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How a Social Media Strategy Can Power Up Your Brand

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The old saying is still correct—clients (and those who might become clients) do business with those they know and like and do more business with those they know and trust. If you operate in the Freelance B2B consulting sector, you know it’s vital to continually demonstrate your expertise because that’s one of the best ways to win the respect and trust of prospects who might hire you. It’s imperative to make it clear to those motivated to become paying clients that you’ve got the right stuff, that you can be a trusted resource, that you have the capability to resolve their pain points by recommending the right business solution.

Your mission is to get the word out about your insights and abilities and showcase a brand that inspires trust. Bring to audience attention your relevant and timely info that’s delivered in the form of perspectives and insights that resonate. Seeing is believing and becoming a familiar presence in media outlets that your target prospects visit and trust will pay big dividends.

In the B2B sector credibility, relevance and trust are the building blocks of a winning brand reputation and are the foundation of a successful business venture. You access those building blocks by demonstrating value to prospects and peers. One of the most reliable strategies you can enact when your goal is to demonstrate value to prospective clients is to position yourself as a trustworthy thought leader who provides relevant, timely and actionable information. Among the most efficient channels to broadcast information to your target audiences is social media.

Social media has become a cornerstone of the B2B product and services buying journey. Prospects typically view up to 12 types of content, with 40% of B2B buyers including social media in their purchase research. As your prospects search for info, the right SEO search terms could call up your content and make your thought leadership info available to impact a purchase. Remember also that social media platforms are a two-way street and equally useful for not only broadcasting information, but also for listening and learning by starting and contributing to conversations. By becoming active on LinkedIn, which is the preferred B2B platform, and also X, YouTube and/or Instagram, for example, you’ll not only have a presence on platforms your prospects follow, but you’ll also get confirmation of their topics of interest in the moment, plus a heads-up on what may capture their interest in 2026. Below are four strategies for using social media to enhance your brand and grow your client list.

  1. Provide informative and timely content

By positioning yourself as a go-to source of useful insights and info, you’ll win audience trust—and that is vital. The quality and timeliness of the information you deliver, whether by text, video, or audio, will enhance your value. Distributing your thought leader content on social media platforms favored by your target audience maximize distribution and help you build a following. You’ll benefit from increased name recognition, eventually acquire trust and influence and, ultimately, you’ll create for yourself a solid brand reputation. Insider’s tip: linking your blog and/or newsletter to one or more social media platforms when you publish is a great way to share your compelling content with a wide audience (readers will find my weekly blog at LinkedIn activity/posts.

Video is a growing medium in the B2B sector because social media audiences find it easy to digest and, apparently for that reason, an attractive format. While YouTube is the platform of choice, all major platforms host video/audio content, that runs the gamut from short-form clips to long-form videos and live streams. Posting a webinar in which you took part or the podcast on which you made a guest appearance are excellent video opportunities for B2B Freelance professionals.

Case studies and client testimonials likewise make compelling video content. In fact, it may be easier to recruit your satisfied clients to sing your praises in a video rather than providing a written narrative of the process. Furthermore, if you’d like to present a show-and-tell tutorial that explains the rationale for using your product or service and quickly break down how users can benefit, a video interview in which you take center stage may be easier for prospects to visualize how your solution can be implemented for their needs. BTW, video/audio content, plus any noteworthy information you post to social media platforms, such as a case study, should also be posted on the only platform you own and control—your website.

  

2. Share client success stories

Nothing succeeds like success and sharing the occasional client success story (maintaining the client’s confidentiality, when requested) helps prospects envision the effective solutions that you might create for them. Examples of your willingness to personalize your solutions by, for example, simplifying your solution or providing an upgrade, or facilitating post-sale training or other supportive services—without violating your competitive advantages—are persuasive and make for memorable brand-building content for your organization.

3. Be authentic and consistent

X and LinkedIn are the usual go-to platforms for serious conversations. When you have something relevant to contribute, whether you make a thoughtful reply to a comment or offer a new perspective that you expect to generate comments from other readers, you demonstrate your authenticity, as well as your expertise and maybe out-of-the-box creativity. Joining one or more LinkedIn professional groups that are related to your industry or subject expertise can introduce you to a good forum, where you can contribute insights and learn new perspectives from thought leader peers.

4. Be transparent about values and culture

A growing number of consumers, B2B and B2C, are interested in the values and culture of companies with whom they do business. Storytelling is a relatable format and social media is an ideal platform for you to demonstrate and express what your company stands for and how your values impact your business practices. Your clients and prospects are not dismissive of a company’s purpose, vision, mission and guiding principles and may be very pleased that you’ve shared this foundational information.

Moreover, don’t hesitate to show behind-the-scenes evidence that shows you immersed in community work, be it a corporate social responsibility initiative, board service, or other volunteer participation. If you participate in a charity event, such as a holiday toy drive for local children, or sponsorship of your neighborhood Christmas tree lighting and party, consider documenting portions of the proceedings and, better still, invite top organizers to contribute a short interview to describe the goals for the event and the constituency it benefits in a video (be sure to respect the privacy of other participants). Clients and prospects like to know that you’re giving back or paying it forward.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: © Statista May 2025

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Social Media Marketing: Hacks that Help

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There are now more than 5 billion social media users worldwide who participate on several platforms, making the practice a marketing juggernaut that provides countless opportunities for B2B and B2C businesses in every industry to connect with customers and prospects. Once limited to developing brand awareness primarily in B2C industries, the influence of social media on businesses global and local now impacts customer experience, sales strategy, product development, content marketing strategy, competitive intelligence and more.

