B2B Web Strategy Blog - eMagine » Don’t leave your customers out of your B2B’s social media effort

Don’t leave your customers out of your B2B’s social media effort

December 17th, 2009 Posted by: Bill Gadless

OK, so you’re proud of being an early adopter of social media. You have a strategy; you’ve set up accounts in all the relevant places like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and even some niche networks in your industry. This is terrific; all these profiles show up in Google searches for your company, because they all have super page rank.

There’s only one problem: your current customers aren’t likely to Google your company name. It’s a bit like the early days of the Web, when you had to print your url on every available surface, and pray that people would remember it and type it in. Similarly, the only way your existing customers are going to know to engage with you in these social spaces is… by your telling them.

So says Jeffrey Cohen in his wonderfully titled post, “Google can find your B2B company, but can your customers?” over on Social Media B2B. And that doesn’t mean putting out some lame press release they’ll never see; it means telling them in vehicles they’re already reading, like your website, email, brochures, catalogs, trade shows, invoices.

Jeffrey then provides some helpful hints as to how, for the website and email cases:

Your main social profiles minimally need to be shown on the home page and the “Contact us” page (hey, it’s as much a communication channel to your company as phone or email) of your website. These don’t have to be big shiny logos; text links or small logos are fine. Hint: if you put them in the sidebar or the footer, they’ll be visible on every page of the site. (No, it’s not enough to show this info only on your blog.)
Social profiles clearly need to be included on the email newsletters you send to your customers. Check with your email service provider; there may be a template available that already includes the appropriate icons.
One of the most important – yet frequently overlooked – branding opportunities for your company is the auto-signature on every email sent out by every employee. Jeffrey has much more good advice on this subject; but for this purpose, make sure it’s used uniformly across the company and includes your website url and social media pointers.

Remember, your good customers are likely to be your brand’s biggest fans and friends; don’t let your social media strategy leave home without them!