Tackling social media for your company can feel overwhelming. It’s hard to know when to do what. Is it too much? Is it too little? And, unfortunately, the answer for most businesses is often to do nothing.
If you’re considering B2B social media pros and cons in general, then you need to stick social media firmly in the pros column. While even we used to be social media skeptics, there’s no denying the power of social media in conjunction with an inbound marketing strategy. SocialTimes projects that social media marketing budgets are will double in the next five years, and 80 percent of B2B marketers plan reported to AdAge that they plan to increase digital spending next year.
Do you need to stick to a schedule of 5+ social media posts per day? Not necessarily. That might be too much -- or too little -- for your audience and industry. The right frequency for your business depends on the other pieces of your inbound marketing strategy.
Let Your Blog Guide You
Your inbound marketing efforts are all related to each other. Your customer personas guide your content creation. Your content creation guides both your premium content assets and your blog posts. And your blog posts should guide your B2B social media efforts. Here’s how that works out:
Posting Frequency
Our mantra is that your blog should power your social media efforts. Therefore, the frequency of your blog post updates will affect the frequency of your B2B social media efforts. While it would be easier to say you should post X times per month, it is smarter to test and measure your posting frequency and adjust as you collect data about your audience.
When you’re just getting started, aim for this simple formula: take the number of blog posts you publish per month and multiply it by four. That will give you a reasonable number of social media updates to schedule each month.
For example, if you post four times per month on your blog, aim to post on social media sixteen times per month. And if you post daily updates? Then expect to be more engaged in social media, too, to keep up with your 80/20 promotional efforts. That will give you space to promote your blog posts and premium content downloads without overwhelming your social media feeds.
Posting Content
When you’ve established a social media posting schedule, do you need to promote the same blog post over and over again just to fill the schedule? Probably not, though you can pull it off if you’re creative about it. To make the most out of the promotional opportunity you have, you should be posting links to old blogs too, not just new ones.
Get more mileage out of each post by sharing it even when it’s not the newest. With the text of your update, connect the older post to recent industry news or interesting questions. And if a particular post has received a number of favorites, comments or interactions? Bring it back to life and invite more questions by featuring it on your B2B social media platforms.
“How often should I post to my B2B social media platforms,” is a popular and important question that requires an individualized answer. When in doubt, look to your other inbound marketing efforts and adjust your social media post frequency (and topics) accordingly.
Have you found your B2B social media sweet spot? Tell us about it in the comments!
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