Everybody knows that Facebook is popular. It has nearly 500 million users worldwide, 50 per cent of whom log in at least once a day, and around 25 billion pieces of content are shared every month. As previous rivals such as Bebo and MySpace fall into obsolescence, so Facebook becomes ever more dominant. In the UK, 24 million people, around half the adult population, are on Facebook.
However, what relevance does this have to B2B marketers? After all, Facebook is predominantly a consumer space. Most of us know it as a place where we connect with old classmates, cringe at photos of drunken friends and half-heartedly tend to a virtual farm. It hardly seems the ideal location for B2B marketing.
Yet, this is changing. A growing number of B2B marketers are finding ways to use Facebook as an effective marketing platform. It is not for every business, and it is still early days, with many companies tentatively finding their way into this new space. However, if only for the sheer scale of the platform, Facebook is a medium that the serious B2B marketer can not afford to ignore.
Why you should use it?
In one sense, you have little option. Facebook exists, and if you don’t already have a presence on it you soon will. The question is simply whether that presence will be led by you or by someone else. Professor Moira Clark, director of the Henley Centre for Customer Management at Henley Business School, offers the cautionary tale of the leading B2B services company that had omitted to set up a Facebook page. An employee decided to rectify the situation and the page quickly became a magnet for disgruntled employees. The company was forced to remedy the situation by setting up its own official page.
There are, however, more positive reasons for B2B marketers to use Facebook. Many marketers might be surprised by the results of a survey conducted in March 2010 by CloudNine PR. The survey spoke to 300 UK IT decision-makers and asked them what methods they find useful or very useful for keeping up-to-date on IT industry developments. While online publications and IT blogs came out top of the list with 64 per cent and 52 per cent respectively, Facebook was mentioned by 13 per cent.
This suggests that Facebook is more than just a consumer space. As Evan Bailyn, founder of social media marketing agency First Page Sage, points out, “Facebook represents a huge opportunity for businesses because of the fact that businesses are run by people. If used correctly, Facebook can therefore help marketers to close the gap between people’s personal and working lives by communicating with professional contacts on a social platform.”
It can also provide marketers with a vast amount of information about business people on the site. “One of Facebook’s attractions for marketers is the wealth of personal information available,” says Darren James, partner at marketing agency TDA. “B2B practitioners can identify people based on where, what and when they studied, the industry sector they work in, their job title, as well as their age, marital status and whether they have children. This depth of personal information has traditionally eluded B2B marketers, but it’s all there on Facebook.”
Stephen Haines, UK commercial Director at Facebook comments, “Facebook isn’t just a platform for consumer marketing, there are thousands of people using its tools to reach a business audience. As well as building pages and using status updates, they are using Facebook ads to drive traffic. The targeting tool enables them to reach people using the information they list on their profile, such as age, location, workplace, interests, education and likes.”
Who is using it?
There are plenty of B2B companies that have recognised this potential and are active on Facebook. One of the most famous is Cisco, which operates 79 different Facebook pages and clearly sees it as a key part of its marketing and communications strategy.
Andy Pearce, CEO at teleconferencing provider Powwownow, says, “We have found that Facebook does have potential for B2B marketers – you just have to find a way to use it that works for you. So we use it to raise awareness of our brand, drive traffic to our blog, Twitter profiles and ultimately to our website. The page was launched at the end of last year and currently over 600 people ‘like’ our page. This has contributed to an increase in our customer base by 10 per cent.”
Claire Chapman, social media coach, points out a further example, “Hubspot is well known for the different Grader products it provides. It has a company page with 13,496 fans. I really like the customer tab it has on here that provides examples of customer success – a great example of social proof for your product.”
In another example, Matt Smith, director of digital marketing agency The Viral Factory, praises Adobe’s work on Facebook. “Adobe’s fan page for Photoshop is a good example of a brand using Facebook to engage with the design community,” he says. “There’s a good mix of relevant information, topical content that drives usage and fun interaction with members of the Photoshop team. With 700,000 fans, and lots of evidence of active engagement, it’s working.”
The alternatives
Facebook is not suitable for all B2B marketers. Before launching into any activity on the site – beyond the most basics of establishing a company page – you should find out whether your prospects actually use it. Craig Whiston, head of client services at web analytics firm Coremetrics, says, “If your client base is small, it might not be worth the time and money involved. Also, if you operate a niche business model, face-to-face direct marketing may be a more appropriate way to engage.”
There are of course other social networking sites, and LinkedIn and Twitter may be more natural B2B venues. Anna Pearce, communications executive at translation agency Oban Multilingual, points out that although Facebook is considered the global social network, there are some parts of the world where people have barely heard of it. She says, “In China 51.com has a 60 per cent market reach, and QQ.com has 90 per cent, so these would be much more useful than Facebook, which is actually banned there. In Russia, it is Vkontakte.ru that has a huge 77 per cent market reach, followed by Odnoklassniki.ru, which has 66 per cent market reach.”
Finally, you could consider hosting your own conversation. Siteforum provides software that allows businesses to set up their own online communities, and Bob Pike, COO says, “On Facebook, once a conversation between businesses develops, they must be taken elsewhere in order to allow for more comprehensive discussion in a secure and controlled environment. Also, you can’t create a truly branded environment on Facebook. The obvious alternative would be to cut out the middleman and directly host an interactive virtual community on your own website.”
The future of Facebook in B2B
We are yet to see significant marketing activity from B2B companies on Facebook. However, as Richard Wright, EMEA marketing director at email marketing service provider, Epsilon International, concludes, “Considering that in 2009 almost double the amount of time was spent on Facebook than on Google, it is surely certain that it will grow in importance for B2B marketers.”
