Social media can be a powerful complement to an overall digital marketing strategy. Depending upon your niche, it might be the central promotional channel… or not. If your business is B2B, social media is probably not your biggest moneymaking, interest-driving, or buzz-building channel.
In fact, in a survey of business professionals, social media was routinely ranked the least important factor when making a decision. What mattered more were thorough contact information, team profiles, and past business customers.
So where does social media fit in?
As with all answers in our industry: it depends. At the very least, social media is a way to promote your other marketing efforts. For little time invested, you can get your content, sales, specials, whitepapers, infographics, and other marketing materials in front of additional eyes. If you’ve spent time cultivating and refining your audience, those extra eyes might turn into a trickle of additional conversions.
If you’re in an industry where engagement, activity, and regular publishing are paramount– e.g., digital marketing– social media can be just as effective as a visually-oriented B2C business. Use it to express your business’s values, commitments, and unique factors. These are professionals you are trying to communicate to, but they are still human beings. If they find the underlying messages of your social media content corresponding to their own values and goals, they will be more interested. If they find the content you publish interesting, or exhibits a high level of expertise, it will instill confidence in them, separating you from low-effort competition they might otherwise not have a reason to ignore.