Tag Archive for: B2B PR Agency

SOCIAL MEDIA ADVICE FOR B2B COMPANIES

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Social media marketing is pretty vital to every company, but it’s easier for some than it is others. Marketing plans can be particularly tricky to navigate at the best of times, so we’re here with some social media advice for B2B companies from The Source team. We have a wealth of experience in B2B PR support, which includes content marketing, social media and media relations and from that experience, here’s what we recommend.

Top Social Media Advice For B2B Companies

Click on the links below to jump to specific social media advice for B2B companies…

  1. Find the right social media platforms
  2. Utilise industry news
  3. Remember that people like people
  4. Keep things interesting
  5. Leverage appropriate hashtags
  6. Don’t underestimate Facebook groups

Find The Right Social Media Platforms

Not every platform will work for every company, that goes for B2C industries as well as B2B. For example, TikTok marketing is a great opportunity for brands with a visual appeal, such as tourism providers, wedding dress manufacturers and cosmetic companies. Other platforms, such as LinkedIn, work much better for B2B marketing, especially for service products such as CRM software, for example. There’s no one way to decide which social media platform will work best for your B2B company, so the best way to approach is through trial and error. See which types of content get the most engagement, and where. Traditionally, though, we’d match the following top platforms to the following sectors..

  • Instagram – mainly B2C, with opportunities for B2B
  • Twitter – mainly B2B, with opportunities for B2C
  • Facebook – both B2C and B2B
  • TikTok – mainly B2C, with opportunities for B2B
  • LinkedIn – mainly B2B
  • Pinterest – mainly B2C

So, if you’re heading a B2B company and want to give social a go, it’s worth dipping your toe in the water with LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and potentially Instagram and TikTok also. We have some more social media advice on what kind of content to focus on below.

Utilise Industry News

You shouldn’t be content curating all of your posts, as most of your audience will be following your accounts because they want to hear from you, however, utilising relevant industry news in posts is a good way of keeping your audience informed of relevant and interesting developments. It keeps you abreast with your sector and positions you as an expert in that field, furthermore, it creates a good mix of content to keep your strategy fresh and current. We’d recommend around an 80:20 ratio of curated to original content, but don’t be afraid to mix this up week on week.

People Like People

As we mentioned above, people like people. Though you’re selling ‘business to business’, there’s still a person behind that brand at either end. A study by Princeton University proposed the stereotype model, which boils down to the fact that people judge others on their warmth and competence. The more ‘friendly’ you appear, the more likely people are to trust you – this applies to your social media followers too. Though it’s important to draw a line and remain professional, it’s also a good idea to be conversational in your content and help build trust in your brand. Harvard psychologist Amy Cuddy says it’s important to demonstrate warmth first and then competence, especially in business settings. A lot of effective social media marketing begins with an understanding of human psychology.

Keep Things Interesting

It’s a common misconception that B2B communications have to be stiff and corporate, try injecting a light tone of voice into your content or experimenting with light-hearted competitions for engagement. With one of our B2B clients Altecnic, they ran a 12 days of Christmas giveaway which included a daily video of their Technical Manager dressed as Santa. You need to remember that your audience is human and keeping things engaging is a sure way of retaining engagement and growing following. If there’s a certain lull, never underestimate the power of a social media giveaway either, no matter your industry.

Social media advice for B2B companies: competitions

Leverage The Right Hashtags

Researching into hashtags is never time wasted. You can now use hashtags in your posts across LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter and more recently, Facebook. One of our B2B clients frequents the ‘#PlumbersHour’ hashtag because this is where their core audience is. Hashtags are often followed by those interested in that kind of content, so if you have a specific audience of your B2B brand, then find out what the kind of conversations that they’re already in, and join in. You can discover hashtags through researching related terms on Instagram and Twitter, and also by looking at what other influential accounts are tapping in to.

