B2B social is big news. Jill’s crash course in best practice will help you stand out from the crowd.
Like most people, I installed Facebook on my smart phone circa. 2008 and so began the permeation of social media into our lives. That is well over a decade ago, so you may view this B2B guide to social media as a little late.
Hear me out. There’s a problem: Fast forward from 2008 to today and social media has gone intergalactic. Like, another galaxy. And that makes it virtually impossible to be noticed.
Tweet right now – perhaps on the theme of #BuildingBackGreener – your comment will be relevant for all of two seconds, before it is ousted by thousands of other tweets (or bots), saying a similar thing.
This is the issue many B2B brands have on social right now. Yes, they’re active, but their content can’t cut through.
It is such a huge shame, because (when well crafted) social media is effective at driving traffic and reaching exactly the right people.
So, what is my point exactly? Be on the right social channels and make your posts count.
To help, here is my crash course in writing social media posts for B2B.
Prune it back
Social media writing is a great way to hone your skills. It demands writing is short, sharp and punchy. There is really no space for building into a conversation – get to the point and be relevant.
Frame the story, lay out the solution, and explain what you are offering.
Practise every time you write – pruning out excess words. Challenge yourself to find new ways to say the same thing, using less words.
And one final thing: remember to count your characters. It’s good practice to repurpose writing across multiple social channels, but ensure you edit the content to fit with each channel’s limitations.
Current suggested lengths for status updates are…
- LinkedIn: 50-100 characters
- Facebook: 40-80 characters
- Twitter: 71-100 characters
Be relevant
Frankly, why should anyone care? This sounds super harsh (I apologise) but it is the mindset you should adopt before writing.
Consider what your ultimate angle is going to be and visualise your audience asking, ‘what’s in this for me?’. The challenge your message addresses is the most important point, this must resonate with people. If you then match your solution to the challenge, then that’s the hard work done.
Steer away from naval gazing and think twice before promoting a product or service broadcast style. This does not show that you CARE.
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