What are B2B leads and B2B lead generation?
B2B leads are the potential customers that have shown interest in the products and services of other businesses. B2B leads are the businesses who have expressed interest in products of other businesses through various ways that include signing up for newsletters, sending a query for quotes, asking for a demo session, attending product/service webinars, or providing their contact information or engaged to the business in some other way.
B2B lead generation is the process of capturing the interest of businesses in their product or service. B2B lead generation involves various engagement and marketing strategies to capture the interest of potential customers.
Importance of B2C social media platforms in B2B lead generation
As discussed above, lead generation is the process of capturing the interest of your potential customers through various strategies. Social media has become a powerful medium to get connected to your target audience and showcase the existence of products/services in creative ways.
Below are some of the key reasons why B2C social medial platforms are important for B2B lead generation:
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Access to a Diverse and Large Audience
According to 2023 statistics, 64.6 percent of the global population has internet access, and out of this 59.9 percent of the world’s population use social media. B2B businesses can reach out to half of the world’s population through social media.
Isn’t it a huge number and an easy way to access your target audience? B2C social media platforms are a huge convenience to B2B companies that provide various opportunities to connect to potential customers every single day.
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Easy Accessibility via Mobile
As per the Backlinko Statistics, 4.43 billion, or 99% of social media users access networks through mobile phones. Mobile is the handy and easiest way to get connected to your target audience.
Some of the most used B2C social media platforms in mobile are Facebook, Instagram YouTube, Pinterest, Twitter, Snapchat, etc. Businesses can plan their strategies to get connected to their target audience through the multiple features of these social media platforms.
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Space for Creativity and Fun
Social media has given endless possibilities for businesses to channel their b2b lead generation strategies using creativity and fun.
Businesses can use the below tips to inject creativity and fun into their lead-generation process.
- Storytelling: Businesses can use social media to tell their brand story, and create compelling ideas to showcase their products and services through storytelling. Connecting with potential customers is easy and effective with the help of social media storytelling.
- Visual Content: The attention span of potential customers is less than 9 seconds. Businesses have got this 9 seconds to tell about their brand/product/service. B2B businesses can leverage visual content in the form of interacting images, videos, and visual content formats to engage and generate B2B leads.
- Interactive posts: Knowing what customers think or expect from your brand is an important factor in lead generation. But social media has made it easy to collect the opinions of the target audience in the form of interactive posts such as surveys, polls, quizzes, Q&A sessions, contests, etc.
- UGC – User Generated Content: UGC is one of the important lead generation tactics that B2B businesses can leverage from social media platforms. Asking your existing customers to create content and post it over social media helps to increase brand awareness, and gains the trust of potential customers.
Also read: The Power of User-generated Content in B2B Marketing
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Access to Analytics
The social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube possess features that allow businesses to run paid ad campaigns using various formats.
B2B companies can measure these ads through social media analytics that are free to use. Using B2B social media platforms, one can track engagement, reach and conversions and also gain insights into the performance of the campaigns.
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Cost-effective
The evolving B2C social media concepts have made it extremely easy for businesses to reach their target audience, engage, inform, and educate them about the brand. Using social media for marketing and lead generation is more cost-effective compared to traditional marketing.
B2C social media platforms allow B2B businesses to set their budget, and optimize spending as per the needs and requirements of the lead generation process.
Strategies to generate B2B leads from B2C social media platforms
The B2B lead generation from B2C social media platforms can be made in various ways:
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Define your B2C Social Media Target Audience
The primary step to generating leads from social media platforms is to understand the target audience. Define their interests, pain points, challenges, and expectations about a specific product/service/industry/niche. Knowing the audience better helps to tailor content and messaging that resonates with them.
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Choose the Right Social Media Platforms
Businesses have to be clear about the right platforms to leverage for their b2b lead generation process. There are various social media platforms with different features that cater to different sets of audiences. As per the objectives, goals, and definition of the audience, businesses have to wisely choose the right social media platforms.
It is important to focus on the b2c social media platforms where users interested in your industry are most active.
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Optimize the Social Media Profiles
B2B businesses should optimize their b2c social media profiles to easily navigate their prospective customers to the websites. Provide authentic information, lead the users to your website, and provide complete details about your product/service that is reliable and easy to understand. Use keywords to improve visibility in the search engines.
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Share Content that Reflects the Thoughts of the Target Audience
Share valuable and insightful content using various formats by analyzing the type of content that your target audience mostly consume. Businesses can get access to maximum B2B leads with the help of the right and shareable content on B2C social media platforms.
Some of the content formats are Shorts on YouTube, Reels by Instagram, Google Web Stories, Facebook live videos, Educational long format videos using YouTube, Impactful B2B posts on Twitter, Discount and referral codes interactive posts on Instagram, Carousels, etc.
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Run High-quality Targeted Ad Campaigns
B2B companies can utilize B2C social media platforms to run targeted ad campaigns. Social media platforms provide free analytics for businesses to measure the performance of ad campaigns.
To get quality B2B leads, B2B businesses have to provide gated content like whitepapers, webinars, e-books, and others that collects the information of the target audience.
Conclusion
B2C social media platforms can provide quality leads to B2B businesses and social media platforms are called B2B lead generating platforms among marketers. Businesses have to leverage all the potential of B2C social media channels including analytics, ad campaigns, various content formats, online community groups, using lead generation forms, etc.
Businesses can utilize B2C social media channels for their B2B marketing strategies, to engage their potential and existing customers and build long-lasting relationships.
