Breaking down B2C vs. B2B social media metrics and why it matters

Are you measuring the right B2B social media metrics? Many B2B organizations find themselves using social media management platforms originally crafted for B2C brands. As a result, these platforms often lack the nuanced insights needed to thoroughly gauge your social media performance and its impact on revenue.

While social media undoubtedly serves as a vital tool for fostering audience engagement and establishing brand recognition, its potential for lead generation and revenue acquisition holds even more weight for those of us in B2B.

In this post, we’ll delve into why B2B organizations need a deeper understanding of social media’s business impact and how specialized platforms like Oktopost can provide tailored insights to refine their social strategy.

B2B social media metrics and how they differ from B2C

As a B2B marketer, you know at the end of the day, you’re marketing to people. So, from a content and messaging perspective, both B2B and B2C social media content need to be engaging and human in their approach. However, this is where the similarities end.

B2B purchasing decisions are intricate processes that involve multiple stakeholders, whereas B2C purchasing decisions are often driven by emotion and can come on a whim. As a result, B2B marketers require insights that reflect the entirety of their buyer’s journey, spanning from initial engagement to conversion. In contrast, B2C social media management platforms commonly prioritize metrics emphasizing consumer engagement and brand sentiment.

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This means your typical social media management platform may measure metrics such as:

1. Likes and Shares: Reflects the popularity and virality of content among consumers.
2. Comments and Mentions: Provides insights into consumer interactions and sentiment towards the brand.
3. Follower Growth: Indicates the brand’s ability to attract and retain followers over time.
4. Click-Through Rate (CTR): Measures the effectiveness of content in driving traffic to a website or landing page.

While these metrics are valuable for B2C organizations seeking to foster brand awareness and consumer loyalty, they fall short in evaluating the business impact of your social media efforts and providing your business with tangible ROI of your social media activities.

6 crucial B2B social media metrics you need to up your marketing game

For B2B organizations, your social media metrics must tell the story of how customers move along the buyer journey and show the impact of each marketing campaign, advocacy effort, and social media push on revenue. You need to capture every interaction with your brand on social media and easily connect them to potential business opportunities.

You also need to efficiently measure how engaged your audience is with your content across all platforms and understand what posts, campaigns, and topics strike a chord with your leads, so you can fine-tune your content strategy.

These are the B2B social media metrics that Oktopost offers that will help you achieve your B2B marketing goals:

Lead generation and conversions

If you’re investing significant time crafting and sharing top-notch content on social media, chances are you’re seeing plenty of clicks and shares. But how can you be sure these engagements are translating into conversions? To truly grasp the impact of your social media endeavors, you need to take a deeper dive into your social media funnel by measuring your conversion rates. Equally crucial is the ability to dissect conversions, pinpointing precisely which network, campaign, and individual content piece was instrumental in capturing leads.

Audience insights

If you’re committed to effectively generating leads via social media, it’s essential to segment your audience. This involves understanding the number of followers engaging with you on social media over time, as well as delving into the demographics of your followers. By doing so, you can evaluate both the popularity and likability of your brand among your target audience.

Influenced opportunities

For B2B organizations, your social media management platform must offer insights into both the direct and indirect effects of social media on sales. Measuring influenced opportunities plays a pivotal role in achieving this goal. This metric tracks accounts in the sales pipeline that interacted with your content on social media as well as the revenue attributed to these specific opportunities. As a result, you can demonstrate the tangible value of social media by directly linking it to your bottom line.

Engagement metrics

Crafting content that truly connects with your community can be challenging to both perfect and quantify. That’s why it’s crucial to measure engagement metrics such as clicks, likes, mentions, and shares – to gauge your audience’s level of interest and identify the key drivers behind it. This valuable insight enables you to address essential questions regarding your social strategy, such as the optimal time to post, the content that resonates most with your audience, and your most successful campaigns.

Cross-channel analytics

Another important analytics feature is the ability to see all your social data from your corporate profile and employee advocacy in one place. Most of the social media management platforms on the market – even ones that offer an employee advocacy solution – do not provide cross-channel social analytics, which robs marketers of a truly comprehensive overview of their social performance.

Attribution

By analyzing attribution data, you can identify which social media channels and campaigns are driving the most conversions, so you can allocate resources more effectively and optimize your social media strategy for maximum impact. Additionally, understanding the role of social media in the conversion process can help you better understand your target audience and tailor your messaging to better meet their needs and preferences.

Why you need a specialized social media management platform for B2B

B2B organizations cannot afford to rely on superficial metrics or outdated analytics tools. You need a comprehensive social media management platform, which not only provides profound insights into social media performance but also equips you with the tools and capabilities to act upon those insights decisively.

By investing in a platform that offers advanced analytics, automation, and seamless integration with other marketing systems, you can stay ahead of the curve and derive tangible results from your social media endeavors.

Learn more about Oktopost’s analytics capabilities and how they’ll enable you to maximize the business impact of social media.