How to Get More B2B Leads Using Facebook

Did you know that over two-thirds of business decision makers turn to social media when evaluating their purchase options? In 2017, B2B marketing is going social in a big way.

Ninety percent of top salespeople reported using social selling in 2016. And a July 2016 survey of B2B marketing pros found that nearly 70% of the respondents were using social media for developing their B2B leads.

Are you getting the most out of your social media activity? Consider the following as you plot your B2B marketing course for 2017.

Why Use Facebook for B2B Lead Generation?

Facebook is one of the leading social media channels with over 1.7 billion users.

Sixty percent of those users are decision makers at their business or organization. This means that using Facebook’s multiple advertising and audience tracking services reach over 1 billion influencers.

Ad Week’s Social Times reports that with its impressive volume of monthly active users, Facebook outperforms other social media channels as a B2B leads generator for the businesses who use it.

With many new features introduced in the past few years, Facebook has made a concerted effort to serve the needs of advertisers and marketers. These features make it easy for marketers to target potential B2B leads and track performance.

Using Custom Audiences and Facebook Messenger, businesses can find and connect with quality leads. From finding prospects to qualifying them, your business can benefit from an investment in Facebook time. Here’s how:

Four Essential Steps for Using Facebook to Generate B2B Leads

Getting to Know You.

Many businesses begin their purchase journey online. A decision maker may already be over halfway through the purchase process before making contact with a salesperson.

Your Facebook Business Page serves as an information point for potential B2B leads. Use your Facebook Business Page to communicate your organization’s unique value proposition. Don’t forget to optimize this page, too. Make sure important keywords related to your business are included in the text of your page.

Don’t forget to optimize this page, too. Include important keywords related to your business throughout the text of your page.

Your Facebook Business Page may be the first contact a prospective purchaser makes with your company.

So make sure it provides prospects with the information they need to evaluate your business and make contact with your sales team. Include a link to your business’s web page and email address.

Pro Tip: Don’t forget that Facebook is a visual medium, so include videos and photos of your business. Encourage sharing of your visual materials by granting permission clearly on your Facebook Page. Let visitors to your page help extend your reach.

Getting to Know Them.

Your Facebook presence is about more than just your Facebook Business Page.

As a member of Facebook, your business can follow and interact with other members. Follow and friend your customers.

Additionally, follow the pages of businesses that you would like to get to know better. Seek out individual business decision makers and get to know them by following their Facebook posts.

Researching potential B2B leads and reaching out via social media is a great way to turn a cold call into a warm call. Social media is now an essential networking step for your business.

Also, you can follow your competitors via Facebook and keep an eye on how they are using the channel. Discovery who is following businesses similar to yours and who they are following, too. Use the power of information to turn your competitors’ B2B leads into yours.

Pro Tip: In a previous blog entry, we detailed how to use surveys to increase your B2B sales. Use fun or information gathering surveys on Facebook to further learn about and engage with your audience.

Staying in Touch.

Social media is an active medium. Unlike a website, your Facebook Page can be continuously updated. So keep it updated!

Thriving businesses should have news to share.

Make sure you are monitoring your social media account for visitor comments and feedback and respond promptly. Set your Messenger app to notify someone on your sales team when a visitor reaches out.

When engaging on social media, keep in mind that it isn’t all about your business. Share useful information with your followers.

Engage visitors by asking questions and responding to comments. Share interesting conversations with your followers on Facebook and other social media sites.

Also, post links to your website’s blogs or your business’s guest posts on your Facebook Page to extend your reach even further.

Pro Tip: Business decision makers are significantly more likely to connect with someone they perceive as a thought leader in their industry. Actively posting and following influencers in your business demonstrates your knowledge.

Staying on Target.

Sales depend on data. The more advance knowledge you can gather the better focused your efforts to develop B2B leads will be.

The more follow-up information you have, the more effectively you can adjust your future efforts. When using Facebook, you should take advantage of its data gathering and analytics tools to track both your unpaid and paid marketing efforts.

Facebook’s Ads Manager offers your business several useful tools for tracking your paid Facebook campaigns. While Facebook’s Insights allows you to see who your best interactors are.

Once you know what works, you can then do more of the same.

When planning paid advertising on Facebook, you can use the Ad Targeting feature to define your desired audience by geographic region, job description, and several other variables.

By using this tool, you can carefully target the ads and content. Just design a campaign to seek out the purchasers and decision makers in your industry.

Once you’ve identified your target audience, you can use Facebook’s Lookalike feature to put your message in front of similar prospects.

Pro Tip: When you upload your existing email contacts to Facebook, your Facebook Page may be recommended to them by Facebook’s algorithm. You can also invite your friends to like and follow your Facebook Page.

Getting Social Means Getting Leads

Anyone in sales knows that success is all about making connections. And social media is all about making connections.

By letting users find and get to know your business, you can convert visitors to B2B leads and those leads to sales. All it takes is a little time and a willingness to interact with your audience.

Once you’ve made a connection, asking for an email or follow-up call becomes much easier.

Are you ready to ramp up your social media presence? Connect with us and we’ll help you grow your reach and increase your leads.