Don’t Underestimate Facebook Groups

Finally, our last piece of social media advice for B2B companies is not to underestimate the power of a Facebook group. Similarly, to leveraging hashtags, Facebook groups can be a great way to find your audiences. In 2019, Facebook announced that Facebook says there “are more than 400 million people in groups that they find meaningful”, meaning there’s a huge potential audience if you know where to look. Start by searching keywords on Facebook that are relevant to your brand for example “food manufacturing”, “plumbing” or “health and safety”.

 

For more advice and support for B2B PR, social media, content marketing and more, please get in touch with our friendly and experienced team through our website. Or, you can keep up to date with what The Source is up to on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram.

5 SOCIAL MEDIA TIPS TO KEEP YOUR ENGAGEMENT UP

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Plunged into the second England-wide lockdown of 2020, it’s imperative that communications are continued on social media. Remaining vocal not only reassures customers, but it also keeps a brand at the forefront of their mind. When a company has something to sell through lockdown, even better. You can read our blog from the first lockdown on the importance of continuing your marketing efforts by clicking here.

Below, our social media experts at The Source have gotten their heads together and put together some helpful social media tips to keep your engagement up. The kind of advice that focuses on quality engagement, as opposed to vanity metrics and big numbers. After all, it’s better to have 10 interactions from users with purchase intent, than 100 people who’ll just scroll on without a second thought.

Five Social Media Tips For Good Engagement

Don’t Sleep On Boosted Posts

Don’t have the money for a paid ad campaign on Facebook right now? Don’t worry. Boosted posts are a great way to get around this, as you can push specific content out to a certain, refined audience (that you build yourself). You won’t find yourself paying out big budgets for this either. If you have something particular to push over a short period of time, such as last-minute room availability in a hotel, or an offer linked to an upcoming holiday (Bonfire Night, for example), then a boosted post may be the ideal cost-effective solution for you. Pre-lockdown, we boosted a Facebook post for one of our clients in the hospitality sector and for just £30, over the course of 7 days the campaign returned over 100 targeted website link clicks, as well as a reach of nearly 7000 people. That’s around a 30p cost per click and 0.04p per eyeball. You can find out more about the ins and out of boosting posts on Facebook’s help page.

Social media tips - boosted posts on Facebook

Promote On Other Platforms

When it comes to boosted posts, the usual go-to is Facebook – but the same advice can be used on Instagram too, which has a boosted post function that works alongside Facebook (due to their ownership of the platform). This means it’s super easy to do. One that’s often not mentioned in social media tips, but one that’s well worth considering… LinkedIn. Their sponsor function is a little trickier to get to grips with, with extremely specific audience filters that can provide a reach anywhere from hundreds to millions of users – but once you do get a hang of the process, it’s a great way for clients to reach the audience that are exactly right for them. Despite it being a little more costly (a daily sponsored post must be £8.00 minimum), LinkedIn was designed with B2B companies in mind, so if your clients are aiming to reach businesses and business owners, it’s well worth the investment.

Hashtag Phrases, Not Words

You can get a lot of engagement out of hashtags on Twitter in particular, but one of the best approaches (due to character limit) is to focus on phrases as opposed to single words. The reason for this, is that if someone is wanting to find out information about marketing, for example, then it’s easy enough for them to simply type the word ‘marketing’ into the search bar. Whether you’ve hashtag-ged in the post or not, as long as you’ve used the right keyword, your tweet will still be filed there. Hashtags that consist of multiple words or slogans usually get better engagement as they’re related to specific search patterns. The best tactic to use is to jump on the hashtags that are trending, wherever they’re relevant to your brand. For example, if you work with a client that produces cakes or baking ingredients, then rather than using characters up to hashtag #cake, why not wait until a Tuesday and start up a conversation around the Great British Bake Off? Use the hashtags #GreatBritishBakeOff or #GBBO which are usually trending in the UK between around 7pm-10pm on a Tuesday evening (when GBBO is on TV, that is). Another tip when it comes to hashtags, is capitalising each word to make it easier to read, for example you should say #ShopLocal instead of #shoplocal.

