Joel Koch

As a marketer that’s ONLY worked in to the B2B market, I feel your pain. They say that 91% of all businesses exist on social media- and making yourself a unique space where it is already crowded other businesses (and some with more money and staff than yours). Just a blanket social media blast has absolutely no purpose, as most B2B marketing needs to happen with a decision maker. There’s only a few within a company (and more often than not just 1), and trying to hone in on this can’t be done with a large budget and a blanket approach.

Like you’ve suggested, I think they best way to supplement your brand is through industry awareness. But this doesn’t just mean being the best in the space or having the most followers, but truly sharing and giving industry news that is valuable to the decision maker while they are in their discovery journey still.

I think it’s something that a lot of marketers struggle in the B2B space. Thanks Joel!

Health care and pharma companies have a special rule of thumb regarding social media and marketing. I can see how your company focuses on awareness vs. promoting a single product. However, the legal regulations, privacy concerns, and risks make it more difficult for many health care organizations. The best use of getting ROI is grouping each platform by purpose serving functions such as social networking (Facebook, Twitter), professional networking (LinkedIn), media sharing (YouTube, Flickr), content production (blogs [Tumblr, Blogger], and knowledge/information aggregation (Wikipedia). In your industry, HCPs can easily connect via “general purpose” online social networks, such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Tweets can also include “hashtags,” a form of information indexing that allows people to search for tweets related to a particular discussion or topic that should spark marketing tactics between other businesses.

Joel I have been thinking about this topic a lot lately too and I am facing the same challenges when it comes to creating B2B social media strategies. I think you may find this helpful:

https://business.linkedin.com/marketing-solutions/content-marketing/b2b-trends/the-roi-trap

It talks a little about focusing in other metrics that may be even more impactful than ROI, it may give you a different perspective on how your campaigns are providing value to your organization.