Because time means money where business is concerned it should come as no surprise that the timing of social media posting is sufficiently consequential to have piqued the interest of marketing researchers. Think about it—when planning to contact a customer or prospect, do you not consider what might be the best time to reach out? You probably avoid making important phone calls, or perhaps even sending an email, on Monday mornings or Friday afternoons. It’s a guessing game, but you aim to reach out when you expect your customer or prospect to be in a receptive mood, so your message will receive the consideration you feel it deserves. A similar approach to timing applies to social media posting. I first reported the best times to post on five platforms in June 2020. https://freelancetheconsultantsdiary.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=20744&action=edit

When posting content on social media, the most important goal of marketers is to maximize the number of viewers who see their content. Platform algorithms prioritize engagement and posts that quickly attract attention are typically shown to more users, giving high engagement content an algorithmic boost that helps it to be seen by even more viewers.

A study of the Best Times to Post on Social Media in 2024 conducted by the social media marketing entity Sprout Social examined six platforms—Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, TikTok and X (Twitter)—to measure the influence of time on the potential reach of posts. Posting content on days and times shown to be popular with viewers may help increase the audience for that content and amplify the clout of your social media marketing campaigns.

But a word of caution—before scheduling posts to reflect your platform’s peak engagement times as identified below, compare Sprout Social results with your company’s social media data analyses. You may discover that your target audience is not uniformly aligned with the data presented here.

Best Times to Post on Facebook

  • Mondays from 9 a.m. to 12 noon
  • Tuesdays from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., also at 5 p.m.
  • Wednesdays from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., also at 5 p.m.
  • Thursdays from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., also at 5 p.m.
  • Fridays from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m.
  • Best days to post on Facebook: Mondays through Thursdays
  • Worst days to post on Facebook: Sundays

With 3.05 billion active members per month, Facebook is the most widely used social media platform in the world and utilized by 89% of marketers worldwide. Facebook ties with Instagram for the distinction of social media platform that generates the highest marketing ROI, at 29%. The platform is an excellent showcase for online content of every type, from images and videos to live streams and audio content.

Best Times to Post on Instagram

  • Mondays from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
  • Tuesdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
  • Wednesdays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
  • Thursdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., also at 2 p.m.
  • Fridays at 11 a.m.
  • Best days to post on Instagram: Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays
  • Worst days to post on Instagram: Sundays

Instagram is a free photo and video-sharing app and social media platform that now has 2 billion monthly active users. Owned by Facebook (Meta) since 2012, Instagram is the place to share images, videos, reels and live streams. Instagram ties with Facebook for the distinction of social media platform that generates the highest marketing ROI at 29%.

The key to Instagram is that it is based on visual content. The photos and videos you upload will appear in your followers’ feeds, where they can like, comment, or share your visual post. The more likes or comments you get, the more “relevant” your post becomes and the higher it is placed in followers’ feeds.

Best Times to Post on LinkedIn

  • Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 10 a.m. to noon
  • Thursdays at 10 a.m.
  • Fridays 9 a.m. to 12 noon
  • Best days to post on LinkedIn: Tuesdays through Thursdays
  • Worst days to post on LinkedIn: Weekends

With over 1 billion members in 200 countries and regions, LinkedIn is the Mount Olympus of B2B communication for both the 1099 and W2 sets, who can share their expertise as they generate warm leads, announce new products and services, find co-marketing partners, investigate new employment opportunities, or attract talent to hire. Furthermore, users have found an ideal environment for professional storytelling, facilitated by LinkedIn Videos, and professional development at LinkedIn Learning.

Best Times to Post on Pinterest

  • Mondays: 2 p.m to 4:00 p.m and 8:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
  • Tuesdays: 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
  • Thursdays at 3 a.m.
  • Fridays: 3:00 p.m.
  • Best days to post on Pinterest: Weekdays
  • Worst days to post on Pinterest: Weekends

As of April 2024,  Pinterest has 89 million users in the United States and generated a a 7.5 % growth in users between 2022 and 2023, putting its growth rate ahead of Facebook, YouTube and Instagram. Pinterest is known as the platform where users research and discover DIY projects and inspiration products often focused around lifestyle ideas, home décor and recipes.

Women aged 25 to 34 years comprise the largest share of Pinterest’s global audience and the platform presents companies with creative opportunities to expand their community and build brand awareness. Brands that use the platform appreciate Pinterest’s benefits, in particular spotting emerging trends, building brand recognition and authority and driving website traffic. Pinners, as platform users are called, search for inspiration on this virtual mood board and curate their space.

Best Times to Post on TikTok

  • Tuesdays from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.
  • Wednesdays from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m., noon, and 2 to 6 p.m.
  • Thursdays from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. and 2 to 6 p.m.
  • Fridays from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.
  • Best days to post on TikTok: Wednesdays and Thursdays
  • Worst days to post on TikTok: Sundays

With TikTok comes a whole new playbook for B2B social media marketing. Today, you can’t develop a social media strategy without considering TikTok. B2C brands led the way but as the platform has matured, it’s been recognized as a desirable resource for B2B marketers as well. Keep the following suggestions in mind when formulating your TikTok B2B marketing campaigns:

  1. Be authentic: Authenticity matters on TikTok. B2B brands will do well to showcase their unique personality, culture, guiding values and expertise. Share behind-the-scenes peeks, stories of the company founder(s) and employees and other relatable content.
  2. Find your niche: Identify your target audience and create content that resonates with them. Whether it’s tech enthusiasts, entrepreneurs, or industry professionals, tailor your content to their interests.
  3. Interact with the community: Engage with other TikTok users by participating in challenges, responding to comments and collaborating with influencers. Building a community around your brand is essential.
  4. Educational content: B2B companies can benefit from posting educational content. Share product demos, explain complex concepts, or provide industry insights. Remember that authenticity matters more than polished video production values.

