Current circumstances and technological advancements have up the game of B2B Social media marketing. Social media marketing strategies have proved to be very beneficial for B2B marketers in pandemic times. By using the pareto principle or the 80/20 rule they can reap even better results.
But what is the 80/20 rule? Basically, the 80/20 rule can be applied to anything. For example, “80% of the leads generated are through 20% of your social media content.” However, the main rule for B2B social media marketing is, “80% of your social media posts should be useful to the audience and only 20% should promote your business.” In this blog, we will discuss how you can use the 80/20 rule of social media marketing in your strategy.
Why Follow The 80/20 Rule of Social Media Marketing?
Nowadays, people get to see advertisements everywhere which is quite disturbing. Usually, people come on social media when they are bored and want some inspiration, entertainment, or information. According to a report by Global Web Index, “Funny and entertaining content is the top reason for people to use social media.”
People tend to follow the brands whose content they find interesting and like the most. In addition to this by providing value content, you can keep your audience glued to your brand. This will help to keep their attention and maintain a credible relationship with them. By giving what your audience wants you can build their loyalty towards your brand.
By following the 80/20 rule you will just post promotional content only 20% of the time. This will make the customers assimilate your content and act on it. Your message is going to be more effective if you go by this rule and it won’t seem too assertive.
Social Media Marketing Strategy by the 80/20 Rule
You can plan your B2B social media marketing strategy by Pareto rule and make it more influential. Here, we will discuss different types of posts that you can do on social media.
1. Informational and Useful Social Media Posts
As we know, useful social media posts should make up to 80% of your content. Your posts’ content can be curated, original, or both. You should avoid promoting and forcing your brand idea on people again and again. As this might annoy or irritate them. You can still add your product picture or links. However, the focus of your content should be on providing value, entertainment, information, and education to your audience. Make sure that your brand isn’t the focus but is faded into the background.
The type of content that your social media posts can include are as follows:
- Informational blogs, articles, or videos
- How to, Why blog posts, DIYs, etc.
- Tips and Tricks, Hacks
- Insights, Expert Advice
- Detailed photos
- Infographics
- Before and after images
- Desirable result images
- Inspiring and informational
- Timely posts
- Industry-related news
- Positive and motivational stories
2. Promotional Social Media Posts
Promotional social media posts should make up to only 20% of your entire social media posts. These types of posts are focused on compelling customers to take action. In these posts, you must include a CTA button with relevant words like “learn more”, “Visit our website” or “Shop now”.
Type of content that your promotional social media posts can include are:
- Special offers
- Invite Coupons
- Sales offer
- Seasonal and festival offers
- Product promotion
- Demos
- Description, Features, and Highlights
- Comparison with competitors
- Mentions and tags
- Press coverage
- Good customer reviews or testimonials
How can you follow the 80/20 Rule Content Marketing
As easy as this rule seems it is more difficult to follow through. Here we will make it easy for you and explain how you can do it. You can use social media management tools or marketing automation tools for this purpose. It can help you to plan your content according to the 80/20 rule.
You can use these automation tools and schedule your posts accordingly. You can see how much of your content is useful and how much of it is promotional. For example, if you are posting 30 posts per month. Then, you can keep 23 posts useful or informative, and entertaining. While 7 posts can be appealing and promotional focused on your brand.
These advanced tools have analytics as well. So, you can also see what type of content is getting good engagement and response. This way you can create more such content and generate more leads.
The Key Takeaway
The 80/20 rule is known as the golden rule for social media marketing. However, this should not restrict you from experimenting and trying new B2B social media marketing strategies. Your strategy should be based on the type of content that gets a good engagement rate. You should focus on segmentation and targeting. You can make smart use of analytics and refine your content on its basis. This will lead to increased customer satisfaction and higher conversion.