The B2B Sales Rep’s Guide to Facebook

Social media has been around for some time now and its popularity isn’t diminishing anytime soon. If anything, the number of users on social media sites are growing constantly with each passing day.

And the one site that’s ahead of its peers by a ridiculous margin is, you guessed right, Facebook.

The all-too familiar blue-toned pages of Facebook have dominated the internet since it first took flight across college campuses way back in 2004.

To a lot of individuals, Facebook is the internet!

It boasts an estimated 1.18 billion daily users and has over 60 million businesses that use it as a platform to showcase their products and services. That’s ridiculously huge.

Just to put those figures into perspective, the number of daily users is over 15x the population of the United States or 48 times the current population of Australia.

As a B2B sales marketer, it would seem foolish to pass-up the opportunity of not capitalizing on such exposure.

If anything, studies show that B2B Sales and Marketing reps who incorporate social selling as part of their marketing strategy are 79% more likely to hit their targets than those who shy away from the use of such a humongous platform that is Facebook.

And rightfully so!

But not all B2B sales reps have warmed-up to the idea that the use of social media is a great tool by which they can grow their potential customer database, significantly.

It is reported that only about 31% of B2B sales reps use social media as part of their strategy to convert prospects into faithful customers.

That’s just silly.

According to an article by contributor Christine Crandell for Forbes, about 50% of B2B sales reps are consistently missing their quotas, simply because they’re not adjusting their individual sales strategies.

But what the real reason for their hesitation? Why aren’t they lunging at this prime opportunity to get their word out there?

Chances are, when you do ask most B2B sales reps this question, you are usually met with a reluctant chuckle and an ‘I’m not too sure as to how to go about doing this the right way’ sort of an answer.

Well, let’s get to the bottom of this problem and address it head-on. By the end of this article, if you can adhere to simple implementations as suggested, you will be properly using Facebook to the fullest of its ever-growing potential.

And will be on your way to adding Mark Zuckerberg’s multi-faceted, titan-sized baby to your marketing repertoire.

Get those B2B sales and marketing goals met, if not over-achieved.

Let’s examine key checkboxes that you will have to get ticked to be on your way to promote yourself and market your business via Facebook.

Get the ball rolling, shall we?

1 . Polish that profile for the best results:

This is as simple as it sounds, but it carries all the weight in the world, especially when using your Facebook profile for professional purposes. The last thing you want, or need, is to have posts that might come across as offensive to some prospects.

This is something that you can do without altogether. Remember, your profile is an extension of your Professional persona. It’s going to reflect who you are and what you stand for.

The worse part about having a profile that’s riddled with distasteful blemishes is that, at the end of the day, it’s going to be a stark representation of the values the organization you’re representing, stands for.

2 . Build your content strategy and fine-tune it to perfection:

Whichever way you’d like to slice it; ultimately, social selling is an art. If you’re looking to be the best at B2B sales, it’s key for you to have your content strategy clearly mapped-out.

Put yourself in your addressees' shoes

What you want to do is to gauge the needs of your audience.
Construct your posts to have maximum impact with them.
Personalize your content, and you will have made your post all-
the-more meaningful to your B2B Prospects. Failure to do so, is common
mistake made by a lot of B2B sales reps out there.

Stop with the essay-like posts, they’re not
going to help

According to a study carried-out by Jeff Bullas, a Facebook post
that has a length of no-more than 40 characters tends to have
the most impact with your prospects. Nobody is interested in
reading a dictionary-length post.

Make your posts visually appealing

A senior rep at Facebook has stated that Facebook is gravitating
more towards video-based content and should be completely
video-based by 2021. FB pages that contain photos tend to
receive more likes and engagements.

About 53% more likes to be precise, according to a
study carried-out by Hubspot.

Punctuate, punctuate, punctuate

According to digital intelligence firm TrackMaven, posts that are
populate with certain kinds of punctuation tends to see an
increased rate of engagement.

Hashtags generate 60% more interaction, posts with
question marks perform 23% better that those
without them and exclamation marks
improve engagement by 2.7%.

Establish a healthy, modulated tone of voice
and refrain from being ‘pushy/salesly’

B2B sales and marketing requires you to be a little pushy in terms
of convincing your prospects that your product is what they
need. But it has been found that when you throw that approach
out of the window, you tend to build a better relationship with them.

You end up striking a more relatable tone of voice and
don’t come across as someone who’s just out to get their
money.

Constantly look to fine-tune your content strategy

Getting your pitch perfect takes time, analysis and
careful tuning.

Always look to improve upon your social selling strategy.
Chances are, you’re probably not going to nail-it on the first go,
but keep at it and you shall soon reap the fruit of your labor.

3 . Curate a business page:

A business page meant solely for your B2B sales on Facebook lets you bifurcate your personal profile from the one that’ll represent your business.

Separating one from the other will help you keep things professional.

You can monitor its performance using Facebook Analytics which will give you better insights into how your audience is responding to the content your putting out there.

It will also effectively help you build-upon your social selling strategy.

Talk about two birds with one stone.

Related blog: How To Use Instagram For Business

4 . Keep a close eye on your business page:

Simply building a business page alone is not going to do very much in terms of promoting yourself on Facebook.

Listen to your prospects.

The more you engage your prospects, offer insightful information, recommendations and not just look to sell them your product at the drop of a hat; the better.

Build a level of trust with your prospects and your B2B sales charts will soon go through the roof.

Most prospects respond positively when you keep them engaged and are of assistance; even if you’re not directly benefitting from offering them that additional help.

Rachel was a former journalist who found her true calling as a content editor at ReachStream. Her previous experiences have allowed her to develop strong organizational skills and excellent research expertise. Rachel loves traveling when not whipping-up a storm in the kitchen.

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