The head of business marketing UK at Facebook, Leila Woodington, sits down with Maxine-Laurie Marshall to discuss marketing at the world’s largest social network and how to make social work for B2B
Although Leila Woodington, head of business marketing UK at Facebook, admits she isn’t an early adopter of all the latest tech gadgets, her love for the tech industry is evident. She was PayPal’s 15th UK employee and when she moved to Facebook in 2011 she was only the second person in the EMEA marketing team.
‘What do you need to market at Facebook?’ is a question Woodington is used to answering when she reveals what she does for a living. The question demonstrates the power of the brand; Facebook is such a behemoth it is assumed by some that it doesn’t need to put any effort into marketing.
But as marketers know, it’s marketing that often affords the brand such a lofty status and it’s marketing that works to maintain that status.
Sales and marketing
Woodington does however admit when she joined three years ago, there was already an established sales team but only one other person in marketing in the UK. But as one function can never last forever without the other, Facebook’s UK-based marketing team has therefore grown from two to 10, and she says: “Having a marketing strategy that can help sales deliver against their objectives has become increasingly important.”
In joining a company which, at the time, had a more established sales function than marketing, getting marketing to be taken seriously could
Woodington’s top tips for Facebook
1. Start with people. Use the targeting tools available on Facebook to find the people who matter most and tailor your message to them. Being relevant is important and smart targeting is essential in achieving this.
2. Invest in mobile. Businesses know they need to reach people where they are spending their time, and increasingly, that’s via mobile. In the UK 28 million people visit Facebook every month via a mobile.
3. You don’t have the right to be in someone’s news feed; you have the opportunity. Your content has to fit into the context of stories from someone’s friends. You will be more successful if your content is lightweight and additive – not interruptive.
4. People buy from people, they don’t buy from companies. Facebook provides a really good opportunity to show a human element of a brand and talk to people as people, not personas.
5. Focus on KPIs that map to business objectives, looking at the number of fans and followers in isolation isn’t a business objective. Look at things like cost per lead and cost per acquisition.
6. Social media should sit in the marketing or brand team and it should be integrated, it’s not something that should sit in a silo. Take it seriously and respect the space you’re in.
have been a challenge. But Woodington believes the recipe for success lies in the working relationship between the sales and marketing teams, and says: “Getting an established sales team to see marketing as true strategic partners, and not just a support function, was one of my biggest challenges when I joined Facebook.” She then surprised me when she said: “Marketing is a support function to sales in many respects.” She assures me she is in no way saying marketing is subservient to sales but reiterates her earlier point and explains: “It’s about working as partners. I don’t think we are just a supporting team but ultimately the objectives we’re driving towards are theirs.”
Respect
Social media in B2B used to get a really hard time, and Facebook received the most criticism of all the social channels. In agreement and speaking about social generally Woodington says: “We’re held to quite high standards when it comes to proving ROI, probably more than other media because it’s new and different. I think we’re at a point now where there’s lots of case studies, lots of reports and research, we know it works if people approach it in the right way.”
And the right way is? With respect. “I always say respect for the news feed is really important. Take it seriously and respect the space you’re in,” says Woodington.
She understands why B2B brands view Facebook as being too B2C orientated: “If you think about the news feed, it’s pretty personal, it’s easier to see how a B2C brand fits in, it’s more of a leap to see how B2B fits into that. But that’s where people are and these are real people with real needs and those needs include B2B.” Elaborating on the need to be where people are, Woodington continues: “It’s classic marketing; right message, right person, right time but it’s just re-imagined in a new context. People are increasingly mobile; one in four minutes on mobile is spent on Facebook or Instagram, that’s not just once a day, it’s on average 14 times a day. There’s nowhere else really you can get that reach consistently across the day, it doesn’t matter what device people are on.”
Content
Always happy to practise what she preaches, Woodington makes the most of Facebook’s targeting technology when it comes to her own marketing. Content is at the heart of most of her campaigns and the company promotes it all using Facebook ads. However she also takes the content offline. “We’re fortunate we have lots of good relationships with people and doors are generally open, but there’s still the perception and education piece we’re working on so we do events. We still have some people that don’t understand Facebook and they are making the decisions of how it’s used in their organisations. So it’s shifting those perceptions, giving people the info they need to make informed decisions and educating people on how to use Facebook most effectively.”
While Woodington relies on content for her marketing campaigns, she’s very aware of the vast amounts of content she’s competing with: “There’s a finite amount of time and an infinite amount of information to consume,” she warns. Her advice for those using Facebook for marketing and also for content marketing generally is: “Keep it short, if you’re respectful of people’s time, and are relevant, you are going to see a much better performance.”
So there you have it two myths dispelled in one interview, Facebook does need to do some marketing and B2B marketers can use the platform successfully. If you remain unconvinced have a read of Woodington’s top tips for using Facebook.
Career history
Facebook: 2011 – present
Various roles including head of marketing UK
Paypal: 2005 – 2011
Various roles including business marketing manager
