Chennai headquartered software development services company Aspire Systems’ Marketing Director, Raghunath Vijayaraghavan, talks candidly about the importance of social media marketing. He elaborates on which social platforms work for B2B companies, and which don’t.

Interviewed by Avanish Tiwary

/ / How big a help does social media provide to B2B marketing?

The biggest challenge for a B2B company in marketing is that there is a lot of focus even today on cold calling, sending emails, etc., which is basically part of a push campaign, but what we need now is a pull campaign. Because of the intense competition, as there are now hundreds of IT services companies, the question is, how do you differentiate yourself from others? Automatically the focus shifts to making the content different and that is where social media becomes an important tool. It helps to distribute content to the most number of clients.

For B2B specifically, LinkedIn is a huge help as that is one social network that is typically meant for B2B companies where you won’t see many B2C brands. You won’t see companies like Flipkart or Amazon using it as actively since for them Facebook, and maybe Twitter, are better platforms. But that is not so for B2B brands. A lot of companies focus on content and regularly find themselves asking how they can use content to target the relevant customer. Content has to provide value to the reader and at the same time also help in building your company’s brand. Let’s say, Aspire Systems puts out some very good content for someone who is looking for a solution pertaining to a retail problem. The more content they digest from us the more credible we become, and at that point in time there is a huge possibility that they themselves might reach out to us. Most of the social media marketing is focused around content. So social media marketing goes hand in hand with good content.

/ / What kind of content works best on social media?

There are different types of content to work with and we keep changing the flavour so as to avoid monotony. It can be videos, success stories, webinars or a white paper that talks about say, Aspire Systems’ thoughts on mobile apps. The hope is that it would build my company’s credibility and at the same time if someone wants to reach out to us they should have a way to do so.

If you look at social media marketing at Aspire Systems, typically we look at what kind of pain points our customers go through. Let’s say a company has issues with its mobile app; maybe it crashes frequently, or they want their customers to be connected with the company through the app all the time. We develop content that the customer would find useful, then see how we can target them. Through LinkedIn, I can specifically target the VP of say, Flipkart, which is useful for us. Even ads on social media channels like LinkedIn work in an effective way as I can target my ad viewer there. I can set it up in a way that the ad will be shown to only those who have the designation of a director or above of say, a retail company. When somebody in that position sees my ad, they would be happy to give it a read and explore more.

There is also the aspect of consuming content at different touch points that a marketer should keep in mind. For example, if we get to know that a particular client likes to consume content on mobile apps, we give him more content on apps. To be able to do this, we need to create profiles of all our clients.

/ / What kind of innovation is happening around social media campaigns?

Marketers are trying very hard to ensure that the customers reach them and for that they do a lot of AB testing of ads. We also use re-marketing effectively, so if you were to come to the Aspire website, the next time you log into any of your social media accounts, our ads would be shown to you.

/ / Are new social media platforms like Snapchat or Instagram important for B2B marketing?

Snapchat or Instagram kind of platforms are more for a B2C company. For B2B, the most commonly used platforms are LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube. Facebook is more of a re-marketing platform which is sometimes also used for recruitment. I would say LinkedIn is the most preferred B2B social media marketing tool. But almost all companies have their own YouTube channel, so videos that include tutorials and things like that mainly go on YouTube instead of any other platform.

/ / Does social media help in lead generation?

It’s not that social media is only for branding. These tools are helping in lead generation as well. However, as of now, we still need a lot of traditional marketing methods for lead generation. But social media is quickly moving up the ladder to become one of the strongest lead generation marketing tools. The dependence on other marketing tools for lead generation, I would say, is dipping, and in the next two to three years, social media will dominate.

/ / Has Aspire Systems increased its budget for social media marketing?

Without giving exact figures here, I can say that we have increased our budget in social media marketing from last year to this year by four times. The main thing for us to think about, and it’s something other marketers should also focus on, is how to divide the funds among separate social platforms. One has to try and understand which platforms will work for your business and at what stage. Twitter has not worked for lead generation but it’s a good social media platform for branding. LinkedIn is considered as a strong lead generation platform. Facebook is more for brand building.

/ / What challenges do marketers face while doing a campaign on social media?

I would say the challenge is probably more of recruiting the right social media manager who knows the subject and is an expert. Though digital marketing has become equivalent to traditional marketing, there are many nuances to it that only an expert can handle. Talent is still a huge problem. Also, because of its popularity, social media marketing is becoming expensive and a CMO will have to be wary of how much he is spending and what his returns are.