Are you using social media to the max?

Although the majority of UK B2B brands have a social media presence, many of them fail to use this effectively, according to a new survey I read by WPP-owned media planning agency Maxus For Business.

The survey found that business customers are trying to reach B2B brands on social sites such as LinkedIn, but don´t know how to communicate with them properly. Almost three-quarters of the interviewed 500 business people said that B2B brands failed to interact with them, but 60% claimed that they actually wanted to hear from them.

When business people wanted to reach a brand via social media, they most often selected LinkedIn as a preferred platform (61%). By contrast, other major social channels like Facebook and Twitter only scored 17% and 9%, respectively.

When asked what they were expecting from B2B brands on social channels, 44% stated they would like to see news articles, while one in five respondents preferred how-to guides. Around 8% were hoping to find video content, whereas 7% asked for whitepapers and 6% asked for webinars.

Speaking of topics they were interested in, 86% of respondents were looking for news about the company, while 79% said that they wanted to know about promotions. Other topics that LinkedIn users found intriguing included insights (70%), product development (66%), sources of inspiration (59%) and entertainment (44%).

These figures support what I strongly believe – content, on both a company website and social media, needs to be engaging in order to create the maximum amount of interest in your brand. It is not enough to simply have a social media presence – brands need to constantly update their sites with interesting and insightful content. M2 Bespoke are content generation specialists and provide businesses with all the types of content mentioned in this study: news articles, evergreen articles (such as ´how-to´ guides and ´top tips), video content, whitepapers, and so much more. If you are struggling to produce online content yourself, give our friendly team a call today and find out how we can help your business.

By Ben Hollom