Best Times to Post on X (Twitter)

  • Mondays from 10 a.m. to 12 noon
  • Tuesdays from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
  • Wednesdays from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
  • Thursdays from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
  • Fridays 10 a.m. to 12 noon
  • Best days to post on X: Tuesdays through Thursdays
  • Worst days to post on X: Sundays

X (Twitter) is the platform to monitor breaking news and trending topics and voice your opinions in up-to-the-minute conversations that align with your brand values and show customers and prospects what matters to you. X doesn’t offer the array of posting options that build engagement as do Instagram or Facebook. Rather, X focuses on conversation threads, replies, mentions, microblogging and enticing readers with eye-catching results from a survey you’ve conducted.

Twitter has a new name, but it’s still the place to express uncensored opinions. To increase audience engagement consider Twitter polls, which allow you to pose a question in a tweet, invite respondents to choose one of four possible answers to the question and will send the poll results to you, to announce and invite discussion. Polls are a great way to stimulate audience engagement because they’re quick and fun.

Polls are also a mechanism to invite uncensored feedback from customers about their preferences and therefore augmenting the validity of your market research—in the development phase of new products and services or customer service protocols for example. Polls are not a substitute for traditional market research, but they’ll provide quick and useful insights.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: © Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation. The Persistence of Memory “Melting Clocks” (1931) Salvador Dali, courtesy of The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY. Dali portrait by Lies Wiegman (1961), retroactively colorized, courtesy of The Dali Museum, St. Petersburg, FL © Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation

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Will the “Great Resignation” be Great for Freelancers?

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Americans are quitting their jobs. In behavior apparently ignited during the significant chunk of time spent away from offices as a result of the coronavirus shutdown, a surprising number of American workers have decided that they’re not going back to business as usual.

A LinkedIn survey revealed that 46 % of respondents felt that the time spent at home — either on lay-off or working remotely — during the pandemic shutdown led them to rethink their current work situation. The U.S. Department of Labor reported that during April, May and June 2021, 11.5 million workers gave notice. The February 2021 Microsoft Workplace Confidence Index survey of more than 30,000 workers showed that 41 % of American workers are considering quitting; that number increases to 54 % when looking solely at Gen-Z employees. If that’s not enough, a new Gallup survey found that 48 % of workers are actively job-hunting.

Upwork, the online marketplace for Freelance assignments, released a report in August 2021, “The Great Resignation: From Full-time to Freelance,” yet another examination of why American professionals are leaving, or seriously thinking of leaving, their current full-time employment. As many businesses anticipate a return of their employees to the office, sometimes on a limited basis, the survey of 4,000 workers showed that some professional-level employees are not willing to surrender their WFH work-life balance. Approximately 9 million pandemic WFH employees, 17% of professionals, apparently would consider looking for another job if forced to return to the office on a full-time, or even part-time, basis.

Needless to say the “Great Resignation,” as the phenomenon was named by Anthony Klotz, Associate Professor of Management at Texas A & M University, has the potential to create significant disruption for many organizations if it should come to pass in the way that several studies indicate. Already, workforce development experts are advising in particular mid-size organizations, who cannot compete for talent in the way that big businesses are able to do, to find an opportunity in the instability and tap the power of the growing on-demand workforce—Freelance consultants, that is.

Rather than scrambling to hire employees on short notice, company leaders would be better served by supplementing their teams with talented Freelancers—you and me, my friend—who own the skills needed to successfully tackle any project, from designing eye-catching websites, to managing a multi-platform social media campaign, to conducting comprehensive research projects. Instead of paying both high salaries and benefits for full-time employees, mid-size organizations can access top-drawer Freelance talent on a per project basis and keep overhead down as they achieve objectives.

No doubt many company leaders will first attempt to squeeze more work out of current employees, but that all-too-common default behavior probably won’t fly anymore. In fact, that habit could partly explain why valuable team members quit. The bosses will be nervous and may not know where to turn. Still, deciding to outsource and bring in Freelance talent may quickly be seen as inevitable.

So how might Freelancers cash in on the “Great Resignation?” Carpe diem—-you know how to do that! Start by putting yourself in the shoes of an employer who has a mission-critical project, a deadline and a team that’s down two key players. Below are sources that would be familiar to employers looking for Freelance talent so that an important job will get done. You’ll also find a credibility building resource that when you commit to using it will showcase you as a very attractive candidate to hire.

  • LinkedIn Populate as many categories of your profile as possible and be certain to include examples of your best work. If you haven’t participated in ProFinder, the service where employers solicit Freelancers for projects, create a profile and be prepared to quickly respond to employer requests. Only five Freelancers may bid on a project.
  • Upwork and Fiverr These gig worker marketplaces seem to be more welcoming to web designers and IT programmers, but I was hired for a writing project on Upwork three years ago. To get hired, you must search for and pursue assignments and at Upwork, you’ll wind up paying a small fee to bid on a job.
  • Help a Reporter Out. Prospective employers will surely type your company name into a search engine to see what comes up. In addition to great content that you’ve written and your social media sites, include as well your insightful quotes that have appeared in relevant publications. Quotes are an excellent way to demonstrate your know-how and convince prospects that you’re a good hire. https://www.helpareporter.com/sources/

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: An office in Palo Alto, CA circa 2000

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Build Your Email Contact List

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Despite numerous predictions of its imminent demise that have splashed across the headlines of business publications for several years now email marketing, in various formats, continues to march forward in vigorous health because it works. If email marketing didn’t produce quantifiable ROI we would have abandoned it years ago. Nope. Email marketing remains an efficient communication pathway that allows companies to announce a product launch, register attendees for a podcast or webinar, deliver to subscribers this week’s installment of your blog, entice mailing list members with an invitation to your virtual book launch, or inspire potential students with news of the debut of your online course.

Despite the popularity of half a dozen social media platforms that are experiencing an upward trend that shows no sign of slowing down, email marketing continues to be accepted by those on the receiving end, so long as the number from any one source does not overwhelm. When email list members value the sender, they seem to like updates delivered to their inbox.

So building a quality email list that’s populated with prospects who are interested in you and your company is good business. Today, we can identify a few smart, simple tactics that are fast-acting, free and can potentially create for your organization a brand building, money making email list.

