Social Media for B2B Publications Trish Snyder Editor & Writer

Trish Snyder Editor & Writer Trish Snyder has been telling stories for more than 20 years. She was a senior editor at Chatelaine, Today's Parent and House & Home, and oversaw redesigns at chatelaine.com and houseandhome.com. Her digital clients include the LCBO, TD and BayBridge Senior Living. She was once shortlisted — alongside Rick Mercer and Colin Mochrie — for the National Magazine Award for Humour. Not surprisingly, she didn’t win. Surprisingly, neither did they.

Agenda • • • • • •

Social media then and now Is social different for B2B? Defining and understanding audience Setting goals Measuring success A platform-by-platform approach

From social media back then... • • • • • • •

Twitter and Facebook Desktop first Everything organic/chronological feeds Everyone equal Simple or nonexistent ads/payment Fun, experimental approach Receptive, tech-savvy audiences

... to social media now • Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Periscope, Snapchat, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Google+, YouTube, Tumblr, Vine + … • Mobile first • Engagement- and interest-based algorithms • Sophisticated ad systems and paid promotion • Rigidly templated, endless “best practices” • Overwhelmed audiences • Part of everyday life; many people’s primary source of news

Some relevant data...

“56% of time Canadians spend online is spent on a smartphone or tablet.” – Comscore, October 19, 2015

“Social media accounts for 35% of all time spent on mobile devices.” – Comscore, October 19, 2015

In an increasingly crowded social media space, how can media brands survive and thrive? How can B2B publications create successful – yet realistic – social strategies?

Cover what’s most important to consumers • Brand shares new content • Content is relevant to the brand • Brand engages with followers

Social media for B2B • Niche vs mass audiences • Focus on utility over entertainment • Audience often at work – affects choice of platform and time of day • Networking vs socializing – can you be the facilitator that helps your readership get to know each other?

It’s not that B2B publications are so different from B2C when it comes to social media. It’s that targeted efforts are that much more important.

Know your audience • Social media in 2016 is all about targeting, and engagement over reach. • Think about your readership: What is their day-today like? Where do they spend their time online? • What can you offer your (current and potential) readership via social media to make their work lives better? • What can you offer them to help them look smarter?

Know your goals • Understand what you’re trying to achieve: clicks and traffic? Community and audience loyalty to your brand? Exposure to new readers? A monetizable following? Promotion of print? • Write down your goals, and keep them in mind when writing posts; e.g., is this written so that someone will click on it, or share?

Print promotion

Know your goals • Tailor social media to your own uses; for instance, Tavanberg uses Facebook as a place to save interesting articles for use in the monthly newsletter. • If paid exposure is part of the plan, be sure the math works out in your favour.

Measure success • Likes and follows don’t matter – it’s having the right likes and follows that counts. • Based on your goals, decide what success means to you, and how you’ll measure it: raw numbers, percentage of audience, comments, etc. Think both qualitatively and quantitatively. • Listen to negative feedback, but not too hard; its voice is amplified online.

Things to remember • You can’t trust a social media company to have your best interests at heart – don’t put all your eggs in one basket. • Social media changes fast, so be agile with your strategy. • Better to do less things well than to do a mediocre job on many platforms. • Your social media experience depends on your network.

Best Practices • Sign up for accounts on every platform – you never know what might take off and it’s best to claim your name. • Get efficient by building social media into your workflow; e.g., write tweets while you’re editing stories. • Don’t get stuck in a bubble. Always ask yourself: Why will anyone care about this?

Best Practices • Reply to feedback and comments promptly, even if it’s just to direct people to a phone number or email. • Don’t forget about your website! Make sure that articles look good when people post them on social media. • Participate and engage: by sharing, commenting on and liking posts from others, you’re more likely to get amplification back. • Follow your industry’s influencers • If posting videos, make them work soundlessly; especially on mobile, many users have the volume turned off.

