Is B2B Better at Social Media than B2C?

B2B marketing can be tricky, time consuming and sometimes unrewarding, and according to the 2011 Global Marketing Effectiveness Program by the Fournaise Marketing Group 73% of CEO's believe that a good old marketer is not able to prove that their strategies to increase sales and improve the organisations market growth will actually work.

Is this true? I don't actually think so! 

B2B historically was all about the trade, and cold calling trade customers or sending informal, discount driven direct mail. For example, buy now and get extended credit until December. Brilliant.

However now we must feel empowered, and realise our potential for B2B marketing and allow the B2C marketer's to do the front facing branding. Stop trying to do it. Now I am a slight hypocrite because I have always been in the commercial B2B market, where now; I believe, there has been a transitional shift. No longer is it trade only, you have to appeal to the end users too.

So lets ask ourselves some questions:

Internal social Media, but why?

You get it, most brands have jumped on the "our team is totally awesome, look at how awesome we are, we wear hoodies" band wagon, so now on a ton of websites you get to "meet the team".  For example meet Janice from HR who loves dogs, and mugs of tea but she also loves her job. Insert picture of her possibly with said dog/mug of tea/or a benign smile proving her adoration for the role she's been in for fifteen years. However, it does appear to work in the B2B market, people actually feel that a value proposition is getting to know the organisation properly, almost becoming a member of the family. Whereas within B2C - the consumers just want the shiny product, and strong advertising to prove their buying worth.

So what's my worth?

Think about what your values are, and stick by them. A question to ask is do you have the resources available to be successful? What I mean by that, is most social networking platforms are free so in the purest of senses it should be cheap to add social media to your marketing mix.

Fact is guys and gals, we know it isn't cheap. It's time consuming and sometimes can be uneventful. I suppose a lot of B2B companies use social media as an experiment. I struggled massively with Facebook, when I was in the commercial B2B market not so much however specialist B2B markets are flat in responding when interacting so was difficult to sustain a following.

Your worth, is quite simply realising that social media is non linear within your market. Your aim is to deliver a website with personality and core values, show leads and customers based on relationships.Be transparent. Be trustworthy.

Its all in the maths

Tell a great story, and analyse it! So story + data analysis = you're awesome! A great B2B marketer should be a fantastic story teller, and no it shouldn't all just be buy my product stories, and aren't we great - it should be informative, interesting and very very quietly pushing your business into their mindset. There are so many great software houses out there, such as Hubspot which will track anything you do social media wise. It really is worth a go.

At data clarity we offer a range of services to suit a vast array of B2B users, from web development, data management to SEO so in retrospect we're extremely versatile so in order for us to have succeeded, we did the above first and we're winning so can you!

The Problem with Excel

The Problem with Excel…

We all know that Excel can do an awesome amount of tasks for you to ease your working day and of course, most businesses use it in some manner. Though the ever changing updates and constant self-training involved can often lead to more issues down the line so yes its sturdy however it often leads to mistakes.

As a person who has used Excel for many years, from holidays to mileage forms I have lost track of my own path numerous times, and whilst managing other employees expenses made something sturdy, inconceivable to use.  

Showing the pitfalls in big business

A prime example of this would be JP Morgan, an American finance organisation whom, as others in the financial sector used Excel on a daily basis.

Fundamentally, a simple copy and paste plus a faulty equation made them a loss of $6 million dollars, with possible fines of $600 million. This is an extortionate mistake for a company of such stature.

Ok, so no I have never lost a company that much money but I may hold my hands up and say that I might have signed off a private expense inadvertently as there are so many loop holes, from general errors, to managing holidays and expenses you can make mistakes from all angles. 

The issue with using Excel as an accountancy package

1. Everybody studied I.T in school/college but how much do we actually know about it as a product and service. As mentioned the updates, confused ribbons and changing formats means that without an Excel Bible glued to your hip, chances are you’d miss a trick.

2. Setting up your accounts through Excel is time consuming and can often lead to a general lack of understanding of how it can help you in the long term. However the huge catch-22 is that it’s free so you balance its ease of use (or lack of it) with the fact it’s free. Actually you waste time and money by trying to work out how to use it.

3. In Excel, there is no flexibility, once you’ve set it up you can’t change or reconfigure later on. So you’re limited to its usability.

4. Yes we all know this, Excel is massively susceptible to fraud. I can remember working for a organisation where managers in separate departments used the same spreadsheet to compile and edit their own departments expenses, who’s to say that a colleague didn’t change £150 to £15000, we wouldn’t really know and fundamentally this could break your business.

5. Performance issues are a huge thing with Excel, when you start putting in large amounts of data onto your worksheets Excel simply has a nervous breakdown. Accounting software will integrate everything for you.

6. Hello road block, as Excel doesn’t track anything for you. Its down to you to monitor and understand your accounting software.

Why software is a better solution for you

It’s easy! The cloud based super secure network leaves you in control, with real time dashboards and data information, and you’ll wonder why you never have used it before as it’s so simple and puts you in control. 

Have as many or as little users as you’d like, remembering that you are able to control who sees what within the dashboard, giving you the knowledge that your secure information isn’t being viewed by employees whom don’t need to see such sensitive information. You’re guaranteed maximum up time of the software, and backups are done nightly in highly secure, offsite servers, giving you peace of mind. It also takes the pressure off your business to provide adequate storage, which can be costly.

No chance of fraud here, our solution is double SSL encrypted so exactly the same but even more secure then online banking, which is something we do every day and we put our complete trust that we’re never going to get hacked. 

Reporting should be easy, and take you no time at all. From profit and loss, balance sheets, tax returns, reporting for management and much more, it’s all there under one simple click.

Reasons why accounting software is better than Excel

1. Feel confident from the start

With our easy to use dashboard, you’ll feel confident in the knowledge that you are on the right track with your business straight from the word go!

2. The data is always correct
    Real-time financials are always kept in one central place, no longer do you need to worry about being glued to your desk, access our solution anywhere as we’re fully mobile integrated whilst maintaining the highest level of security.

3. Live information
   Panic stations over, if you’ve got a big investor coming to visit you, its no problem as you can get all the information you’d require in minutes. Think of how accurate your finances will be, leaving you in control and giving you the time to grow.

4. You’ll have a clean audit trail
   All of the historical information that your investors might need is available at their fingertips. A proper audit trail ensures your data cannot be compromised. It also records a document of every business transaction. This includes sales contracts, payments to employees, and more. Having a complete audit trail reassures investors about the validity of the company and meets the tax department’s needs.

5. Access to data anywhere, anytime
   Give any member of your team access your data online anytime, anywhere (as long as you grant them permission to do so.) Cloud software enables you to share your financial information with your employees, accountant, bookkeeper or financial advisor.

It’s about letting your business grow

I know, it's a tricky one about letting go of something you feel is tried and tested. However fundamentally change is for the positive in this case,  you'll feel in control, and save yourself time, effort and money in the long term. Try clarity365 for free today.