  1. Social media

An effective and obvious way to quickly and organically build a robust email contact list at no cost is to post content on social media platforms and the more platforms you post content to, the faster you’ll collect names and email addresses. How so, you ask? Because sooner or later, readers of your content will respond to what you’ve written and when they do, you’ll capture their name and email address. It’s likely that those willing to give a like to your posts or make a comment will also be willing to join your email contact list.

Another easy email capture tactic can be done on your Facebook page, by way of the Call to Action button. Hover your cursor on the CTA and select the “Edit Button” option, then change the text to read “sign up” or “join” so that you can invite Facebook Fans to your email contact list.

LinkedIn users are able to send emails to all of their primary connections but to quickly grow your email list, you’ll want to reach out to your second degree (the connections of primary connections) and third degree connections (secondary connections, once removed). There is a free service called Snovio that allows account holders to install an email finder extension which, by way of a gmail account, allows LinkedIn users to find the email addresses of those distant cousins. Click to learn more. https://app.snov.io/register?lang=en&signup_source=blog&signup_page=snov.io%2Fblog%2Fhow-to-get-the-contact-details-of-your-2nd-and-3rd-connections-on-linkedin-in-two-easy-steps&cta_type=link

2. Website sign-ups

Upload to your website reasons to collect names and email addresses. For some, that will be the “Contact us” form—website visitors who have questions or want more information about the company’s products or services are required to fill out a contact form and provide their name and email address. Other common website signup tactics are surveys, free telephone (video call) consultations, registrations for webinars and requests for free special publications—-your e-book, case studies, or white papers, for example. All are effective conduits for collecting names and email addresses that grow a viable email contact list.

3. Call to action

On your website landing page, on your white papers, blog, or newsletter, invite people to connect. You may be pleasantly surprised with the positive results of a straightforward appeal for email contact info. The share button and invitation to subscribe to or follow your blog and/ or newsletter will also bring in names and email addresses if your content is well- written and relevant.

Add a chat bot plug-in to your WordPress hosted website so that visitors can quickly obtain answers to basic questions about your products and services. Bot analytics will reveal the names and email addresses of your chat bot users, who are all set to join your growing email list.

Finally, get more mileage from your email signature block and invite recipients of your emails to opt-in and subscribe to your blog, newsletter and notices about other interesting things you’re doing.

4. YouTube videos

YouTube is the second- largest search engine in the world and about six billion videos are viewed on the site every day. People like visuals and videos are the favorite visual. Production value matters, so ask around to find out who you know with equipment that’s a level or two more advanced than your cell phone. Your public library may have equipment to use and a quiet room that will be all yours for an hour or two.

What story can you tell? You’ll have a few and you can make one or two of them sound appealing with a little thought and some rehearsal time. Providers of B2B services don’t have a product to show but we can do a convincing 5 minute promo on a course we’re set to teach, or a virtual talk we’ll give, or panel we’ll participate on.

If you’re rolling out a new service, pivoting your business, or embarking on a collaboration with colleagues that you and your partners can make sound exciting and useful to certain of your clients and prospects, include a video pitch in the launch campaign.

Remember to conclude your videos with both a verbal and text Call to Action. Ask for the business and direct viewers to click a button and be directed to your squeeze page, a landing page you can create that collects the names and email addresses of those who want to know more about your topic (i.e., what you’re selling). Learn to create a Wordstream squeeze page here. https://www.wordstream.com/features/cro-toolkithttps://www.wordstream.com/features/cro-toolkit

After posting your pithy little video promo to YouTube, also get it onto Instagram stories, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and your website. Write a short teaser sentence to accompany a link to your video and include them in your email signature block.

5. Join business groups

All meetings are virtual and will remain so for the time being, but by attending events hosted by the group you join—-the chamber of commerce, a neighborhood business group, the local alumni chapter of your school, or other professional development and networking associations—-the benefits of membership include access to the member directory.

I don’t recommend that you import the directory and spam fellow members by sending your content without permission, because that will do you no favors. But one easy way to obtain the names and email addresses of desirable contacts is to attend virtual programs and make a pitch through the chat function.

During the final 15 minutes or so of the program send an all-person chat message to briefly introduce yourself and offer to send your blog, newsletter, e-book, or other content to anyone who’ll (privately) provide their name and address.

Attend one or two virtual events each month and you’ll be almost guaranteed to add 4-5 worthwhile names each month from this one source. This type of ask was originally done during the face2face conversations that took place during pre- event meet & greets (remember those?), but they can migrate to a virtual format without feeling awkward.

Building a robust email marketing prospect list is one of the best growth strategies business owners and leaders can do. If you’re able to add 10-20 contacts each month, declare victory. List building is an ongoing process—- it never stops. I’ve personally witnessed Freelancers who have 5000+ names on their list politely, skillfully, relentlessly, invite every potentially good contact to join their email list.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: Replica of a vintage mailbox

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Social Media —-Best Time to Post

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You already know that timing is everything in business and life and that calculation also applies to when one should ideally post content on the social media platforms of choice. According to social media content marketing experts, there are days and times when your audience will either be more likely to login and read posts on a particular platform or will be in a receptive frame of mind when they do check in.

Social media management sites, including Buffer, Hootsuite, Hubspot and SproutSocial, have studied the potential best timing for publishing and sharing posts and published those results, but the most exhaustive research seems to have been done by the Bismarck, ND digital marketing management company CoSchedule. Highlights of the company’s research are cited in this post and in its entirety at this link. https://coschedule.com/blog/best-times-to-post-on-social-media/

Still, I suggest that you experiment with your own study and look for indications that your posts perform better or worse on certain days and times. Because I had a long career in B2B face2face sales, I knew to avoid posting on Monday (too busy) or Friday (livin’ for the weekend). Tuesday seemed like a good day to publish, so I went with it. LinkedIn is my social media platform and I’ve shared my posts there each week for the 11 years that I’ve published.

