Top 5 B2B Facebook Pages

There is a constant debate happening around the Internet and the blogosphere about whether or not creating a Facebook page can be beneficial for B2B companies. As Facebook continues to grow, with over 500 million registered users, more and more B2B companies are entering the fray, trying to reach this gigantic audience. However, many company pages, including MCG’s, are languishing with fewer than 100 fans.

All of a sudden, Twitter, LinkedIn, discussions, and forums are blowing up with talk about whether or not companies should put their resources into creating Facebook pages because so many have not seen the huge number of fans that they see B2C brands like Red Bull and Skittles enjoying.

However, one has to think about why someone becomes a fan of a company or brand on Facebook. There are two reasons. First, a person wants to associate themselves with a company. They want your logo on their Facebook profile to show their friends that they like you. Second, a person wants to keep up with any special promotions that your company may run. People love free stuff, and having your logo on their profile is a small price to pay to enter the perpetual sweepstakes that is required of companies on Facebook.

I will concede that perhaps it’s simply easier for B2C companies to grow their fans. The sheer number of fans of Coke will far exceed that of mobile database solutions, servers, or inventory optimization. It’s a fact of life. However, one has to just scale down the numbers. Everyone in the world may be in the target audience for Coke, but that’s not true for B2B companies. Their audiences are far more specific. Therefore, I determine that there is no benchmark for “success” in terms of number of fans, as long as the audience is over a few hundred, and active on the site. With B2B it’s all about engaging your audience and establishing an ongoing dialogue with them. Below, I offer 5 examples, with some help from SocialMediaB2B, of successful B2B Facebook pages and how they accomplished their goals.

1) Salesforce.com

As of 2/25/11, Salesforce.com, a cloud-based CRM platform, had 15,557 Facebook fans. They utilize the custom landing page option, post content that encourages comments and discussion, post videos and photos (including user submitted content) that not only promote the company, but show transparency and the people behind the company, leverage viral videos, create compelling promotions and contests, and have weekly features like a “question of the week” to increase engagement. Salesforce’s audience is engaged, with comments and “likes” on practically every post.

2) Hubspot

Hubspot uses the custom landing page option, leverages a lot of promotions for increased exposure and engagement, and creates content that encourages comments or discussion. Hubspot also features posts from other blogs which creates relationships and cross-promotion. They use Facebook as a customer service outlet and also feature a lot of interesting graphics and video instead of linking to dense reports or long blog posts. Lastly, Hubspot uses features like a question of the week to increase engagement. Hubspot’s audience is engaged, and throughout their feed, there are many posts by people simply praising Hubspot for one reason or another. This positive sentiment and tremendous engagement means that Hubspot’s social media strategy is helping their brand and bringing more qualified leads into the pipeline.

3) Sodexo's Career Page

Sodexo does a great job of using Facebook as a hub for recruiting and customer service. They respond to any and all questions in a timely manner. Sodexo is leading the use of social media to create transparency in the job market. It’s a concept that is clearly exciting a lot of people. Sodexo also provides relevant blog posts, articles, and creates unique events to excite their target audience. Although Sodexo is a huge company, it does a great job of using social media to portray itself as a fun, exciting company to a younger demographic.

4) Forrester Research

Forrester Research uses posts that ask questions and encourage conversation, aggregates posts from their analysts’ blogs for increased promotion, promotes events and seminars, and creates relationships with other companies on Facebook for cross-promotion. Forrester does a great job of balancing their reports with content, specifically photos and videos, from their events. Forrester’s Facebook page acts as a hub for B2B research, creating a snowball effect for more involvement coming from individuals and other companies.

5) Windspire