#B2Bchat: B2B Marketing and Facebook [Recap]

Should your B2B brand be on Facebook? What is Facebook’s value for business to business marketing? Some companies are dabbling, some others have had remarkable success. And there are those that need to learn more before building a solid strategy.

Over the course of an hour in our weekly #B2Bchat, we covered around half a dozen questions and hundreds of tweets on the topic of Facebook and B2B marketing. Here you will find the top questions and answers from participants, compiled and edited for easier reading.

Q. Is Facebook a platform for content distribution or audience engagement?

• Facebook is both a platform for content distribution and audience engagement, but it depends on what the audience wants. Most often it starts with distribution, then following with engagement.
• Before deciding on Facebook or any other social media channel, do research on the market to assess the importance of that social network. Sketch a buyer persona.
• Besides engagement, Facebook can also act as a means of audience retention.

Q. Should marketers have content exclusive to Facebook?

• Creating exclusive content for Facebook is time-intensive, and may not be worth the investment if that is the only place it is posted.
• Marketers will often share content across several channels, including their blog, YouTube, website, Twitter and mobile.
• Blog and Twitter integration with Facebook are the most common forms of integration and are easy to set up.
• More important than exclusivity is the question of content quality.

Q. What is Facebook’s value as a market research tool?

• It is a great tool for crowdsourcing ideas and getting feedback.
• Facebook makes it easy to conduct polls and surveys.
• There aren’t enough options yet within Facebook for marketers to segment data.
• Facebook should consider opening up an API for Fanpage data.

Advice for B2B Marketers

• If marketers do not yet have a Facebook strategy and/or the means to manage it effectively, they should create a placeholder Facebook presence which redirects users to other channels, e.g. a website.
• A great way to engage an audience on Facebook is to offer configurators, widgets and applications.
• B2B companies which were referenced within the #B2Bchat as companies to watch on Facebook: Cisco, Avaya, Dell and Ernst & Young.
• See 10 examples of B2B Facebook Fan Pages from SocialMediaB2B.com

Q. What is the largest barrier for B2B companies to start a Facebook presence?

• A significant barrier to expanding/improving a Facebook presence is simply having the time to devote to it.
• There is skepticism and fear amongst B2B marketers when embarking with Facebook because of its unknown ROI and the potential of having to back out of commitment if it doesn’t work.
• Some of Facebook’s rules are the biggest B2B barrier: page ownership, limited analytics, customer service, and closed search.
• Some business buyers resent business contacts friend requests as they see Facebook as means to maintain personal space and work/life balance. When we polled the #B2Bchat participants on their own balance between business and personal Facebook contacts, it ranged from 0% to 50%, with the median being 30% business contacts.
• Facebook groups people too broadly for B2B marketers’ purpose.
• The term ‘fan page’ doesn’t fit well for B2B.
• Facebook needs to have more effective integration with other lead generation activities.

The #B2Bchat session on B2B Marketing and Facebook was moderated by @jeremyvictor, @kseniacoffman, @kenthuffman and @andrewspoeth.

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About the B2Bblogger: Andrew Spoeth is an independent marketing consultant who specializes in B2B demand generation. He most recently worked as the marketing director at Enquiro, one of North America’s leading search marketing agencies. You’ll also find Andrew speaking at industry events, co-moderating the weekly #B2Bchat series on Twitter, and blogging at MarketingFinger.com. You can follow him on Twitter at@andrewspoeth.

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