Participate & engage

Participate & engage

Best practices • Photos hugely boost engagement; use them when you can. • Layer text on photos to boost the odds they’re be shared. • When referencing people and brands, tag them if you can – make the reference a clickable link (and thereby useful).

Text on images

Tag others

Best Practices • Have fun! It’s okay to be less serious and offer your readers an entertaining break. • Don’t be afraid to promote the archives; articles live for a long time online. • Be a hashtag minimalist; use when appropriate and functional, but favour easy readability. • Remember you are always trying to grab people’s attention as they scan.

Have fun

Promote the archives

You probably can’t run accounts on every platform. So which do you choose?

Breaking down the platforms... • • • • • •

Facebook = Sharing, aggregation, conversation Instagram = Inspiration, positivity Twitter = Customer service, information, news LinkedIn = Reputation, bragging, networking Snapchat = Messaging, storytelling Pinterest = Visual brand, food, fashion, DIY

Facebook • Highest penetration across all age groups. • No longer trendy, but considered an essential service by many. • Increasingly pay-to-play • Business pages often used by small businesses as their only website.

Facebook • Ads and promoted posts are highly targetable (by location, age, interests, etc.). • May be potential for revenue sharing with publishers with Instant Articles. • Facebook Groups (public, private or hidden) can be a powerful networking and collaboration tool – could you sponsor one?

Facebook • Remember: Facebook is people’s living room, where they go to get a break from the office • The faster posts get likes and shares, the more people will see them; timing and strong CTAs are key.

Instagram • From a photo-sharing upstart to a major part of Facebook. • Specialty is beautiful, well-curated, well-edited photography – though some markets defy this. • Generally a positive space – breaking news and negativity don’t perform well. • Profile pages make for an attractive portfolio/home page.

Instagram • Hugely valuable for visual brands, especially those in food, fashion and travel. • High usage, especially among younger demos. • Engagement has dropped, perhaps related to increase in advertising. • About to roll out algorithmic feeds. • May be limited utility for most media brands.

Twitter • Traditionally the place to go for quick, scannable news and information – 140-char limit has always facilitated efficiency. • Favoured on Twitter: concise, smart, to-the-point posts. • Also migrating from reverse-chronological to algorithmic feeds. (Optional for now; likely won’t always be.)

Twitter • Engagement also seems to be dropping; Twitter still has huge potential for reach and amplification but mostly among a dedicated base – will never be a mass platform like Facebook. • Best back-to-basics platform: can be used simply for sharing links and news and replying to comments. • Twitter app Periscope has potential for magazines as a low-budget, easy-to-use video streaming tool.

LinkedIn • All about business: promoting, networking, sharing careerand work-related stories. • Usage varies • Can be a good platform for sharing news and moderating discussions, and for amplification of career-related stories. • Works well for some brands; e.g., travel industry site Skift has higher engagement here than elsewhere.

filler

Snapchat • The trendy platform of 2016; a messaging app turned media behemoth. • Best known for its private messages that disappear when read and public “stories” that disappear after 24 hours. • Stories are almost like live TV: they can be storyboarded and pre-planned but must be broadcast in the moment.

Snapchat • Media integration now includes not-soSnapchatty articles (like a Buzzfeed gallery of fashion from the ‘00s); they are trying hard to expand from their youth base. • Getting metrics is still a challenge. • Worth playing with but limited utility at this point for most Canadian magazines.

To sum up… • Social media isn’t just different for B2B; it should be done differently for every brand. • Identify your goals, choose your platforms and measure your success. Don’t try to do everything. • Go where your readers are; easier than getting them to come to you. • At minimum, make your web articles play nicely with Twitter and Facebook, and start a news feed on those platforms. • Have fun, and value social platforms as a tool to easily interact with your audience.

For more social media news • Follow Tavanberg on Twitter or Facebook, or sign up for our newsletter at tavanberg.com/newsletter. • Get the SmartBrief on Social Media newsletter.

Thank you.