“Should B2Bs use Facebook?” is a common question I come across both online and from clients. B2B – or ‘business to business’ – companies are usually the most hesitant to invest in Facebook, and indeed social media, due to not knowing if there is value in it for their business model.
If you are a B2B asking “should B2Bs use Facebook?” then I would ask you one very simple question in response:
“Who is your target market?”
If you can’t answer this, then you have a lot more problems than deciding whether to use Facebook or not.
If you can answer this, then you’re well on the road to figuring out if Facebook will work for your B2B business.
The biggest indicator to working out if Facebook will work for your B2B business is by analysing what value you can bring to your target audience. Facebook is a two-way communication platform, if you can’t engage in direct conversion with your target audience via the platform and offer them something they can’t get somewhere else, then investing time, money and energy in establishing yourself on Facebook will be a fruitless venture.
You need to know what content your target audience wants from you and how they use Facebook.
Your target audience may all use Facebook, every single one of them, but are they using it only for personal use? If they keep Facebook strictly for friend interactions, then no matter how many of your posts hits a need – your target audience still won’t engage.
There is no set formula to Facebook success, in fact, given the high saturation and ever-changing algorithms making it increasingly hard to reach people organically, failure or minimal success is usually the outcome for most businesses.
Those who do see success know the following:
• Who their target audience is
• What platforms their target audience is using
• How their target audience are using those platforms, and
• Why their target audience would make the decision to engage with them on those platforms
To help you work out if your B2B should use Facebook, I’ve created the below graphic for you.
I hope that answers the question “Should B2Bs use Facebook?”! If you have any more questions, would like some help or advice on using Facebook or social media, please feel free to comment below or contact me.