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MikeRiches
10-10-2013, 06:51 AM
Hi guys,

i am doing some community management work for an online B2B start-up company in the UK and have been looking for a forum or social media channel in which to share content and engage with other businesses. I am currently using LinkedIn and ExploreB2B but would like to find more.

Can anybody help?

Thanks

KristineS
10-10-2013, 01:35 PM
The best answer to your question probably comes from knowledge you already have. What's your target market and where are they online and how do they use social media? Are you looking for businesspeople to whom you can sell a service or companies to whom you can sell a product? There are a lot of variables to be considered before choosing a social media platform.

I can tell you that the business for which I market uses Facebook and is very successful with it. We sell to businesses only, but in a specific industry, and have found Facebook works best for our purposes. I'm not sure it would be the same for you, but you might look into creating a Facebook page and then making sure to connect with those businesses you want to target, if those businesses are on Facebook.

LGCG
10-10-2013, 01:59 PM
I'm surprised to hear Facebook would work for B2B (then again, everyone is on Facebook so I guess it makes sense!).

MikeRiches
10-15-2013, 08:06 AM
Thats a very good point.

Our target markets are Marketing and Advertising professionals and the content strategy we have is not sale lead. This month my goal is link driven so i am looking for as many back links as possible without being to 'spammy'. Our content is thoughtful and engaging and importantly not packed full of SEO. The UKMarketing network have been really good about sharing our content on their blog and through twitter and if anybody knows a similar forum for this kind of distribution it would be very helpful.

Thanks for your replies.

KristineS
10-15-2013, 01:33 PM
I'm surprised to hear Facebook would work for B2B (then again, everyone is on Facebook so I guess it makes sense!).

I don't think Facebook would work for every company that is selling B2B, but in our industry (garment decoration) it works quite well. We did a lot of testing to make a determination about where we should advertise, and for us, Facebook produced results. I'm not sure it would work the same for another type of business or another industry. It really depends on what the target market is I suppose.

MarkFSimmons
10-17-2013, 03:50 PM
I would recommend branching out to Twitter. The conversational nature and ability to "target follow" users is extremely powerful, when done correctly. I'm a fan of Facebook as well, but it can be challenging to make it work successfully. The trick is to figure out what your target audience uses and insert yourself where they are. I use Twitter for my consultancy and find a number of new clients there.

michelle222
10-22-2013, 10:22 AM
Facebook and Twitter are great social media platforms for B2B. You may also consider related forums.

patrickprecisione
10-22-2013, 11:28 AM
I don't think Facebook would work for every company that is selling B2B, but in our industry (garment decoration) it works quite well.

Yeah, that's the thing I noticed about the forum. Alot of people ask "what social network should my business use?" when every business is different so really there's no easy answer.

KristineS
10-23-2013, 01:22 PM
Yeah, that's the thing I noticed about the forum. Alot of people ask "what social network should my business use?" when every business is different so really there's no easy answer.

That's my single biggest pet peeve about social media advice, a lot of the "experts" will say you should be on Facebook or you should be on Twitter and not end their sentence with "if your audience is there". I'm doing some seminars on social media next year, and that's one point I intend to hammer home quite a bit. No social media platform will work for you if your target market isn't there. It doesn't matter how great your content is, or what time of day you post, or how many times you post, if there's no one there to listen, you're wasting your time.

Osprey
11-07-2013, 08:55 PM
the way I did it was to spend 3 weeks on each (twitter, facebook, pinterest, and google +) I spent 1 hour per day engaging with the groups or communities that are appropriate to my industry. Then, I watched to see which referral searches did the best. for my industry, Google + 2x better than the others. Now, I strictly focus on Google+ Twitter (which came in second place) and LinkedIn. I did receive some clicks from the other sites, but it wasn't enough to put more of my "off-business" hours into.

Hope that helps

Broland
11-15-2013, 06:06 AM
There are many out there, a few you might want to check out:
A Place For Entrepreneurs To Share Inspiring Ideas | Inspiration Station | Entrepreneur (http://inspiration.entrepreneur.com)
Storeboard | Business Networking | Internet Marketing | Social Network (http://www.storeboard.com)
https://www.quora.com