Facebook for B2B – it doesn’t have to be boring!

It’s all about understanding your target market and serving up appropriate content.

So many companies, particularly in business-to-business, make facebook a boring experience and therefore end up being a waste of time and unmet expectations.

So how do you make it relevant?

Here are my top tips:

1. Take time to understand your target market.
   Ask yourself who they are? What are they looking at on facebook? What are they interested in?
2. Then put yourself in their shoes and try to understand what they would be interested in seeing – what would be relevant, fun, engaging and genuinely liked.
3. Some companies do this by saying what their chosen celebrity would say if they were endorsing them – I would recommend more Gary Linnekar than David Beckham!
4. Serve up pictures and messages that are in tune with expectations.
5. People know that you’re a company trying to sell them something, so it’s a waste of time trying to be their friend; but if you’ve followed the steps above, you’ll get liked by many of the people you want and even many who you never knew existed – this is what viral marketing is all about.

Clients are always asking me what it costs to do this. The answer is that the facebook campaign itself costs very little, as you don’t need fancy photography or professionally written content – you can do it all yourself from your phone.

Where there may be cost is in gaining the understanding of your target market (item 1 above); this is particularly true in business-to-business where the different levels in your target DMU (decision making unit) all demonstrate separate facebook behavioural characteristics. The only way round this is to test, test and test again!

So if you understand your customers, and can serve up the right content, facebook won’t be boring and you’ll find yourself engaging with your customers and prospects at a fraction of the cost of other means.

Facebook should be exciting and fun. Don’t let it become a chore.