Tap In To New Industries

Crossing over to new industries is a great way to build your following up and widen your exposure. If your business is in food sauces, for example, try linking your content in to relate to restaurants or cafes, as opposed to keeping it really niche. This way, your business is available to a much bigger audience – but as those restaurant owners might want to purchase your sauces in the future – it’s a relevant audience too. One of the best ways to reach these new sectors is to share insights and relevant content. Get a Feedly stream going that includes trade publications for the industries you’re hoping to target so you can reshare their content, and don’t miss appropriate hashtags too, especially on Twitter and LinkedIn. They can help make sure you’re reaching the right people.

Try New Things

Lastly, another great social media tip to keep up the momentum with your social media is to experiment and try new things. A/B testing is an excellent method to trial different kinds of content, and you’ll likely find a tactic that works really well for your business. Every brand is different so it’s imperative you find what suits yours best. You could also try different platforms to see what works well for you. You might have traditionally always used Facebook and Instagram, but how about LinkedIn to reach a more corporate audience? Or, if you’re feeling particularly adventurous, TikTok marketing is very new and upcoming and the reach can be insane. You can check out an example here of a local estate agents who’re using TikTok to showcase the homes they have for sale, and average reach is around 20k views with some videos reaching over 900k impressions.

Social media tips - use TikTok

Credit: Social Films

For more social media advice, along with PR and marketing insights too, be sure to keep a close eye on our blog. Or, to keep up with what we’re doing on social – you can find us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram.

9 WAYS TO GENERATE PR FOR SMALL BUSINESSES & SMES

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Getting publicity for your business, especially in times such as these, is important. A sound PR strategy can help to increase your leads, boost your sales, widen your consumer base and also improve your overall brand awareness. If you’re a small business or SME (turnover of around £1.5m+) it’s important to communicate with your stakeholders and spread the visibility of your brand, so you can turn your SME into a larger scale operation. Chances are, you won’t have a fully-fledged internal PR team to guide your strategies, you might be looking for a PR agency to support your organisation, but until then, we’ve put together 8 easy tips around how to get PR for small businesses and SMEs…

Why Bother With PR For Small Businesses & SMEs?

But first, PR (Public Relations) is the function of protecting and improving your brand visibility and reputation.

Not only does it work in safeguarding your brand against any public backlash and handling your communication strategies in a crisis, but a great PR strategy will also help to grow your reputation and make your business name more recognisable amongst your target audience.

This can be through growing your social media following or generating awareness of your business in relevant media outlets – both of these, along with other PR tactics, work to an overall aim of making your small business name more recognisable. They include:

We will touch on them further below.

Some very large organisations may have an in-house PR and marketing team, others, as well as SMEs and smaller businesses, may utilise the support of a PR agency, like ours.

9 Ways To Generate PR For Small Businesses & SMEs

There are a number of ways in which you can generate media attention and publicity for any brand, we have covered them here. With smaller organisations, you may have to work a little harder to get your name out there – there will likely be some degree of competition no matter what industry you’re in, so you need to make your brand memorable.

From our years of experience in PR and Marketing, here’s 8 ideas we would recommend you test to generate PR for your small business

1. First, plan

Know what you want to say and mostly importantly – to whom. What are your USPs, strengths and benefits? How do you want people to see your business? This vital planning will help shape your communications that can be consistently delivered via a number of channels, be it media, social or online.

2. Turn your business stories into news

If you’ve done something amazing as a business, turn it into news and let everyone know about it. For example, if you’re supporting a cause this can help to strengthen your reputation and position you as a responsible business if you spread the word. Likewise, trade titles are often interested in appointments of senior staff. You may be surprised at what makes a good PR story. Start by publishing information on social media, and then perhaps get in touch with the local papers with a press release, to see if they’d like to write about you.

3. Be chatty on social media

One of the best ways to build your brand reputation is to maintain an active voice on social media. PR covers online presence as well as getting media coverage in print, making sure you’re putting out great content on relevant channels and engaging with your customers is a key PR tip for small businesses and SMEs.

4. Communicate consistently

Even in hard times such as the Coronavirus outbreak, it’s important to keep communicating with your consumers. Don’t let them forget about you, and then turn to your competitors instead. As a business, a loyal consumer base is vital so ensure that you remain a consistent flow of communication through avenues such as social media, media appearances, email marketing and so on.

5. Be friendly with journalists

Even if you have no news to share, you can still get PR coverage for your small business or medium enterprise by remaining friendly with journalists; they might be looking for a business to feature in a round up piece – and could opt to use you if you’re on their radar. This tip is better matched with a PR agency, who will have a large database of journalists that they have built.

6. Make use of PPC & social ads

It’s worth considering PPC and social media advertising in your strategy, a great way to generate guaranteed exposure of your organisation. You’ll need to read up on the best keywords to target and then make sure you’re utilising the channels that your target audience frequent the most, but as with any other step, it’s important to remain consistently visible.

7. Consider influencer marketing

Working with influencers is still a viable way of generating PR for your brand, influencers are often trusted sources of information, with around half of Gen Z and millennials saying they trust their opinions. Create a database of reliable accounts and negotiate with them to promote your product or service.

8. Support charities & the local community

Everybody loves a good, positive story… So, make one. You can generate PR for small businesses, SMEs and multi-million-pound businesses by working with and supporting local charities and your community. Whether this is through fundraising, sponsorship or perhaps providing free goods and services to worthy causes. Doing fantastic things is a sure-fire way to achieve regional PR coverage for your small business at the very least.

9. Track & share your coverage

Most importantly, it’s crucial to track any PR coverage you might have achieved and share this to further strengthen your brand’s reputation. If you’re finding it hard to place where your brand might have been covered, you can set up Google Alerts for the name of your business. Be sure to share coverage on the relevant social media channels to further reinforce the integrity of your brand.

If you’re in need of further PR support, then why not arrange a free consultation with us to see how we can help strengthen your reputation and grow your brand. The Source PR is a PR Agency in Cheshire, North West, with over a decade of experience in supporting SMEs to larger corporations with PR, social media, marketing, SEO and more.

PR-ING THROUGH CORONAVIRUS: SMALL BUSINESS HELP AND ADVICE

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Coronavirus has caused truly extraordinary times, the UK – as well as several other countries – is currently on a lockdown. The first of its time.

Travel has been limited to all but essential movement, many businesses (such as restaurants, non-essential retail stores and gyms) have been forced to close their doors for the foreseeable future and the healthcare industry is under perhaps its biggest strain that this generation has ever seen. Because of current climate, we can’t shy away from the fact that many businesses are struggling. Whether you’ve had to temporarily cease trading altogether, or whether your customers are less inclined to part with their money due to the uncertainty at the moment – either way most organisations are feeling the pinch one way or another.

It’s not all bad news, however.

Though the current economic climate is bleak, and though many are struggling, we have also been given the gift of something that we wouldn’t normally have: time.

Now is not the time for radio silence, now is the time to be strengthening your brand message, communicating effectively and giving back to the community wherever you’re able. Whilst some brands have taken the stance of radio silence as the Coronavirus epidemic plays out, many others have adjusted and reacted to the current climate, and have been in a better position for it.

You have time to work on your strategies, to work on your brand position and to ensure that when this comes to pass, your business will emerge bigger and better than ever before.

If you’re a small business or an SME and struggling, there are a number of ways you can help yourself during this pandemic.

Small Business Coronavirus Help: How To Support Yourself

The government has already introduced revolutionary support for small businesses. Initiatives include a small business grant funding of £10,000 for all business in receipt of small business rate relief or rural rate relief, grant funding of £25,000 for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses with property with a rateable value between £15,000 and £51,000. This is as well as the job retention scheme put in place.

