I subscribe to the Mequoda Daily, an online publishers newsletter. Recently I read the following article, "Increasing website traffic by wasting less time on social networks that aren't right for your business model". I found it to be a good reflection of my own observations and intuition and so I'd like to share it with my fellow Waveguide readers. I could have tweeted it but according to this article, social media use among professionals still has a way to go. And since the number of my followers is much less than our Waveguide distribution list, I'll pass along this article the "old school" way. Happy reading. - David Vye
LinkedIn Groups are essential to any B2B social media strategy. While the B2C companies are yelling “Facebook!” from the rooftops, B2B companies would be more wise to head in their own business-oriented direction.
This is not to say the B2B companies cannot garner a following on Facebook. However, here are the common problems with the results that B2B companies see from Facebook:
1. The "fans" they are getting are not their target audience; they are a consumer audience, the ones that don't buy.
2. Their target audience does not like to mix personal with business, and therefore don't want business articles and ideas showing up in their everyday feed, which is what happens when they "like" the B2B company.
This is not to say that a B2B company should not value their fans and followers on every network. The more people that share your content, the more eyes it is in front of. The faith you have in social media is that eventually it will get in front of the person you want. So no matter what, sharing is good, no matter the network.
However, for a more tactical approach with more worth-while results, it only makes sense to work within a social network that is completely business-oriented. This social network is LinkedIn.
What LinkedIn lacks over Facebook is that—in terms of numbers—it does not have the every day attention the way that Facebook does. However, the largest percentage of active Facebook users (29 percent) are between the ages of 18 and 25. However, with LinkedIn, its largest percentage of active users are aged 35 to 44 and then 45-54.
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The most social area of LinkedIn is LinkedIn Groups. This is where people can join niche discussion forums and communicate with each other even when they are not first-hand "contacts". There are several benefits to being active in LinkedIn Groups:
1. Creating a group will allow you to message members of your group, pretty much whenever you want. Remember that just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. Be tactful.
2. Being a member of a group will also allow you to message members of the group, so long as the moderator allows you to message them. You probably should not make a habit of spamming people though.
3. Members are emailed updates of conversations they are a part of, and also of discussions that are hot in the group. If you are contributing a lot, people will start to familiarize themselves with your name and your expertise.
4. Being an active member of a group will grow your network, as they begin to see you as an expert in your niche.
5. When posting in discussions, you can try answering questions by including a link to articles you’ve written or white papers you have releases, so long as they answer the question.
By being an active member in any LinkedIn group and acting favorably, you will attract people to yourself and to your website so that they can learn more about you and the content you produce.
The great thing about LinkedIn is that there are so many people just like you on the network. The bad thing about LinkedIn is that… there are so many people just like you on the network. Your usual marketing techniques are not going to work on other marketers, for example.
In terms of getting a return on your time investment, LinkedIn is much more likely to create a new contact, get a new lead, or get a valuable email subscriber on your list than Facebook or another B2C network. Try actively participating on LinkedIn for a month and let me know your results!
Microwave Journal has established a group known as the RF and Microwave Community. We have around 4,500 working microwave professionals in engineering, management, sales and marketing. I hope any of you who are not members yet, take this opportunity to join us (it's free) and tap into this resource of information and networking bananza.