Marketing on Facebook: Using Facebook for Business-to-Business (B2B) Marketing

Facebook is the reigning champion of social networking platforms. It has over 2.89 billion monthly users and shows no signs of slowing off in the near future. Facebook has evolved into a forum for companies to sell themselves via contact with consumers and self-promotion since it enables them to connect simultaneously with millions of people.

Unfortunately, not all companies use Facebook marketing. This essay will demonstrate why every company requires a great Facebook marketing plan for its branding efforts to be successful. These techniques may be used to increase your company’s Facebook presence and attract more online clients.

Using Facebook for Business-to-Business (B2B) Marketing

Using Facebook for your small company may appear difficult due to the platform’s regularly changing regulations and algorithms. However, using proper methods, B2B companies may also conduct effective Facebook advertisements.

The B2B industry is very competitive. Thus, B2B marketers must be proactive while using Facebook. Expose your brand to marketers, entrepreneurs, and business professionals who want to do their jobs more effectively.

With the proper targeting, ad structure, message, and off-Facebook user experience on your website, however, there is unquestionably potential for success.

Getting Started with B2B Marketing on Facebook

Initially, you must register with Facebook and establish your own page.

A Facebook Business Page is comparable to a free webpage for businesses that may be used to improve their online visibility. Similar to a personal Facebook page, your Facebook Business Page allows you to send and receive messages, publish updates, get alerts, and engage with other users’ content by liking, sharing, and commenting.

Facebook Business Pages are a fantastic method to tell prospects (and consumers) about your business and its offerings. Creating product pages or Facebook Business Pages may increase brand (or product) awareness and provide information about product attributes, advantages, and promotions.

You may choose your company kind from the drop-down menu’s various categories. After entering a few basic facts, such as your firm’s name, contact number, email address, location, and category, you can proceed with your new business page.

Next, we’ll examine Facebook features and tools that may be used for B2B marketing, followed by a discussion of how these aspects can be used for company marketing.

Using Facebook Features for B2B Marketing

Facebook has many rich and varied paid and unpaid features that can be used to market your business-to-business organization.

Facebook ads and boosted posts

Facebook Ads for business-to-business marketing give sophisticated targeting options. You may use them to design campaigns that increase brand exposure, traffic, leads, and conversions. Facebook’s optimization algorithm is superior.

Try paid advertising solutions, such as boosted posts or Facebook advertisements, if you’re having trouble reaching people organically. Boosted posts are Facebook Page postings for which you pay to “boost” the post to a specific audience. However, Facebook advertisements provide greater functionality and positioning options.

Facebook advertisements and boosted posts make it easier to target a certain audience. Target those who like your Facebook page or segment by geography, age, gender, and hobbies. Since the platform accumulates user data, it may target your ad to individuals most likely interested in your product or service.

Should you use Facebook ads or boosted posts?

Boosted posts and Facebook advertisements are both helpful marketing tools.

Here are a few advantages of promoted posts:

• Boosted posts are the most straightforward kind of Facebook advertising. You decide the campaign’s duration, budget, and target audience. If the post is accepted, it will appear in the News Feeds of your target audience during the campaign
• Although boosted posts provide fewer personalization choices, they are still classified as advertisements and will appear as such on your billing account
• Boosted posts are a fantastic method to establish a brand, increase brand recognition, and encourage comments and shares

Some of the key features of traditional Facebook ads are:

• Determine your audience’s demographics, job titles, habits, preferences, etc
• Utilize information from a prospect’s Facebook profile to populate lead advertising
• Collect prospect information for your email lists and supply your sales staff with warm leads
• Targeting should be used to promote neighborhood businesses
• Manage the advertising budget, schedule, target audience, and ad development

Facebook Communities and Groups
Facebook Communities and Groups are very effective for B2B Demand Generation. The B2B audience is time-constrained and likes to interact with material that benefits them.

Groups are not just for chatting. You should be able to convert Group members into paying customers on a regular basis if you set appropriate expectations.

Facebook Communities and Groups centered on specific themes (or material) might inspire them, resulting in a highly segmented and engaged audience.