Here’s a rundown of platforms that appeal most to B2B marketers and the suggested prime times to publish content, according to a review of 20 studies that was conducted by CoSchedule. To dig more deeply into this topic, click the link to the study. B2B, B2C and age will potentially impact your prime publishing times.

Facebook

The evaluation of 20 studies revealed that the overall best time frame to post on Facebook is Thursday to Sunday from 1:00 – 3:00 PM. However, users can quickly and accurately identify their individual prime posting times by opening the Insight tab at the top of the page and inspecting the tracking graph.

Google Plus

What users really want to do to find out what’s going on is to use the Steady Demand tool, that reports out not only what your business, but also competitive businesses, are doing. You’ll have to pay, though. Otherwise, Wednesday mornings at 9:00-ish reportedly yields the best results when publishing. https://www.steadydemand.com/services.php

Instagram

Users who have a business account with the platform should head straight to Instagram Analytics to receive customized performance results. Those who do not have a business account are recommended to investigate a free tool that is known to provide reliable data, such as Union Metrics. https://unionmetrics.com/free-tools/instagram-account-checkup/

LinkedIn

The platform is all business and users are in a business frame of mind when they check in, but according to statistics, Tuesday through Thursday 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM wins by a nose (hey, that’s when I publish!). My LinkedIn connections will know that I’ve shared a blog post via a message that appears at their Notifications tab.

TikTok

These 500 million active monthly users, heavily represented by the highly coveted Generation Z demographic, continue to fascinate nearly every marketer, especially in the B2C space. Business owners and leaders want to recruit them as customers now and work on cultivating a longstanding relationship that will yield millions of dollars in sales.

Marketers dream of their company’s videos being seen by a large segment of a GenZ audience that will become loyal to their company and who will comment on and give likes and shares to company posts. Some clever and lucky posters, they imagine, will attract devoted followers who like their videos enough to click the icon that includes the video creator’s profile to find the heart ♥️ and ask to be a follower.

What may not have been considered is that this group is not known for long term loyalty. They are known for skepticism and changing their minds. The best posting times have been difficult to pin down, but morning and evening commute, plus lunchtime, seem the best for publishing new content.

Twitter

Wednesdays and Thursdays have emerged as the preferred days for tweeting, but users can verify their power hours by way of Twitter Analytics. Click “tweets” Overall, the best time frame for publishing is 7:00 AM – 8:00 AM and 6:00 PM- ish.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Photograph: Kim Clark

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A View From the Lockdown

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I am one who likes to be productive. I’ve grown weary of the enforced furlough that the civil servants have foisted upon the good citizens (and properly documented guests) of the empire. Sitting on the bench as life passes us by is a tragic waste of time and as we know, time and the tides wait for no one. We can never reclaim our lost days.

It occurred to me that education can soften the blow, at least somewhat. If we educate ourselves, we’ll come out of this madness better than we were when we went in. I’ve heard that many parents are taking a stab at home schooling their children and there’s no reason why we grown-ups cannot home school ourselves.

So after you’ve rearranged closets, done laundry, dusted & vacuumed, put spring plantings into the garden and window boxes and ranked the client list according to revenue potential, you might feel ready to pursue some professional education, ideally in the form of short workshops that are offered at no charge or low charge (because you may not be getting paid for a while). LinkedIn could have what you need.

LinkedIn Learning has 15,000+ workshops and tutorials that will grow your knowledge and the price range seems to be $20 – $40. A revolving sample of workshops are free at any given time and I’ve taken three. All were useful and very well presented. https://www.linkedin.com/learning

Whatever your specialty, you are sure to find a LinkedIn Learning workshop that will supply you with relevant information that will help you serve your clients more effectively. Not only that, but you’ll earn a certificate that will look nice on your profile.

What follows here is a sampling of workshop topics that nearly every Freelance consulting specialist and business owner might appreciate.

Business Finance

So many business owners and Freelancers shrink from the financial management aspects of our ventures. It can be intimidating. A good teacher will break it down and show you that you already know how to do most of this stuff if you’ve ever had a job and paid rent and other expenses.

What is needed is confidence and big- picture thinking. Discover the guidance that business finance workshops will provide to support the growth and health of your venture.

Financial Modeling and Forecasting Financial Statements will explain the basics of your financial statements and how to learn from them, help you figure out cash-flow, plus teach you how to use your company’s past financial data to predict future financial performance.

Brothers Jim and Earl Kay Stice will lead you through step by clearly explained step. Earl Kay Stice holds a Ph.D. in Accounting from Cornell University and he teaches the subject at Brigham Young University. Jim Stice received his Ph.D. in Accounting from Brigham Young University, where he is the Distinguished Teaching Professor of Accounting.

Microsoft Excel

There are numerous Excel workshops and tutorials available and I am ready to dive into two or three of them, at minimum.

Excel spreadsheets make data analysis so much easier. There are even tutorials on functions as basic as filling the cells and adding highlighting color and fonts to make your data pop.

There are workshops that teach learners how to create a basic dashboard and how to create charts in Excel, from classics like bar graphs and pie charts to more recent configurations such as funnels and Pareto.

Value Based Pricing

Your business will not be optimally profitable until you learn how to properly price your products and services. Pricing for B2B services is especially challenging. The concept of Value Pricing is an excellent strategy and you can learn how to apply the principles to your venture after dipping into this most useful course.

Strategic Planning

Take your pick—Strategic Planning Foundations, Strategic Planning Case Studies and Assessing & Improving Strategic Plans, all taught by Mike Figliuolo, author, West Point graduate, former assistant professor at Duke University, author and former McKinsey consultant.

Listening Skills

I took a great one hour listening skills workshop taught by Dorie Clark, adjunct professor at Duke University School of Business, author and frequent contributor to the Harvard Business Review. Excellent communication begins with active, meaningful listening. Listening well will help you to become more persuasive, a better negotiator, a more successful sales professional and an effective leader.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Photograph: Kim Clark. Social distance grocery shopping March 2020.