While this might be a short-term solution to an otherwise unnerving situation, it’s also crucial for small businesses to think about their long-term plans too.

Below, we’ve racked our PR, Social Media and Marketing brains together to bring you the very best advice on how your business can survive through Coronavirus; how to keep marching on through these uncertain times and how to effectively retain your brand image and position.

Don’t Give Up On Your Team

First and foremost, you need to trust your team.

Unlike many business crises, we’re all in this together and there are many businesses from various industries that are all feeling the strain that Coronavirus has brought about. In most business cases, your team will be instrumental to your survival during this period, so before adjusting your business strategies, you should be providing your team with the technology and support needed to undertake their work and trust that they will continue to deliver remotely.

Trust opens the door to productivity; the more you give, the more you get back.

Keep On Communicating

Effective communication has never been more important.

You should be keeping your communication channels open. You may appear closed to the outside world but it’s important to share the business’s contingencies, its plans and any changes in service. Share your successes or small wins and remember your customers and stakeholders are interested in people-centric stories, as well as positive outcomes in otherwise difficult circumstances.

There’s a strong demand in the media for any positive news amidst all this negativity, so if your business has something good to share this might be a good way of spreading your news further afield and making sure that people are still engaged with your brand.

Adding to this, there’s a new sense of community re-emerging – if your business has changed how it operates or is supporting others, such as pubs offering delivery services to those in need, make sure you share this. Social media usage has increased by 22% since lockdown and provides an excellent community engagement tool which may prove beneficial in the longer term.

Though you may not be trading at the moment, it’s important not to lose momentum. Make sure people still remember who your business is, what you do. Whether this is by maintaining an active social media presence, writing blogs for your website or even appearing in the news – don’t let people forget you if you want to continue to operate a successful business when this storm has passed.

Adapt And Evolve With The Climate

If your business can accommodate it, adaptability is important right now.

Under new government restrictions, many businesses can no longer trade as usual. Is there a way you can overcome this, and support your community too? For example, many restaurants are now offering takeaways and are giving out free meals whilst they do so, which is great in strengthening the business’ Corporate Social Reputation.

Could you keep your cashflow afloat by encouraging your stakeholders to purchase vouchers from you that can be redeemed at a later date?

Other examples of how companies may adapt during the Coronavirus period is by taking advantage of the technology we have at our disposal.

Could you give your consumers a digital version of your product or service to retain your custom? Some housebuilders are now operating fully online house viewings, whilst organisations such as Chester Zoo are livestreaming a day at the zoo on Facebook to the masses.

If your business can think of a quirky and imaginative way to stay relevant, it will almost certainly survive this uncertain period.

Create A Contingency Plan – Prepare For The Future

Plan for your future, because if you adopt the right attitude, there almost certainly will be one.

Can you create a contingency plan for your business?

Though there are so many things uncertain at the moment, if you can begin to strategize and plan your bounce-back for when this comes to pass, you’ll be in a more favourable position when the market reopens once more. Make sure you’re well prepared.

Whilst we all have extra time on our hands, we can make the most of this: working on our websites, our SEOs, or even developing social media or PR strategies.

The most important thing to add to your contingency plan, for now and for the future, is a plan that sees your business remaining adept in its industry. Make sure that people don’t forget your brand. Whether this is by thinking of a new and imaginative way to run your business (such as the examples above), or whether it’s just making sure you upkeep a strong media presence. If your company steps into the shadows during this period, it’ll be much harder for it to re-emerge when it’s over.

Also, be prepared for radical change once more when lockdown is over and when the virus dissipates. When you can reopen your doors again, you’ll almost certainly be met with a different audience than the one you’ve come to know. After recovering from the most governed period of their lives, there’s no doubt that people will be more appreciative. They’ll want to explore more, they’ll want to travel more, they’ll want to eat out more and they’ll want to buy more things.