Here is how Facebook Groups may be used for B2B Demand Generation:

• Use Facebook Groups to promote product-related material, events, webinars, demonstrations, etc.
• Create a group name and description that use industry- or product-specific keywords.
• Utilize scheduling options to guarantee that your community is constantly active and full of engaging content opens a new window for your audience to digest
• Join relevant forums and groups to provide value, promote your content, and learn more about the preferences of your target audience. Cross-promotion is an excellent strategy for attracting the attention of shared audiences.
• Utilize these groups to fill your email lists for future promotions.
• Invest in the development of professional and personal ties with your Facebook Community.

A good practice is to set up questions for your Facebook Group. A few careful questions can help a lot with the quality of the discussion in your group and setting expectations for members’ experience.

Facebook Messenger
Facebook Messenger and chatbots may assist in minimizing friction and extend your marketing, sales, and customer support efforts.

Facebook Messenger is a particularly excellent tool for this trend of customized messaging to engage and convert a larger portion of your social media audience.

Some advantages of Facebook Messenger include the following:

• It is accessible in-app and in-browser, and the conversation history is connected to the user’s Facebook account. Thus making it simple to communicate with your customer regardless of where they are located.
• Using bots, you can nurture leads via automated conversation sequences, making Messenger an efficient push advertising platform.
• You may transform professional ties into personal ones by communicating directly with your consumers and answering their questions and problems on an individual basis.

Facebook Pixel
A good Facebook B2B marketing strategy involves analyzing the performance of your campaigns, tracking various conversions, and adjusting marketing activities to retarget and remarket.

Facebook Pixel can monitor consumer activity and improve conversions. Here are Pixel’s contributions to your Facebook B2B marketing:

• Include it on your website to monitor conversions.
• Evaluate device-to-device conversions
• Optimize the distribution of advertisements to prospects who are likely to act
• Create specific target audiences for your website’s visitors.
• Remarketing is placing targeted advertisements on many websites to attract buyers to return.

Strategies for Business-to-Business (B2B) Facebook Marketing

Given the vast quantity of information Facebook possesses on its users, it is difficult to beat the algorithm when targeting new customers. Facebook’s ability to target a particular population via sponsored campaigns and adverts is one of its greatest features.

Facebook Remarketing

Remarketing is the process of displaying customized advertisements to internet consumers who have previously connected with your business.

When consumers visit your website, landing page, or social network page, a cookie or Pixel is placed in their browser, allowing your advertisements to “follow” them to other digital spaces with material depending on the information in the cookie.

Remarketing is a tried-and-true method for convincing clients who have left your sales funnel to return and convert.

Facebook remarketing is particularly effective due to the granularity of the available targeting and tracking data.

By focusing on certain people who have taken specified behaviors, Meta Pixel allows you to:

• Reiterate your message to visitors on selected pages.
• Display tailored advertisements to bouncing visitors.
• Upsell and cross-sell new products to previous customers.
• Encourage site visitors to find out more or make a purchase.

Facebook Lookalike Audiences

Creating lookalike audiences based on your current email list, website traffic, or client base is a worthwhile B2B marketing strategy.

A lookalike audience is a personalized advertising audience that can be utilized to target individuals that resemble your existing customers.

Facebook’s advertising engine examines an existing audience, determines its essential traits (behavior and interests), and then discovers comparable audiences with the same attributes.

You may combine Lookalike Audiences with other ad targeting factors, such as age and gender or interests and behaviors.

This ad targeting is especially effective since people in a Lookalike Audience are more likely to interact with your content than the wider public. The platform stores a large quantity of information on its users, which may be helpful for targeting advertisements.

Competitor Targeting

Few solutions will enable you to seek your competitors’ audiences. Facebook is no different. However, while you cannot target supporters of other companies on Facebook, you can target people who have demonstrated an interest in certain brands.

This information is based on self-reported data and may be out of date, depending on the last time a user changed their settings.

Nonetheless, particularly when used at scale, this may be a successful technique for acquiring highly qualified customers.

By developing a bespoke audience of individuals interested in 20 or more well-known companies, you can instantly reach thousands of potential consumers without having to pay fees for these audience profiles.

Psychographic Targeting

The targeting options of Facebook extend well beyond demographics.

The ability of demographics alone to forecast a person’s lifestyle or buying requirements is diminishing.

For instance, not all millennials have substantial student loan debt or a lifestyle consistent with a low discretionary income.

Facebook’s targeting features are based on a vast array of lifestyle traits, including interests, life events, activities, and hobbies.