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How B2Bs Use Social Media

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Take a look at the pie chart above. In response to the question, “I am able to measure the return on investment (ROI) for my organic social media activities,” only 44% of marketers in a recent survey that examined the use of social media in the B2B and B2C sectors agreed they were able to measure the performance of their organic social activities. This challenge has plagued marketers since the format appeared. Social media marketing is now included in most marketing strategies, yet a demonstrable ROI still eludes many. In my experience as a Freelance marketing professional, business owners and leaders still haven’t figured out how to effectively use the medium, measure its success or, for that matter, establish reasonable expectations for its benefits.

The wrong platforms are used. Content doesn’t fit platform. Investments are made in platforms that customers do not follow. Postings, after an initial burst of energy, appear only erratically after four or five months. Most of all, in an effort to both save money and simplify, social media all-too-often becomes  the company’s marketing strategy, rather than one component of the strategy.

The 2019 Social Media Marketing Industry Report, released by Social Media Examiner, surveyed more than 4,800 marketers with the goal of understanding how they use social media to grow and promote their organizations. for the past five years, the top benefits derived from social media are increased exposure in the marketplace and increased website traffic. Company exposure grew to 93% (from 87% in 2018) and website traffic improved to 87% ( up from 78% in 2018). Lead generation increased to 74% from 64% in 2018 and, most importantly, sales rose to 72% from 2018’s 53%, solidly demonstrating that B2B and B2C marketers see positive results derived from investment in social media. https://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/social-media-marketing-industry-report-2019/

Facebook remains the number one social media platform for both B2C and B2B marketers, who together account for 94% of business use on the platform. When B2C and B2B are examined separately, however, LinkedIn takes the number two spot for B2B, at 80%, while the number two B2C pick is Instagram, at 78%. Facebook and Instagram were the top two favorites of marketers overall in 2018.  

YouTube is still the number one video channel for marketers (57%) and Facebook’s native videos hold second place (50%). When the survey separated B2C and B2B responses, B2B marketers were found to choose LinkedIn native videos, while B2C marketers preferred Instagram stories and Facebook native videos. 

Of the platforms marketers regularly use for social media ads, Facebook is far and away the number one choice but once again, when separating B2B and B2C, the results show that B2B marketers use more LinkedIn ads while B2C marketers favor Facebook and Instagram ads.

Now, let’s look more deeply into 2020. A serious contender, at least in the B2C space, will be TikTok, an already massive platform beloved by Generation Z and Millennials. Launched in 2016, the site has more 500 million + active users worldwide; over one million of its 15 second videos are viewed every day. In January 2020, Statista reported that 37.2 % of TikTok users are age 10 -19, 26.3 % are age 20-29 and 16.7 % are age 30-39.

TikTok now has a shopping feature called “Hashtag Challenge Plus” that allows users to browse products that are associated with a sponsored Hashtag Challenge, all without leaving TikTok’s platform. Customers have now spent $50 million on TikTok purchases and 42% of all TikTok revenue now comes from the USA.

Did someone say influencer marketing? In 2020 and beyond, it’s safe to say that global brands whose customers skew to tweens and young adults will seize upon TikTok to spread their brand voice, engage with audiences and attract younger consumers, the golden key to future sales.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

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Full Frontal LinkedIn

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For B2B firms, Freelance consultants and corporate or not-for-profit professionals, LinkedIn is the preferred social media platform because it is strictly business. Members create a profile that is essentially an expanded resume. There are opportunities to receive recommendations from colleagues with whom one has worked. One can create and upload a SlideShare presentation to provide an overview of company products and services and describe how they benefit customers.

A portfolio that showcases examples of one’s best work can be created and uploaded.  The company blog and/or newsletter can be added to the profile and all connections will receive notice of publishings. If that’s not enough, LinkedIn ProFinder helps to match prospective clients with Freelancers in search of project work (I’ve had a couple of almosts but no contract yet, after 6-8 months of sporadic follow-up to prospect inquiries).

There are those members who claim to make money directly from their LinkedIn connections (other than the ProFinder feature), but I don’t know anyone who’s done so. Still, LinkedIn seems to be a worthwhile investment.  I think presence on the site lends legitimacy and I suspect that prospective clients who are evaluating whether to hire a Freelancer (me!) for a project visit the LinkedIn profile as an element of due diligence.

LinkedIn users

According to the LinkedIn Marketing Solutions Blog, of the 500 million LinkedIn profile owners, 61 million are senior-level influencers and 24.5 million are in decision-making positions.  Millennials are also well-represented on LinkedIn. Globally, 87 million members are Millennial generation and 11 million are in decision-making positions.

Content Marketing

LinkedIn’s Sophisticated Marketer’s Guide to LinkedIn  reports that LinkedIn is the top choice for B2B content marketing and that every week, LinkedIn content is viewed 9 billion times. While 94% of B2B marketers (including Freelancers) use LikedIn to distribute content, 89% use Twitter, 77% use Facebook, 77% use YouTube and 61% use Google + for B2B content distribution. Surprisingly, only 3 million LinkedIn members post content once a week or more.

When marketing executives (i.e., the Freelancer’s prospective clients) were asked their choice sites to search for relevant, high-quality B2B content, 91% voted for LinkedIn, blowing away Twitter (29%) and Facebook (27%). Decision-makers who have the authority to green-light projects and send billable hours your way trust LinkedIn.  How-to posts and lists receive the best reader response, according to OKDork.com.

About 45% of LinkedIn article readers are managers, directors, vice presidents and C-suite dwellers. Have you published articles in legitimate media outlets, or written white papers or case studies? If so, upload examples of your writing to your profile, since nearly half of LinkedIn article readers are senior level decision-makers. Furthermore, OKDork.com investigated LinkedIn viral posts and discovered that the sweet spot for content length is 1900 words. Don’t shy away from long-form content.

