Two Best Case Studies on Brands Using Social Media for B2B

According to a study, social media was used by over 64% of businesses as a vital tool for marketing. Over the last two years, this number has increased considerably. Increasing visibility and brand awareness was primary among the most popular reasons to use social media for B2B, measuring in at 83%. To encourage social sharing came in at 56% and to acquire trust and followers measured in at 55%. Here are 2 case studies on some businesses that decided to use social media to propagate their B2B marketing strategies.

Maersk

Maersk first started using social media in 2011 and have since then, raised brand awareness, increased employee satisfaction, gained insight into the market, and gotten closer to its customers. It decided that the best strategy to have for B2B communication was to tell stories that emerged from within the business like how it was responsible for increasing the sale of Kenyan avocados. The company ran a campaign last year which spoke about how its shipping containers navigated the frozen Baltic Sea in the winter. This campaign acquired those 150 unique leads. Users were led from Facebook to a website, where they were given a brochure for download about the company’s anti-freeze services after they filled in their contact details. People that downloaded the brochure were identified as ‘hot leads’ and the company’s sales team were then asked to follow up and Out of Maersk’s 1.5m fans on Facebook, around 15% are customers. They also have 12,000 Twitter followers, and also have active accounts on platforms such as Google+, Tumblr, Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn. Each social platform they are present on, has an approach that has been specially tailored for it. Take their Instagram page for instance. Their followers can post pictures of their ships using the hashtag #Maersk, and on LinkedIn, articles about the work culture within the business are published and job vacancies are promoted. According to a recent study, these efforts have paid off, with Maersk being second only to Lego when it comes to engagement on Facebook.

AGCO

AGCI is a global agriculture manufacturer that pegs in at about $10bn in net sales, much of which they can attribute to its social media strategy. The parent company AGCO has many brands such as Challenger, Massey Ferguson, and Valtra under it, all of which deal in farm machinery across the globe. Thought leadership is the primary focus of their social strategy which they use to connect the businesses with machinery dealers and farmers. How AGCO started, was by acquiring information about what kind of conversations their customers were having online. According to their findings, their customers were posting YouTube clips of themselves using the company’s equipment. These users were then engaged through a mix of educational and informational content like photos of the farming equipment in action and weekly ‘tillage tips’. Due to this hard-hitting, but simple strategy, AGCO managed to win 10,000 Twitter followers, 180,000 Facebook fans, and almost 3,000 YouTube subscribers. AGCO has partnered with their dealers to offer training and marketing tools to help them promote themselves.

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