10 Tips To Make The Most Of Your B2b Wholesale Business Through Social Media

1. Research your audience if you want to reach them!

The content market is driven by its audience. It is important that you get to know them otherwise you will never be the first one to show up on their screens. Before you step in and actually start creating content, delve deep and test various platforms. Define your persona and survey your consumers. One of the most efficient ways is to talk to your existing customer base, understand how they function and then proceed to create a lookalike audience. 

2. Which platform do I choose?

In order to understand which platform to use, it is recommended to check the percentage of your industry’s target market distributed over various platforms. Don't assess channels based on personal perspective or preconceived notions. You never know that for your industry it could even be Quora or Google+. You should also keep a constant check on where your competitors are more active because ultimately, no business would waste its resources. Its the quickest and the most cost-efficient way of figuring out which platforms you must invest in and prioritise in order to reap the best results. 

Platforms like Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn provide you with tools that can help you target a niche population once you have figured out what it is. 

3. Integrate Social Media into the overall Marketing plan

A common mistake noticed throughout businesses using Social Media for their Marketing is that their actual plan and objectives are an afterthought. Most of them begin mindlessly. This leads to major chaos. What people fail to understand is that you have to align your account with your business message and ethos for social optimization. The content needs to be consistent and have the right set of search-friendly keywords and hashtags if you want the right results. Entering without a strategy is just a blind shot and a waste of the company’s resources. 

4. Gamification- the way forward!

Gamification is nothing but influencing and motivating the behaviour of people. The purpose is to make the audience participate and engage with your business and content. A good way to do this is through the much-talked-about reward system wherein you can offer an upgrade, discount or any limited period offer. This can particularly benefit B2-B Businesses considering their sales funnels follow very specific steps and progressions. You can design a series of calculated steps that would help your leads reach the end of the funnel. 

5. Key Objectives of a B2B Business 

Underlining your objectives is essential. It will help you direct your efforts in a specific direction so as to get progress in the chosen sphere. As mentioned before, this cannot be like a B2C objective where you would expect a specific sales number. For a B2B business, it is about creating brand awareness, and loyalty and eventually boosting engagement. Here you need to be specific and ask yourself, do you want to increase the number of clicks or your reach? Are impressions more important to you or generating traffic on the website?

Remember, you cannot work towards achieving all of them at the same time. Depending upon your kind of Business, stage of marketing and purpose, streamline your objectives and formulate a strategy accordingly. 

6. Consider outsourcing- totally or partially 

If you really have no idea how to go about things and you feel like it will pull out too many resources from your business, consider outsourcing. Hiring experts would definitely help. 

But If it feels like an unnecessary expense then do consider leveraging user-generated content or partnerships. There are tonnes of ways of generating content. You can have guest posts or invite influencers- you just provide the platform and they generate content for you. 

7. The most efficient Market research tool for you 

You don’t realise how this is the best Market research tool for a B2B business like yours. You can gain unique first-party insights! 

The limited sample space that you otherwise had can be replaced with first-hand insights of thousands of people- and all at your tips. 

The way your audience typically tends to behave, the point at which the leads get stuck in the sales funnel to what typically interests them, the activities they engage in, and the steps your competitors tend to take-you can understand it all. 

You can even go a step further and keep a track of your viewers and returning visitors to formulate your brand strategy. 

8. The power of paid media 

Social media is the most scalable, cost-effective engine with the lowest cost for action (CTA) in comparison to others. 

You can set parameters about your preferred audience, from their online behaviours, and interests to demographic details. The available retargeting will place ads before those who would typically like to engage with you.

Statistics show that 45% of small businesses today use Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising. It is extremely cost-effective because you only pay the publisher if your ad is clicked on. 

Given the use of the right set of keywords, PPC is known to yield a high Return on Investments (RoI). 

9. Realise that the business world around has changed 

With people now headed towards a fast-paced digital world, the competition amongst businesses is in terms of user experience and actual relations with their audience and consumers. 

If you are just in a rush to sell, nothing will work out and you will consistently be disappointed by the results. People will turn away no matter how good your product is. Your ultimate goal is brand development and lead generation. Solidify your brand and build partnerships. Your purpose is not to close deals but to seek business opportunities. 

With GenZ entering the business world, you will be able to identify more and more opportunities through social media. 

10. Throw the spotlight on your employees

A very efficient way of building trust and personalising your brand is to shine a light on your employees; the people who make the company. This is a great way of 

1. Easily generating content 

2. Giving your employees the credit they deserve 

3. Bringing more engagement to your channels 

It is also helpful in employer branding. You break the monotony of just talking about your product while building relations with your audience that resonate with them on a deeper level!