Jump to section Overview This blog post is part of Brighttail’s three-part series about Social Media Marketing for B2B companies. Other posts in this series are “The Business Case for B2B Social Media Marketing” and “How to Create a Social Media Strategy for Your Atlassian App.” The Idea Step 1: Include social media as part of overall marketing efforts.Step 2: Post content on social channels.Step 3: Watch follower count and engagement rates increase.Step 4: Repeat steps 2 and 3. If only it were that simple. The reality is that social media marketing isn’t as easy as it looks. A lot of B2B brands struggle to build their social followings beyond double and triple digits. Part of the problem is the consistent decline in organic post reach on Facebook and other platforms. Did you know that posts on your Facebook page are typically shown to less than 2% of your followers? This makes it especially difficult to grow your channel, if you have a small following. So, how do you build a robust following when your channel is so small and your content only reaches a fraction of your followers? First, you should ensure that you have an effective social media strategy in place. Next, you can use some of the hacks below to build your channels and take your Atlassian social media marketing efforts to the next level. Social Media Hacks for LinkedIn If LinkedIn was a dress code, it’d probably be formal with a touch of smart casual. It’s a professional networking and career development platform. And SaaS companies like yours can leverage it to establish authority within your niche and build partnerships with other thought leaders. Hack 1: Use “Invite Connections” Tool to Build Your Following If you’ve just created a business page, the next step is to get followers. This is where LinkedIn’s “Invite connections” feature comes in handy. Use it to invite your personal connections to follow and grow your business page’s social following and brand presence. Invite your personal connections to easily build your business page following on LinkedIn. (source) Backstory “Invite connections” was used for a couple of years back but was withdrawn once users started complaining of being flooded with page invites. Fortunately, the feature is now back with spam-fighting improvements. One of them is that you can only send company page invites to 50 new people per session. This means your business page invites have a better chance of not appearing spammy. While you’re at it, consider joining LinkedIn Groups that are related to your industry. It’s another great way to build and nurture connections. Joining LinkedIn’s Atlassian Jira group is a must for businesses in the Atlassian ecosystem. Hack 2: Include Your Opinion When Sharing Posts LinkedIn is where industry thought leaders come together and share expert opinions with each other. So, share industry news and blog posts with related hashtags to steadily grow awareness of your brand and establish credibility with your followers. Take a leaf out of Atlassian’s book and share important blogs and news related to your industry. If you’re sharing posts from your personal LinkedIn profile, include your own opinion to the post for enhanced authenticity. Stephen Walsh, the founder of Anders Pink — a content curation tool — shares a post by including his own opinion. Take it up a notch by tagging your prospects or followers when you’re sharing a post to get the conversation going, especially if you’ve discussed the particular topic before with them. This is known as social selling, whereby you steadily provide value to your prospects to support them throughout their buying process. Hack 3: Make One Complete Round-Trip Let’s go back to social selling. No doubt that it helps to build rapport with your prospects and move them along the buyer’s journey. But how do you know when to move to the next sales step? A best practice is to allow at least one complete round-trip of information exchange before you start selling your solution. This way you’re fostering authentic connections with your prospects and positioning your brand as the go-to value provider when they face challenges and need information. Social shouldn’t short-circuit your sale cycle. Laz Gonzalez, Chief Strategy Officer of Zift Solutions Hack 4: Repurpose Long-Form Content into a LinkedIn Document Do you have a valuable piece of content for your audience, but it’s long? Leverage LinkedIn’s Document format to repurpose long-from content and share the most important information. At Brighttail, we regularly share important content about all things marketing in this format. Our followers (and future followers) are able to quickly learn about the latest marketing best practices and insights. LinkedIn Document works exceptionally well for repurposing long-form content into bite-sized snapshots. Social Media Hacks for Twitter If we’re still using that dress code metaphor, then Twitter is probably casual. Twitter is great for showing the genuine, human side of your company. SaaS companies like yours will benefit from forging relatable connections with your followers and prospects. How do you do that? Check out the hacks below. Hack 5: Tweet More According to HubSpot, LinkedIn page users should post at least three times weekly and not more than that to sustain a good engagement rate. But the opposite is true for Twitter. Twitter is a chronological social platform, where more tweets lead to more page visibility. With a short tweet lifetime (a tweet only lasts for about 18 minutes as opposed to LinkedIn’s post lifetime of 48 hours), more tweets bring better brand exposure. Bonus points if you post your tweet by making use of Atlassian’s branded hashtags or