We all know the feeling: You’re scrolling through social media and you see a sponsored ad for a piece of clothing you were just looking at on your favorite retailer’s website. By now, you’re used to seeing your favorite B2C companies pop up on your social media. While it’s most common for consumer-facing companies to have a strong social media presence, B2B companies can also leverage these platforms in a similar way.

As social media has evolved, we understand much of it to be visual media, a tool that lends itself well toward B2C marketing to drive purchase conversions. While many B2C companies have already seized upon this opportunity, B2B companies can also take advantage of social media to drive insights and profits in much the same way. By turning to the right B2B marketing agency, they can help you develop an organized and creative content strategy and enhance your brand’s messaging.

The Art of LinkedIn

For B2B companies, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are the most reputable of the social media sites to establish your brand and drive awareness, with LinkedIn being the most impressive in terms of leads generated via social media.

LinkedIn is one of the most important social media channels for B2B companies to focus their attention on. This is where you can interact with industry leaders, potential employees, and future clients. While you may not necessarily be selling your capabilities through these sites, you will be able to express your brand’s legitimacy and display an understanding of your industry’s cutting-edge technologies or thought processes. A B2B marketing agency can help you develop a comprehensive social media plan to ensure that your brand’s page rollout is thoughtful and informed, which gives your company credibility and helps generate leads.

The Stats Say It All

Today, LinkedIn is by far the most efficient social media channel. 97% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn for content marketing purposes, and 80% of social leads for B2B are generated on LinkedIn.

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Additionally, 64% of corporate website visits originate on LinkedIn. That’s not a number to ignore. With the right B2B marketing agency and LinkedIn content strategy, you can be generating leads at exponentially higher rates than before you turned to LinkedIn. A B2B marketing agency, like Bluetext, will be sure to engage your audience, resulting in more site visits and leads.

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Using social sites such as LinkedIn positions you as a forward-thinker in today’s digital world, illustrating to future clients and employees that your company is modern and innovative. Social media can be your company’s next best marketing tool that drives leads and expands your profit margins. Working with a B2B marketing agency to elevate your brand to its greatest potential ensures that you are taking advantage of all that social media has to offer.

Bluetext is a B2B marketing agency that works to advance our clients’ brands in the digital sphere, resulting in maximum lead generation and profits.

See how Bluetext has served its clients in the social media realm.

If you are a CMO or executive at a DC-area organization seeking to hire a digital marketing firm, do you Google search for “Top DC digital marketing firms” or “Top digital marketing firms?” Maybe you don’t use a search engine at all, but that’s a conversation for another day.

The point is that for many organizations, there is significant perceived value in having a marketing agency that is “local” – whether it’s a b2b marketing agency, b2g marketing agency or b2c marketing agency. The true value of engaging with the best “local” marketing firm as opposed to just the best marketing firm period is a more nuanced consideration that depends on the specific needs of your organization. To help with that decision, I’ve assembled five key questions to ask yourself before deciding if your marketing partner should be local:

How much value do you place on face time?

CMOs must be honest with themselves upfront about how important it is to have your marketing agency team available for in-person meetings. This should be a factor in the pre-hire evaluation phase – how big a factor is up to the CMO. It can be practically and economically unreasonable to expect a non-local marketing agency to show up on short notice, but it is also true that getting together in-person can foster improved team chemistry and allow for easier oversight.

How specialized are your marketing requirements?

As is the case with any product or service, the laws of supply and demand apply. If your organization is based in Cleveland, there will certainly be sufficient marketing agencies to choose from. But how niche is your product/service or vertical market you serve? Perhaps you need an agency with experience marketing consumer-facing ride-sharing startups, or software for the healthcare industry. All of the sudden, the list of credible b2b marketing agencies or b2c marketing agencies with this type of experience in Cleveland shrinks. It is a tradeoff for CMOs, and based on your specialized your needs are, a non-local marketing agency may be necessary to provide the expertise your organization requires.

Does your marketing agency need knowledge of the local market?

Your local market, for various reasons, may be critical to initial or long-term growth. One of the reasons that leading technology brands turn to Bluetext for b2g marketing and b2g public relations is that we’ve developed unique expertise understanding what makes this market tic and the messages required to reach and influence decision makers.

That’s just one example though; it could be that your local market is a critical early engine for customer growth, or that you need an agency that has strong relationships with local broadcast, print and online media. Even the most skilled national marketing and pr agencies will require time to ramp up in better understanding some local markets.

Do you have the right technology to manage virtual teams?

If you already work with other vendors that are virtual, then you may have the necessary technologies, tools and processes in place to effectively communicate and mange a virtual marketing agency. These tools range from conferencing and collaboration to messaging, presence, video and project management, and it is important to lock in on a set of tools that can be used across all vendors – rather than continuing to add a patchwork of standalone apps that end up complicating rather than aiding vendor communication.

There is evidence that technology vendors recognize the need for more integration. Our own client BroadSoft delivers truly integrated business communications in response to the avalanche of apps and tools that marketing departments can now choose from.

Consider these factors when deciding if a local digital marketing and public relations agency is the best move for your organization. And to learn more about Bluetext, click here: