Building Authority with Social Media
Social media is often thought of as a tool for Business to Consumer (B2C) brands to improve their relationship with consumers. However, it can also be a powerful tool for industrials. Social media helps establish and build your domain expertise in the minds of your target audience.
Your target audience is actively working on their businesses, pursuing their goals, and addressing their challenges. By effectively speaking to the challenges and opportunities that your target audience is facing, you can establish your brand in their minds as the domain authority for your niche. This is important because when it comes time for them to make supplier selections, they will prefer companies they know, like, and trust that have proven they can solve problems in their particular area of expertise.
However, using social media effectively takes effort. Here are some tips to help accelerate your social media strategy:
- Extract knowledge from subject matter experts: Find a way to extract the knowledge from your subject matter experts and turn it into helpful content. The interview method works well, where a researcher interviews the subject matter expert and turns the information into written and video form for use on social media, email, and other channels.
- Repurpose existing content: Look at the content you already have, such as product brochures, application notes, and customer testimonials. This content can be refreshed, restated, and repurposed for use on social media.
- Batch work: Pick a day each month to make it Content Day. Gather the right people in a room to plan out the content you want to develop.
- Leverage your content production: After creating a white paper, long-form article, or blog post, turn it into a short video, social media posts, and email. Push the content through as many channels as possible to see which channels work best and to get the content in front of as many of your target audience as possible.
By making a commitment and allocating time each month, you can gain traction in social media and position your business in the minds of your target audience as being able to help them and being the subject matter expert and domain authority in your niche.