The virtual business world of the past 20 months has led to an increasingly noisy B2B social media landscape. With no tradeshows or in-person sales meetings to attend, online message dissemination accelerated. Today, there are more than 10,000 company pages currently on LinkedIn for B2B software brands and 54% of social browsers use social media to research products. In addition to the amount of competition that exists for B2B brands on LinkedIn, social media algorithms continue to deprioritize company pages while giving more power to individual users.
Because of this evolution, executives and employees are the perfect conduits to build additional success for brands. In fact, messages shared by employees on social media have proven to receive 5x more engagement than the same messages shared by brands. This increased activity equates to more clicks to your website and more visibility in front of the press and influencers.
Therefore, it’s imperative your subject matter experts be on social media to build thought leadership, credibility, brand awareness, and industry relationships. Continue reading for 3 foundational steps to train your company leaders on social media.
Choose social media networks that align with company goals
All social media platforms are different with varying audiences and should be prioritized with your company goals in mind. For instance, if you're a retail tech brand that sells to SMBs, your audience will likely skew more towards Facebook and Instagram. But if your company sells to an enterprise CIO buyer persona, you should focus on LinkedIn and Twitter as a close second as nearly 70% of CIOs on Twitter said they have established new working relationships through the platform.
PRO TIP: You don’t need to be on every social channel! Be active where it counts.
Create an outline for a leader’s personal brand
Once optimal platforms are chosen, it’s time to determine what the executive’s voice will be and what topics they feel comfortable and passionate about owning. A leader’s personal brand should include key aspects that highlight their personal features and professional strengths. For example, by looking at ARPR client and founder of Instant Financial Steve Barha’s LinkedIn profile, you can quickly see that he is a leader in the earned wage access sector and talks frequently about financial wellness topics. With nearly 6k followers and lots of recent activity, Steve’s profile exudes accessibility and passion.
PRO TIP: Before getting started, consider this formula to help build a strong personal brand -- who you are, what you stand for, the values you embrace, and the way in which you express those values.
Turn social media activity into a habit
Finally, we all lead busy lives, and executives especially often have to balance managing multiple teams, maintaining partner and customer relationships as well as making time for their own daily work to-do’s. A concern we hear often when it comes to managing personal social media accounts is: “my CEO just doesn’t have time.” We get it.
But social media doesn’t have to be a time-consuming process. In fact, it’s probably something an executive is already doing without even knowing it. For example, how often do they read a really good article that they then Slack around to their team to also read? They can use the same strong message they crafted for the team and share it to their extended network on LinkedIn too.
If integrating social media into existing work habits just isn’t possible, look for a tech marketing agency that specializes in executive visibility. Trusting an outside vendor with an SME’s voice is a big responsibility, but one that can reap tremendous ROI in terms of industry leadership and yes, even sales.
From HR teams to marketers to sales reps and the c-suite, we’ve trained hundreds of employees on the power of social media marketing and how to use it to build thought leadership and company awareness.