Branded social has gone from golden boy to punching bag in the past few years. Ad
fraud, influencer fraud, organic decline, and metrics gaming are all taking the
shine off social media. And many are now questioning whether social media
engagement has any real business value at all, or enough to justify the expense.
But this argument paints too wide a brush, since B2B and B2C social media can be considered
two different ballgames.
Truth vs. Beauty?
It's become a trendy claim that B2B and B2C marketing are really not all that different.
And I agree that many of the underlying principles are the same. The funnel is the
same. People decide with emotions. Branding is important. Yadda, yadda, yadda. But
each is still very much its own discipline in the real world, especially when it comes to
social media.
For social content to be engaged, it must offer something the audience values. But
there are differences between B2B and B2C in how that value is created, what
audiences are receptive to, and most importantly, what they're likely to share.
The B2C social content game is won largely through entertainment, working along
those principles in terms of audience wants, such as humor, beauty, novelty,
inspiration, intrigue, reassurance, etc. B2B social content, on the other hand, is largely
a matter of education, with audiences preferring content that is useful, valuable, or
that makes them seem useful or valuable.
The key difference here is that entertainment is largely subjective, and therefore a
matter of intrinsic value. If something is funny, it gets shared. And that's it. It doesn't
matter so much who shared it, or who made it. What matters is that it's funny.
B2B doesn't work like that. Education is knowledge, which is largely a matter of
objective value, with some subjectivity thrown in via authority and reputation. For
example, if somebody offered you a choice of free identical online course materials,
except one set was from your local college and one was from Harvard, you'd probably
choose the latter.
But Is Engagement Worth It?
The subjective value of entertainment gives B2C brands more options in terms of
tactics for engagement, but its intrinsic value also creates a big interpretation problem.
To use an extreme example, a B2C brand could ceaselessly post TikTok videos of cats
and babies doing adorable things and probably get very good engagement, and maybe
a lot of followers, but that engagement could very well be valueless to the brand if they
don't sell baby clothes or cat food.
Could all B2C brands sustain themselves on such empty calories? No. In fact such
tactics would probably hurt brands such as banks and insurance companies, as these
brands depend heavily on perceptions of trust and authority to drive sales.
B2B brands are like this as well, which is one of the big reasons why branded glitter
doesn't really work with them. Another reason is that need for objective value in
content that I mentioned earlier. Sizzle can certainly help with a B2B conversion (think
HP's "The Wolf"
series), but you've gotta have the steak - you won't get clicked without
it.
While with B2C social media, the sizzle often is the steak.
The Problem of Many Hats
A common retort to such B2B marketing heresy is, "But we're all human."
And my retort to that is, "Yes, we're all human, but we're different people when we're
with our colleagues, our friends, our spouse, or our kids."" And the hat we wear among
colleagues, in particular, has a big impact on the social media content we share.
If a vendor of business continuity solutions weighed in on the latest plot twist in
"Stranger Things" on LinkedIn, three things are likely to happen. One, the audience
loses respect for you. Two, some people would think your account has been hacked.
And three, few would share it (except to mock it), because it would make them look
stupid, and because the sheer dissonance of seeing such a non-sequitur on LinkedIn
would be unpleasant to some.
And nothing goes viral without sharing.
What This All Means
I'm not saying that B2B social engagement is inherently more valuable than B2C. I've
seen B2B companies get so enamored with being busy that they end up creating
content that gets consumed but that doesn't really drive sales (HR content, employee-
generated stuff, blogs on tangential subjects). And while such content can have
awareness or brandbuilding value, it might lack the net benefit to be worth the time of
your skilled content people, especially since there are more direct awareness tactics
available that can get your message in front of the people who've already shown intent
to purchase.
But with B2B social being primarily an education game, successful engagement is
inherently reinforcing for your brand. If you provide good intelligence and advice, you
gain respect and authority. If you don't, you lose people, and business down the road.
But with B2C, respect and authority aren't always the game. Do funny tweets from fast-
food restaurants build their brand? Probably not. But they do win followers, which, at a
later point, can help create awareness for your "two for $2" sale.
Of course, B2C social content isn't all branded prom dates. There's plenty of
educational content out there in the form of how-to videos, guidebooks, and the like.
And plenty of brands (Grammarly) are creating legit entertaining content that builds
on their brand in some way. But with the sheer variety of social tactics available to B2C
brands, interpretation of the data they generate is tricky, and requires more scrutiny.
B2B has fewer options, and thus fewer shortcuts, making engagement interpretation
relatively straightforward, and easier to take at face value. B2B won't go viral on empty
calories alone. Metrics can still be gamed to a certain extent, and any social media
practitioner worth their salt will know the tricks, but those tricks will largely enhance
or exaggerate, they won't make bad content good.
As to the larger question of whether social media is worth it at all, I feel that this is a
moot point until someone comes up with a better idea, especially now. We're in an age
of small screens and cord cutting. SEM, SEO, and retargeting are good ways to reach
people who are already looking, but you still need to get your message in front of
people who aren't yet looking.
Someone might respond at this point, "But branded social media sucks."
And my response would be, "Your point being? Most advertising sucks." It's always
been that way. Most TV commercials are terrible. Most radio ads are annoying. Most
print ads are unmemorable. But great ads do slip through the approval process
occasionally.
So why don't we have more great branded social media content? I think it relates to the
nature of the medium, and how it's changing. Social media is inherently a marathon, a
dripfeed. It's always moving, always scrolling, with content often consumed out of the
corner of your eye. This limits the incentive for a brand to publish great content
organically.
And pay-to-play causes brands to treat social media more like a sprint, which really
doesn't fit. You simply cannot command an audience's full attention with social media
like you can with a less dynamic medium. And there are often too many layers of
approvals involved when the social is paid. Too many boxes to tick. Too many
stakeholders. Too many cooks. Resulting in bland copy with half a dozen hashtags.
You need good marketers and good creatives to create good social media, not
corporate-types trying to do the jobs of good marketers and good creatives.