This enables more precise targeting and ensures that the same behavioral parameters are used throughout the marketing channel mix by connecting digital strategy with offline methods.

Putting it all together: B2B Facebook Marketing Campaigns you should be running

There are several approaches to Facebook advertising. They provide several advertising campaign templates. Facebook also enables you to promote your posts so that they appear in the news feeds of your intended audience.

Here are the three fundamental Facebook marketing campaigns that we believe every B2B company should run:

Brand Awareness

Facebook provides an excellent chance to increase brand recognition. Not just because so many people use Facebook and Instagram every day but also because they may display your advertisements to those who are more likely to recall your brand.

Get in Front of People

Facebook has 2.32 billion active monthly users at the end of 2018 – that is not 2.32 billion inactive profiles but active users. This offers an enormous avenue via which your brand may expand.

Optimize for Brand Recall

Facebook employs a statistic referred to as ad recall lift. This optimization sends your advertisement to the audience that Facebook believes would recall viewing it if questioned within 48 hours. How is this determined? A mixture of user behavior and surveying.

Facebook asks users whether they recall viewing certain advertisements. In addition, they use machine learning to analyze how consumers now engage with your business and with other companies on Facebook.

Collect Data

Finally, a brand awareness campaign permits the collection of data. Facebook’s ad analytics allow you to understand who remembers your advertisement, who is clicking, and who likes your page. This is vital information that you can obtain quite inexpensively while also marketing your business.

How to Run a Brand Awareness Campaign

• Start broad: You should wait to restrict your reach until you already have a very targeted audience that would be interested in your business. This isn’t to say you shouldn’t create criteria, but don’t start by targeting folks within 10 miles of you who wear Versace, own a cat, and often visit boating-related websites.
• Use Visuals: People will be drawn to visuals and pictures rather than a wall of words. Sure, you have a lot to say about who you are but don’t overburden people. A good visual or intriguing video advertisement will create an indelible impact.

Lead Generation

Facebook advertising may not only increase brand recognition, but it can also generate leads. In other words, convert brand-aware individuals into leads.

Narrow Your Audience

As stated before, Facebook’s targeting tools are effective. Once you understand your target audience, you may restrict your focus by demographics, hobbies, and behavior. This helps you better target your advertising budget and test ideas and assumptions about who is most likely to engage with your brand.

Offer Valuable Content

Now that increasing awareness is not your only objective, it’s time to provide something of value. The use of downloadable material is a fantastic lead-generation strategy.

Consider phrases like “A Free Call to Discuss XYZ” or “A Downloadable Guide to X.” Getting individuals into your funnel is the objective here. It’s time to nurture them after you’ve learned from them.

Nurture Leads

Advertising on Facebook also allows you to nurture leads through remarketing and retargeting campaigns.

Remarketing with Facebook

Facebook provides several targeting choices for those who have previously engaged with your company. You may display advertisements to those who have visited your website, liked your Facebook page, or attended your event.

Installing a Meta Pixel on your website is necessary for remarketing based on your website. Learn how to do that here.

Remind Visitors About Your Brand

Facebook offers an excellent opportunity to remind users of your brand. If you’re in a profession that isn’t necessarily required year-round by every individual, it’s crucial to maintain brand recognition using B2B advertising.

For instance, if you are a lawyer, people would likely only consider you when they need your services. Perhaps they will use Google, but if they have been effectively advertised on Facebook, they already know whom to contact.

Offer Bottom of Funnel Content

When obtaining leads, you may provide basic instructional information, but you must provide a call to action when nurturing them. If someone is aware of you and interested in what you provide, you must convince them that you are their best choice.

This may be accomplished via case studies, price comparisons, and product websites. Send them to high-value websites or provide them with downloadable information.

Next Steps

Facebook has fundamentally altered our social lives over the last decade. It enables us to connect with friends in a novel way, sometimes resulting in encounters with brands and businesses we never would have anticipated.

Facebook also provides the appropriate tools to reach your target consumers, enabling detailed and comprehensive ad targeting and, most crucially, scaling up for effective outreach.

The advantages of this kind of advertising are not limited to B2C firms; there is a world of opportunity for B2B brands. The insights mentioned above on B2B marketing on Facebook can help you access it.

If you want to utilize Facebook for B2B marketing, the above ideas may help you develop an effective Facebook B2B marketing strategy.