State of Social Media
As the days get shorter and the weather colder, marketers snuggle into their down comforters and head online to engage with peers, create customer engagement, and tell stories about their brand. The end of the year and beginning of a new one means that social media and marketing has once again changed, and with these new changes, also means new marketing tactics.
So what do you need to know for Winter 2015? Let’s take a look:
The Death of Facebook Promoting
As is with every season, Facebook is once again changing up its algorithm. This time, brands will be hurt if all they do is sell, sell, sell. This is an evolution from the early days of Facebook pages where selling was the main focal point for many brands, and now brands must expand out how they tell their story if they are to show up on the news feeds of a customer.
For the brand marketer, even on the B2B side, what this means is that storytelling and the content of people is more important than ever when considering a marketing strategy. No longer can brands just sell, but they must be able to design a narrative that pulls the customer in through engaging social media tactics.
The Emergence of Facebook Groups
While Facebook brand page engagement continues to fall, the emergence of Facebook groups has been 
brought to light, namely with Facebook’s release of a standalone app for the product. While the ability to measure success in the app is extremely limited, the understood metric is that groups have a much higher engagement rate than pages, and can be more discoverable than pages as well. Additionally, one can add their connections right into a group, as opposed to inviting friends to like a Facebook page.
For B2B brands, the usage of a Facebook Group lies in parallel to LinkedIn groups, where conversations are created around specific topics. If your B2B brand is personal, this can definitely be a consideration but if you are a little bigger, something like a Group may not be as scalable.
Instagram is More Popular than Twitter
Instagram, the photo sharing app that everyone loves to tie to the hipster population, now has more users than Twitter. While niche B2B firms may still consider Twitter as a major area of attack for reaching customers, those at larger firms may want to consider expansion to Instagram. With Twitter now also having more visual content implemented within the web version, this should be very interesting to consider for who will go where.
Of course, if you are heavily considering Instagram as a media channel, check out what fellow Curatti author Jenn Herman has to say in her regular write-ups on Instagram strategy.
Twitter Metrics Become More Instantaneous
Social media analytics has been a buzzword for awhile, and one of the toughest place to find analytics was Twitter – until now. Now available under every Tweet for your account are instant analytics, which display information on impressions and clicks. Though not necessarily the most comprehensive, this information is good for understanding where exactly your Twitter account is on a tweet-by-tweet basis. One important thing to remember is this is probably not a good way to measure either, since Twitter is the ultimate center of noise in the social media world.
The Power of Movements
While not directly business related, this topic is relevant due to all the sociological events of the past few months, particularly with Ferguson and Eric Garner. Politics aside, both of these events have been catalysts to storytelling, such as #CrimingWhileWhite or #AllLivesMatter. 2014 was a big year for social movements taking their voice and anger to social media, and with 2015 coming up and a United States presidential election around the corner, the amount of stories will only amplify. As B2B marketers, it’s going to be very important to know not to try and hijack these hashtags or try to get in the middle of the conversation. Focus is very important.
My Takeaway
There’s a lot happening as we enter into 2015. The first of the year is always a busy one with marketers setting budgets for spending, hiring, and more. As marketing becomes more diversified in the coming year, there is a lot that is going to happen.
Image attribution: Copyright: ‘http://www.123rf.com/profile_alphaspirit‘ / 123RF Stock Photo