We’ll have a more spontaneous and obligated population on our hands, so make sure your business is prepared to accommodate them.

Do you need PR, Marketing or Social Media support for your business? Either in handling the Coronavirus outbreak, or preparing for when it’s over? Call us for a free, confidential assessment of your situation on 01829 720 789 or email louis@sourcepr.co.uk.

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HOW DARING DOES IT PAY TO BE WITH YOUR ADVERTISING?

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It’s no secret that it’s very hard to make adverts effective if they’re being broadcasted to a really wide audience, for your advertisement to be totally effective, it needs to be able to attract and maintain attention long enough for that engagement to be transferrable.

So how do you make something worth somebody’s time? How do you make your marketing more memorable than the rest?

Daring Advertising Done Right

One way to snatch the attention of your audience was demonstrated perfectly recently by City to Sea, a brand devoted to bettering the way us humans treat the environment. First seen in cinemas just last week,  it draws attention to the environmental issue of flushing non-degradable wet wipes down the toilet. Totally impolite and boldly unapologetic, the ad was centered around an asterix that proclaimed itself “a talking assh*le”.

“Be A Good Assh*le” was its ultimate message. And what a good message it was!

Although climate change is finally getting a lot more airtime and attention, we still don’t doubt that if the advert wasn’t so impudent and surprising, it probably wouldn’t have been as recognised as it is. But, because of the crudeness, and because of the unaccustomed nature of its content, this cinema ad has exceeded expectations… Sparking debate far further than the cinema seats of its viewers. Already, talk has begun on social media – which is only spreading the message wider and wider.

Ultimately, caring for the environment is a really important message. We’re really glad to see that this brand took a risk to promote the message that flushing wipes down the loo that aren’t degradable is really, really bad for the environment. 

You can’t deny that the risk they took really did pay off.

Daring advertising - City to Sea be a good assh*le

Their message was frank and impenitent – is this the best way to be?

Is Taboo Advertising The Way Forward?

We cant deny that the intrepid nature of the “Be A Good Assh*le” advert worked a treat in this circumstance. It’s reportedly had audiences in fits laughter and has sparked a good old conversation on Twitter.

However, is this a tactic all brands should adopt as we move forward in a world that’s ever less-receptive to advertising? One that’s always demanding originality and creativity?

Well, as with anything, we’d say that this is certainly a method that cannot be overdone. Much like a lot of things, if you use this one time and time again, it’ll decline in effectiveness. The be-all and end-all is that this advert was surprising, and it had the shock-factor. If you try and use it as inspiration for your own content, it’ll likely not have the same effect the second time round.

Not that this is the first time anyone’s ever sworn in an advertisement, mind. It’s just the first time we’ve seen it done with such brashness in a long time.

Furthermore, being taboo doesn’t sit well with everyone. We’d be inclined to believe there’d be a large proportion of the population who wouldn’t appreciate this kind of thing, who would see it as crass and inappropriate. As with any time you’re bold and daring with your marketing, you’d definitely be taking a risk to deploy this idea. There are some brands this kind of marketing simply wouldn’t gel with, for sure. You need a brand that’s really quirky, unique and quite unapologetic. For example, we could imagine brands such as  Innocent Smoothies and Ben & Jerry’s rolling with this kind of advertising and it working, other more luxury brands, such as Harrod’s for example, we couldn’t.

Here at The Source, we represent a wide range of brands from both B2B industries and B2C. For some of our clients, this idea wouldn’t work for them because it doesn’t suit their brand at all, for others, it might just.

This being said, for any brand, the message learned is that creativity always wins. The best ideas are those that are rooted within, and that aren’t necessarily taken from others.

This post originally appeared on, Jessica Pardoe – one of our PR Executive’s – blogs. You can find that post here.

Tag Archive for: B2B PR Agency