other relevant keywords to increase brand awareness. That’s exactly what our client – 6kites did. Not only did they tweet frequently during an event (Adobe MAX 2019), they also used the hashtag #AdobeMAX. With real-time event reporting, their customers had a glimpse of unfiltered business activities. More tweets coupled with appropriate hashtags act as a form of reporting, which can boost brand awareness. Hack 6: Use Twitter to Research Leads Twitter can also be a good research tool. Leverage its Advanced Search tool to look for suitable top-of-funnel prospects. Perhaps your prospects consist of project managers who know all things agile. Search for them through Twitter and then connect with them on LinkedIn. Next, engage with them and supply them with valuable content to move them along the purchasing process. Twitter makes for a great top-of-funnel research tool that can help you identify and connect with prospects on LinkedIn. Hack 7: Use Polls to Engage with Your Audience Supercharge your Twitter engagement strategy by introducing Twitter Polls. It’s a fun way to gauge your followers’ opinions on the questions that you’ve posed. Lost about the type of content your followers want from you? Use Twitter Polls. Want to know how to best improve your solutions and services? Use Twitter Polls. Not only will you engage with your audience, you’ll also forge brand loyalty with your followers when you take their thoughts into consideration. Twitter Polls is a good way to engage with, and collect information from, your followers. Social Media Hacks for Facebook Facebook is a chameleon when it comes to its “dress code.” It can be both formal and casual depending on the type of page you run or group that you participate in. To accelerate your success on Facebook, check out hacks 8 to 11 below. Hack 8: Join Industry-Specific Communities First things first, follow pages that are aligned with your industry; in your case, the Atlassian community. By following and monitoring the page, you can discover the types of content that resonate with your customer base. For example, we’ve noticed that posts with a blend of workplace and lifestyle topics produce a good engagement rate with the Atlassian community followers. An example of an Atlassian Facebook post that was a hit with its followers. Hack 9: Leverage Membership and Mentorship Perks Joining niche communities like Atlassian Jira (a group dedicated to Atlassian Jira users) can also do wonders for your Atlassian app marketing. The key is to not promote your product, but rather offer expert tips and best practices, as demonstrated by the group members below. Engage with fellow group members by offering valuable insights related to your solution in the Atlassian group. But the best part of the Atlassian group is that you can even offer personalized mentorship to Atlassian users. Participating in the mentorship program is just another avenue for your social selling initiatives. Offering mentorship is a more authentic way to build rapport with future prospects. But remember no hard selling of your product. Hack 10: Create Facebook-Only Videos Videos can elevate your Facebook marketing game to the next level. According to Socialbakers, video posts receive 135% greater organic reach compared to photo posts. Customers are demanding to see more video content from their marketers. To optimize video marketing on your Facebook page, create and upload original videos on Facebook. Facebook’s algorithm prioritizes original videos that are uploaded directly to its platform instead of those that are shared from other sources like YouTube. In a 2015 study, Quintly found that native Facebook videos performed four times better than videos from other platforms. Wondering what type of video will work best on your business page? Consider informational ones that explain the challenges that your prospects face and their solutions. Alternatively, entertaining videos can be a hit with your followers and prospects! An example of a fun Atlassian video that entertained and engaged their followers. Hack 11: Customize Your Audience for Ads Facebook is one of the best platforms for your paid ads strategy. But before rolling out your ads, customize your target audience to ensure that your brand is reaching all the right prospects. Most importantly, this enables you to retarget your solution to prospects who’ve already interacted with your business (e.g. followed your page, watched one of your Facebook videos, visited your website etc.) with tailored messaging. Next, level up your paid ads strategy by leveraging Facebook Lookalike Audience. It allows you to target new prospects who’ve never heard of your business but are very similar to your existing audience. Simply key in your source audience (e.g., one of your custom audiences), and Facebook will deliver your ads to prospects who closely match the source audience. Create a lookalike audience to reach prospects beyond the usual behavior targeting. (source) Final Thoughts Always strive to make your Atlassian app social media marketing a win-win situation for you and your followers. Equip them with knowledge that can help build their expertise and thought leadership among their audiences. In return, you’ll be rewarded with your followers’ trust and loyalty. But remember that the social media marketing process is not a sprint, but a marathon. And to win it effectively, you must formulate a solid strategy first. Learn how you can do that and more in our other blog post, “How to Create Social Media Strategy for Atlassian App Vendors.”
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Learn how to win out-of-market buyers with our new book—Buystander Personas.