In your articles, be certain to include images (photos, graphs, charts); eight images emerged as the magic number.  Yet videos do not impress LinkedIn readers as they do visitors to other platforms and OKDork.com recommends that article writers avoid videos.

I’ve made this blog available to my LinkedIn connections for the 10 years of its existence and I’ve gained followers and regular readers as a result. Get busy, people! If you think about it, you’ll find that you have relevant content to share with your community every two or three weeks, at least.

As mentioned earlier, LinkedIn encourages members to take advantage of SlideShare as a storytelling and sales tool. According to TechCrunch, 70 million LinkedIn members visit SlideShare each month and 18 million pieces of content have been uploaded (does that mean there are 18 million SlideShare presentations on LinkedIn? I guess so.)

I have a SlideShare presentation that was uploaded some time ago and it’s a good way to tell the story of your company, or to detail why, when and how customers can benefit from using your products or services. But LinkedIn won’t allow edits to existing presentations and it’s aggravating.  I’d like to do an update.

Lead generation 

When tallying B2B leads generated by social media, LinkedIn outperforms all contenders, with 80% of B2B leads derived from LinkedIn and only 13% through Twitter and 7% through Facebook. Moreover, HubSpot reports that LinkedIn produces the highest visitor-to-lead conversion rate of all platforms, 2.74%, almost three times higher than Facebook, which produces a 0.77% visitor-to-lead conversion rate, and Twitter, which clocks in with a 0.69% visitor-to-lead rate.

In short, LinkedIn delivers more prospects who are more willing to do business.  The ultimate validation is that 65% of B2B companies have acquired a customer through LinkedIn (I’m still waiting. I should go back to ProFinder ASAP, because I do receive bidding invitations).

So here is my call-to-action. You’ve read the post (thank you!) and I hope you are inspired to step up your LinkedIn activity. It’s OK to start small. Do you have a profile photo? Add a photo and attract 21 times more profile views and receive 36 times more messages. I added a new photo today.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Photograph: John Pilkington (2006) Loading salt at the Taoudenni salt mines in northern Mali, 400 miles north of Timbuktu and approaching the Algerian border. The mines have operated since at least the 1500s.

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Making Social Media Work for B2B Companies

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Hello everyone, I’m happy to return to posting after an unexpected break! An important project demanded my full attention. Apologies.

When a prospective client speaks with me about developing a plan to optimize the use of B2B social media, I ask ask that s/he name a goal or two. Most say the goal is to increase sales. Next, we talk about the difference between goals and outcomes and I tend to consider generating revenue as an outcome and not a goal. I do consider nurturing a robust sales / marketing pipeline to be a goal and I’ve found that a reasonable approach to B2B social media is to use the resource for lead generation that continually fills the pipeline with prospects.

Other uses for B2B social media include new product or service announcements, brand awareness and enhancement and relationship- building that consists of inviting customers to take a behind-the-scenes look at your organization. YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter can play a role when your company launches a new product or service.  If you’re able, create a 5- 10 minute video so that you and key team members can personally introduce the product and make the case for why it’s useful and which customers will be the best fit.  Post your video to the company website plus social media accounts.

Instagram is ideal for brand enhancement and awareness if your business can be expressed well in visuals.  Through well-composed and lighted photos, business leaders can create a narrative that reinforces product positioning, supports the pricing strategy, touts competitive advantages, introduces a new product, or portrays the company’s commitment to corporate social responsibility through involvement in community or philanthropic events (that you’ve documented with three or four action shots).

Instagram and YouTube can support relationship-building by enabling behind-the-scenes looks into your organization, whether in still photos or videos. Maybe you might want to show how team members unwind on late Friday afternoons, or the celebration of a team member’s work anniversary or birthday?

In the meantime, we can revisit the sales/ marketing funnel that we discussed a few weeks ago and understand how to effectively measure the impact of your B2B social media strategies through easily accessed social media and website metrics.

ToFu: Top of Funnel

Awareness takes place at this stage and a reasonable goal for the business is to expand name recognition and reach. Your newsletter, blog, or social media platform presence will be the likely draws, but keyword and voice searches could also bring interested parties to your door. It’s useful to measure your company’s reach and a good KPI (Key Performance Index) is the number of readers or visitors to each platform plus your website.

MoFu: Middle of Funnel

Casual “day-trippers” to your website or social media accounts at this level have either dismissed you or begun to demonstrate trust and commitment.  Make your content click-bait with a provocative headline that makes readers want to know more and provide content that fulfills the promise. Engagement takes place here and I think it’s safe to call this group qualified leads. Visitors will step it up and follow your blog, subscribe to your newsletter or become a fan. Your ebook is downloaded and they’re reading your case studies.

Useful KPIs include website clicks, time visitors spend on pages, following of embedded links, the number of fans and followers, positive reviews, comments, shares and “likes.”

BoFu: Bottom of Funnel

Leads at this stage of the funnel are looking to confirm details and finalize the decision of whether to do business.  Your prospect is ready to buy, but there’s no guarantee that s/he will buy from you.  Grease the wheels and present an inviting call-to-action that encourages the next step.  A Contact Us form on your website or Facebook Fan page makes a good call-to-action, as it signals a prospect’s desire for more than general information.  The offer of a free 30 minute consultation that can be scheduled by way of a phone call, SMS, or email should appear on the landing page of your website.

A time-sensitive special offer can make a difference. Try offering a tantalizing (and inexpensive to provide) upgrade or add-on to what the prospect has indicated s/he would like to purchase.  Free or discounted installation or a free product trial are also effective. The number of inquiries initiated to discuss your products or services, as well as the conversion rate of those inquiries, are the most relevant KPIs.

