Seventy-five percent of today’s buyers conduct online research before engaging with a sales team and when they do, it’s because they already vetted their options and think they’ve found a good fit. In a sea of Solution Providers, how can Vendors ensure their Partners have the impactful digital footprint needed to attract these savvy customers?
While social media is only one of many tactics in a fully integrated marketing strategy, alongside blogging, it’s one of the most difficult for Partners to consistently find time for. However, with a focused approach to building an influential presence online and implementing time saving tactics, Partners that engage on social drive more demand and revenue.
Here are five ways to help Partners gain more traction on social media:
During research, prospects look at numerous profiles across your Partners, their competitors, and within each organization. Prospects don’t need all the details, they just need to know enough to feel comfortable that Partners and their teams are experts at solving their business challenges. Short and succinct social bios are the most impactful.
Tip: Have Partners view the social profiles of their competitors and pick out elements that grab attention to incorporate into theirs. Also, use keywords relevant to their solutions to improve their social search results and incorporate #hashtags and @mentions only when it makes sense from a reader’s perspective.
Prospective buyers trust thought leaders in part because they present relevant content to their audience regardless of who wrote and published it. Partners that adopt a thought leadership mindset naturally share pertinent, engaging articles. Partners who aren’t there yet, should be encouraged to find interesting, enriching, and relevant articles from multiple sources in order to build their credibility online.
Tip: To save time, have Partners subscribe to Feedly and other news sources where they can easily tag and post articles via that platform.
Read 7 Social Media Tools You’re Not Using But Should Be for additional suggestions.
There are a few schools of thought on posting cadence and content mix. At Channel Maven Consulting we use a 70/30 rule to drive optimal results for our Vendor clients and their Partners. We recommend Partners post industry-relevant thought leadership content 70% of the time and their blogs, website pages, upcoming events, and other company news the remaining 30% of the time.
Tip: As of 2017, video content represents 74% of all Internet traffic and tweets with images receive 150% more retweets than those without. That compelling evidence supports the posting of visual content for better demand generation.
A successful social strategy prioritizes quality and consistency over quantity of posting because it builds trust and rapport with followers over time and results in a more engaged audience. In The ROI on Social Media Content Syndication Just got Worse, we explained why engagement is one of the most critical components of a demand generating social strategy.
Tip: Encourage Partners to dedicate 15- 30 minutes a day to posting and interacting (sharing, liking, commenting). In addition, Partners can streamline their processes by writing and scheduling content to automatically post throughout the coming week and signup for your social syndication offering to augment their strategy and save time.
Building an impressive social media presence doesn’t have to be difficult or time-consuming. Supporting Partners by helping them maximize tried and true strategies will drive more demand while building thought leadership for their expertise.
For more information about helping Partners drive demand through social selling best practices, download our pocket guide: