Content Promotion: Facebook For B2B Content Marketing

Most of you will agree that getting prospects to catch sight of your content is pretty difficult.

With the huge volume of content written every day, it’s not an easy task to get the mass to notice what you’ve written.

You could spend a few hours tweeting about it, hoping someone would notice your content and then share it to make it go viral.

Or you could make sure it reaches the right audience with only one trick.

Content promotion.

Most advertising platforms are tailored to promote your content to a specific audience, attract interesting leads and traffic.

But, you need to pay for it. While this may discourage a few, it’s usually not an enormous investment, especially if you consider the ROI they can generate.

But there’s one, in particular, that isn’t always thought of for B2B content marketing.

Facebook advertising.

In fact, even if Facebook seems to have a reputation for not being a B2B marketing platform, 74% of people use Facebook for professional motives. In B2B marketing, 46% of marketers use it – compared to 33% of marketers who use LinkedIn.

It’s not surprising that Facebook is a crucial component of a successful B2B social media strategy. Considering it’s the biggest social platform out there, with 2,79 billion active users.

Even then, Facebook has evolved considerably since its creation in 2004. New content formats, such as Stories, Lives, or private groups. Integrated apps, like Messenger, have the ability to create and convert customers.

Worrying about what to post on your page to convey traffic is a thing of the past. Facebook has become ready to be used platform for marketers.

So let’s see the best tactics for Facebook B2B marketing trends.

Facebook Lives

Videos were one of the major trends in 2020, and are still going strong in 2021. The “Lives” combine the video format with the personal connections of a social media user.

In contrary to LinkedIn’s Live feature, Facebook Live is currently available to everyone. One of the big advantages of Facebook Live is that it’s completely free.

So doing a regular Facebook Live is an excellent way to create video content. Not only does it create immediate engagement with your following, but you also have the option to republish it on other platforms, such as YouTube or LinkedIn. Longer video content can be chopped up into smaller bits for better social media posts.

It’s pretty common practice with business coaches and influencers. Many have stretched their newsletter by announcing or reposting “Lives” they made on Facebook.

So why not use it for B2B video marketing? After all, B2B companies are already using their newsletter to announce new blog posts, webinars, or podcasts – so why not try with “Lives”?

The best part of all this? Your “Lives” don’t even have to be “live”. Tools like OneStream or Loom let you upload pre-recorded content and schedule it to be played like it was “live”.

“Unpolished” Images

The goal of posting image ads on Facebook is to stop scrolling and create engagement. So why it seems hard to create engaging image ad campaigns?

Well, it might be due to your image itself. Why?

Stock photo images.

This might be hard for B2B marketers to post something more “rugged” with a clean and professional brand image.

The hard truth is that stock photos, polished as they are, don’t convey the same emotional engagement as more “real” images.

For instance, here’s your generic stock photo.

Here is an example of something a bit more “rugged”.

See?

Even if the image above seems more professional, it doesn’t convey any emotional message. The one underneath creates something more akin to me escaping the monotony of my life to travel, for instance.

Even this practice is more influential in B2C marketing, it’s important to remind yourself that your audience is also humans, with dreams, ambitions, fears, and feelings.

The trends toward more human or down-to-earth are not necessarily a trend either. Creating emotionality in your ads create also tangible value in your products. It pushes the storytelling behind what you’re selling.

Of course, you can expect pushback from the c-suite. After all, unpolished “creatives” aren’t very professional. So consider testing first and comparing your different formats with metrics to support your claim.

Facebook Messenger

If you’ve followed social media marketing for a while, you’ll have noticed that personalized communication is a megatrend now.

It’s not very surprising that H2H (Human to Human) makes conversations easier than with a generic messaging system. This is why Facebook Messenger is a crucial tool to engage and convert your audience.

But, of course, this personalized inbox system will more often than not be a bot. On the flip side, personalizable messaging bots are easy to set up. If you want something more custom-programmed, you’ll be looking at something more expensive.

One big underlining with Facebook Messenger bots is the “24-hour rule”. It stipulates the messages your bot can send to a user for free in a 24 hours window. Once you’ve crossed that 24-hour window, the messages you can send are much more limited. More on that here.

Of course, Messenger’s bots are not an unregulated channel. Pages that want to use them must apply first. Even if it can be at times complicated to set it up, Messenger’s bots are worth your time.

After all, Messenger is the number 1 social networking app, and marketers have reported a higher engagement rate by using Messenger rather than emails.

Facebook Groups

Facebook Groups aren’t exactly the typical “format” for content marketing. However, they do represent a huge opportunity to discover potential leads by establishing your brand awareness.

What’s advantageous is how you can tailor your audience that is interested to join your group. For instance, setting up the right questions to join your group is a sure way to increase the quality of the conversations and the engagement.

Creating an audience that is interested in the topics of your group can create an engagement rate and an ROI that is even better than your email list. This is since the B2B audience uses social media more professionally, hence prefers to engage in content that is valuable to them.

Facebook Groups are also a great way to promote your content, events, webinar, or demos around your product/service.

Facebook Stories

Stories, born in the genius that is Instagram, are a very ingenious way to condense your content marketing in a neat package.

The ingeniosity of Stories resides in their polyvalence. For instance, in a single image, ad, or video, you can include stoppable posts, use CTAs, leverage urgency, and even conversion-oriented stickers.

Also, since their update last September, Facebook users can see Instagram’s Stories on their Facebook dashboard, creating an opportunity to leverage both social media platforms.

Conclusion

Even though Facebook isn’t always the first platform thought to be a great way to promote your B2B content, it’s the most used and polyvalent platform out there.

If anything, the longevity of Facebook is a testament to its multitude of purposes, from personal to professional usage.

Even though there isn’t a tailored-made methodology to use as a B2B marketing tool, there are some useful tips to make your life easier.

Using Facebook Lives as a video marketing content tool to engage your audience and republish it on different platforms.

Replacing stock photos with more “rugged”, “down-to-earth” images for your creatives, to generate emotionality and tangible value in your posts.

Employing Messenger bots to better engage your audience by using better communication.

Taking advantage of Facebook Groups to create an engaged audience.

Using Facebook Stories with their integrated features with Instagram to create neatly packed ads, posts, and videos with CTAs to convert your audience.