It’s useful for company leaders to remember that relationship – building is an integral ingredient of the recipe to reap benefits from social media. Too many business leaders want to dive into lead-gen, but your audience will have no desire to download your ebook until they know who you are and feel they can trust your expertise. Social media success is not an overnight sensation, it is a process that takes some time.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Photograph: Julia Child on the set of The French Chef  (PBS) in 1964

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Finally, A Social Media Strategy for Your B2B Company

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Social Media has a B2B image problem.  Business owners, Freelancers and owners / leaders of B2B companies are for the most part able to recognize the effectiveness of Social Media marketing in the B2C realm, but many still don’t see Social Media platforms as resonating with B2B buyers, despite its pervasive use across most customer demographic groups in the U.S.

Yet numerous studies have demonstrated that the various Social Media platforms can quickly and effectively increase brand awareness and generate leads for B2B and B2C companies.  Moreover, once a Social Media strategy is developed, it’s relatively easy to implement and monitor. Consider the following statistics, courtesy of the 2019 Global Digital Report prepared by We Are Social, a top-tier digital marketing firm:

  • 76% of Americans who are on the Internet use Social Media
  • Social Media (inbound marketing) has a 100% higher lead-to-close rate than traditional marketing (outbound marketing)
  • 45% of business owners/ marketers have acquired customers through LinkedIn
  • 43% of B2B companies on Facebook report generating leads as a result
  • Brands that are on Twitter generate 2x as many leads than those who are not
  • 66% of business owners/ marketers see lead generation benefits with Social Media by putting in as little as six hours/ week

Where to start

Perhaps the simplest way to generate B2B leads with Social Media is to optimize your business page profile on the platform you decide to use.  Your business must be visible. Include a link to the company website, along with links to your blog and/or newsletter. Make your value proposition obvious and devise a compelling call-to-action that indicates to prospective customers how they can learn more about your product or service.  “Enter your email here and receive a free ebook that teaches B2B leaders how to use five Social Media platforms.”

Facebook

  • Call-to-Action Button: Facebook gives business pages the option to include a call-to-action button. The seven options include Book Now, Contact Us, Use App, Play Game, Shop Now, Sign Up and Watch Video. You can send the link to a page on your business website. Here’s how you can entice browsers to get familiar with your products or services with a free offer, such as a 30 minute consultation, or a free trial of an online service.
  • About Page: Facebook provides businesses a place to list their address, phone number, hours of operation and a brief summary of their business. Be sure to complete all this information. Not only is it helpful to visitors, but also boosts the pages SEO value.

 

Instagram

B2B leaders/ owners must first understand that marketing on Instagram is less about selling the benefits of your products and services and more about establishing deeper connections with people, including industry thought-leaders and prospective clients.

Instagram is a channel where building and maintaining awareness of your brand needs to come before lead generation.  Unlike Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, where you can drive traffic to your site, think of Instagram as a way to grab the attention of industry influencers and prospective clients at a time when they’re not really in ‘work mode’.  When they’re not in ‘work mode’ they’re not going to be clicking links, they’re not going to be interested in being ‘sold to’.  This is your chance to seamlessly inject your brand values into their Instagram feed so it doesn’t look out of place amongst the B2Cs, friends and co-workers they also follow on Instagram.

The key to leveraging Instagram as a marketing tool for B2B buyers is to not think of it as a marketing tool at all.  Instead, think about Instagram as a way to tell your story as part of a larger online marketing strategy.

Instagram will help you to demonstrate your company’s commitment to Corporate Social Responsibility when you include three or four photos of you and your team participating in spring clean-up, or fall planting of tulip bulbs, in a public park.  You can show the celebration of a team member’s baby shower. You can even show the team sharing beer and wine and celebrating that a big project deadline was successfully met.

LinkedIn:

  • Images: As with both Facebook and Twitter, your profile and banner images can have a big impact on the success of your page. Make your profile image some recognizable variation of your company logo and be sure to mirror your header image with current marketing initiatives.
  • SEO: LinkedIn company profiles are often indexed by search engines. Be sure that the first few lines of your company description are compelling and contain your target keywords, as this text will often be used as Google’s preview text. LinkedIn users can browse the platform using keywords, meaning that this optimization will help get more eyes on your profile within the platform.
  • Showcase Pages: LinkedIn offers the ability to create separate pages to showcase products or examples of your work, such as writing. These pages live at the top of your profile in prime page real estate. Use these to help out with your lead generation efforts.

 

Twitter

  • Bio: Twitter marketing expert, Madalyn Sklar recommends that “Your bio should be compelling and inviting. Don’t be cutesy or funny. Your profile should paint your story in 160 characters and encourage me to want to learn more about you.”
  • Profile/Header Images: For most B2B organizations, your Twitter profile image should be some variation of your logo — consider color, size, and how it will look on different devices. Your image, more than your handle, is what your followers will come to recognize you for, so it’s important to keep it consistent. Your header image, on the other hand, should be changed fairly regularly to match your marketing initiatives. Running an important event? Holding a webinar? Promoting a new product? This should be reflected in your banner image.
  • Pinned Tweet: Twitter allows you to pin important tweets to the top of your feed so they don’t get lost among your other tweets. If your goal is lead generation, this tweet should contain a call-to-action and a link to your website. Consider pinning a tweet about exclusive content, a free trial, or a special product discount.
  • Open Your DMs: Make sure your Direct Messages are open to the public. That way, if customers or prospects have questions, they can come to you directly. Prepare responses to common questions ahead of time.
  • Hashtags: Studies show that tweets with hashtags generate twice the engagement as tweets without. But be careful, because too many hashtags can resemble spam. Your marketing team should develop a strategy around which hashtags to use and how often. Soon your followers, customers and prospects will catch on and use these hashtags, too.

That’s all for today. Go to work on this and we’ll pick up the thread next week.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Photograph: Hussey’s Horse Auction (1926) at the Bonhay Cattle Market. Exeter, UK