Question

Describe the tools B-to-B marketers use to engage customers. What are the challenges with B-to-B social media marketing? How do you interact with a brand on social media? How is this different than a B2B brand engagement?

Answer 1

The key tool used by B2B marketers is CRM tools. CRM stands for customer relationship management tools. It is used to track customer order levels, usage level, communication strategy, social connects, and integrated marketing techniques. In addition to this, one the common ways that a marketer engages B2B customers is through email and phone calls.

The challenges with B2B social media marketing is that the platform of social media is mainly focused on providing communication facility to the individuals. As a result, there is a lot of noise and clutter when it comes to B2B communication on social media. Filtering through these and reaching the prospective clients or target customers can often be very tricky. Also in B2B setup the decision is often a joint decision by several stakeholder to purchase product/service. As a result a B2B marketer need not only convince one individual but may have to focus on multiple.

The common social media platforms where we interact with brands are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc. In terms of interacting with them, the easiest platform is Facebook. I tend to like their pages and/or posts that I find interesting. At times, if I find their post innovative and unique I may also share it with my friends on Facebook.

A B2B brand engagement happens at a different level. Their main focus is on generation of leads, receiving product enquiry and provide demos. This is where the B2C and B2B social marketing differs. A B2C product is often content with their posts and images getting popular. However, B2B is more result oriented and targeted. This is the key difference in marketing to a company and individual.