Elaborating a social media strategy in a B2B context: the training industry

I’ve had previously put six months’ worth of social media learnings to paper for a year end report. After submitting it and growing my work experience, I felt further analysis was necessary. This time, I had no time constraint or imposed formatting.

The main insight I’ve acquired about social media is that it’s rapidly evolving and most businesses face a gigantic gap between offline and online.

Whether we consider the 400 percent growth of smartphone and tablet video consumption between 2012 and 2014 or the change in behavioral data, social media was not always just Facebook. In fact, AOL’s searchable “Member Profiles” or BuddyInfo was an effective way of accessing the user’s pertinent information. Yet, we’ve moved on from AOL to Friendster, MySpace, LinkedIn, Photobucket, Flickr, Youtube and then Facebook. I think it’s safe to say, and feel free to correct me on this, Facebook is now king. Sure we have Tumblr, Pinterest and others to fill in specific social networking needs but Facebook, with its 1,19 billion monthly active users pretty much dominates it.

Anyway, that’s the small rant on social media’s history. I chose for my paper to focus on B2B for a couple of reasons. The main one being that I worked in a B2B context so it’s only right that I speak of what I have learned about. It’s also because I found it to be a real challenge and challenges are fun to crack. Before I start sharing the analysis I’ve drawn out, I just want to say that this remains solely based on what I have experienced and in no way am I establishing a general truth. You are invited to share your knowledge and grow the discussion.

The training industry establishes a tougher B2B context because training is mostly an ear-to-ear business. Also, people are skeptical when it comes to the ROI of training. In fact, a lot of the people are skeptical when it comes to training itself. Some see it as some general truth that, even after hearing it, will never apply it to their personal or professional lives.

The thing is, you’d be surprised at how many people would benefit from sales or leadership training. The one outcome of training can be a growth in self-awareness. Training isn’t just content being blabbered but it also concerns application. Applying what you’ve learned straight away by drawing out case scenarios with your colleagues within the training and testing out real-time reactions.

Now, back to social media, how do you market the trainings and their effectiveness online? My initial strategy was first establishing the brand’s digital ecosystem through various social platforms. The first struggle was making corporate content still available to a general audience. The vicious circle is that selling trainings involves salespeople going to the head of HR or the CEO directly for small business and probing, identifying the company s needs, finding ways to respond to those needs through the appropriate program.

Yet, as a decision maker, you would want to know if the programs are established and recognized because it’s reassuring and to you, that’s the proof of results. So what do you do? You go online. However, anyone can actually benefit from leadership training and you can find numerous articles on: “5 Things Leaders Do” or “10 Qualities Leaders Have” and you resolve to that.

Your first aim is to tap into that audience to grow a community within your digital ecosystem so when the head of HR or whoever you’re probing Googles you, they find a solid and established community who is engaging with your content.

That’s only one step.

Your future client needs to know they can go beyond the “general audience” and this is why you need a good website with detailed programs. The key aspect is that the general audience is content hungry whereas your prospect is result oriented. They want to go further than simple content that they will read over their morning coffee. You’re looking at a half-day training, a full day course or even a long-term partnership. Your website needs to head into that direction, whereas a blog would be more directed to the general audience.

Despite having lots of details about all kinds of programs you offer, you need a consistent CTA (call to action) to make it as easy as possible to contact you. This can be done through a form (which I found was effective if you only keep it to name, company, location, or maybe even job title but don’t ask for too much, people are now lazy).

This core process will always remain; the only changes will be in the way of presenting this. You can now do it through videos, newsletters and other means.

This is where lies the first difference: being able to address anyone and a potential customer.

I’m NOT saying that a general audience can’t be considered as potential customers but it all depends when you position yourself. Are you more of a coach that addresses individuals, a company that addresses multinationals or…both? The start of my strategy was being able to differentiate content to these different crowds that don’t respond in the same way, because that was, well, our aim. To us, they are different target audiences with different budgets.

I would use the term “serious” vs. “non-serious” as its simpler that way. Like written previously, some are just here for content to accompany them during their morning coffee or afternoon snack, and that’s OK. They are still an audience to entertain and nurture because they can boost your e-reputation.

That’s the second key aspect, e-reputation. This concerns B2B as well. Although LinkedIn remains the preferred sphere, more have turned to other social media websites to either recruit, generate leads or even spy on other businesses. I’ve realized that the training industry is extremely competitive. For example, when Lifehack issues a Leadership article, it’s not received in the same manner as an article published by Harvard Business Review. Sure, it’s due to the actual content present in the article, you usually find 20% real content in click-bait articles and that’s being generous. It’s also due to image. You can have relevant and actual content and no one reading it. Why? No one knows about your blog, your company is not established enough online or in “real life”.

Writing content is not as competitive as getting people to read it. Something I found worked well was interacting with other training companies. As Sun Tzu brilliantly wrote: “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.” Just adding a bit of humor, but seriously, Twitter is a good platform for that. If you’re starting out on social media, find established leaders/training companies and Tweet away. Not excessively though. Always in moderation. Your goal is to oversee content, see how they market theirs and how established their community is. Direct and indirect competition is always something you should be looking at in order to see what needs aren’t adressed to then craft your added value.

Facebook ads for a training company need to be thought through. I found that it was effective to start an ad for your page and your website, maybe not consistent ads for your content unless you’re looking at growing your general audience. Twitter and Facebook is where it should stop, in my opinion anyway. Instagram is a tough platform (for the training industry), overwhelmed with fitness, food, fashion and cat lovers. 53% of its users are between 18–29 years old, and the majority has an income of below $30K. It could be used to showcase your trainings and again, this all depends on your positioning. I feel it could be more fitted for a coach that aims for individuals.

Anyway, this is the end of part 1. If you were too lazy to read, here are the key points:

• Your core information will never change, only the way of presenting it will. This is where social media and its evolutions are useful.
• Build your digital ecosystem in order to reinforce online what you’ve built offline.
• The general audience is content hungry whereas your prospect is result oriented; adapt your content accordingly. Example: Ensure your LinkedIn content is different than the one you craft for your blog.
• Writing content is not as competitive as getting people to read it