Collaborating With Another Business To Achieve A Mutual Goal

Hello and welcome back to our latest stage in the 8 Steps to B2B Social Media Success - collaboration.

In this blog we’ll dip into what collaboration is and how it can work for you and your business when you’re implementing your next social media campaign.

We hope you’re enjoying our series of social media blogs, if you need a quick recap, you’ll find our introduction here.

What is collaboration?

Collaboration is when individuals or groups of individuals all work together, combining strengths and ideas to accomplish a set of common goals. Collaboration is a two way street which means you have to give some to get some in return, there’s no such thing as a free lunch! Incentivising collaboration is particularly pertinent on your social media platform in order to encourage your audience to interact and share knowledge.

Staff Collaboration

From a business perspective collaborating internally with your staff is paramount to the success of your social media campaign and can often be overlooked as we are often absorbed by the outcome, rather than the preparation. By getting your staff involved in your campaign, you can join forces and come up with many different ideas to achieve your goals. If employees are involved in the campaign creation, they are also more likely to engage using their own personal social media profile once the campaign is launched and will feel inclined to share your page if their ideas have been implemented - which is only a good thing for your business.

Your staff could have some great insight into your customer behaviour that could potentially help you enhance your credibility and authority, especially if they are client facing. This will undoubtedly help with your audience engagement and don’t forget - more reach means a greater chance of conversion.

For your next social media campaign, why not get some of your staff involved and see what ideas you come up with together and don’t forget to incentivise their creative ideas! Speaking of incentivising, did you read our last blog on customer loyalty? This blog will give you some ideas on how to build your customer loyalty and can also be applied internally. Incentivising your staff will encourage loyalty and motivate them to become more involved improving your overall collaboration objectives.

Here are a couple of ways you can generate internal collaboration prior to your social media campaign launch:

Knowledge Sharing

Why not set aside an hour each Friday with your team to discuss ideas about how you are going to approach the next week and/or month on your social media platform?

Researching

Why not encourage your staff to research your competitors or their favourite brands on social media by providing them with a template which allows them to record different ideas and with some form of incentive for these ideas you can really help to stimulate idea generation.

Once your campaign is launched, don’t forget to thank your team for contributing on your social media platform, everyone likes a pat on the back! Perhaps include your team again midway through a campaign in case they come up with further suggestions and ideas?

External Collaboration with business partners or associates will also greatly help you engage and expand your audience. It goes without saying two heads are definitely better than one when applied to your social media marketing strategy. Collaborating with a business which is closely connected will enhance your authority and enable you to work together to reach that common goal as well as the ability to really enhance your audience reach.

For example, if you’re goal is to create awareness or generate a buzz about your particular product or service, you could ask your business associate to do a video testimonial highlighting how your company has assisted them to achieve their business objectives. You can then share this video content via your social media, and attribute it to them. Hopefully they will also engage and retweet or share the post as well!

This example of business collaboration has benefits for both parties in different ways; it will enable your prospects to see a real life testimonial about how your company could help encouraging engagement and will also allow the other company to get some airtime in front of your audience on your platform.

This is only one example of how you can collaborate externally as there are many different ways to this. Here are a few additional ways you can help grow your business through social media:

• Repost tweets or status updates that your business associate has published on their own social media platforms (including photos and videos).
• Both post a blog which mentions how your companies work together to help you achieve your business goals
• Even look at guest blogging on each others blog feed.

By developing and building on relationships with similar companies you will enable your business to become increasingly competitive within your market. It also allows you to foster relationships with their audience and increase your reach at the same time.

Audience Collaboration

Don’t forget about collaboration with your audience too. If this is done correctly, it is an excellent way to develop your social media presence and help grow your business. Your followers can provide you with a wealth of information and this can allow you to see how you are perceived on the outside. Be cautious of how you approach your audience when you’re attempting to collaborate - you don’t want to go asking any questions that could shoot you in the foot like, ‘What do you think of our latest product?’ - someone may have had a bad experience and feel the need to vent! One way to avoid this is to drive traffic to your website via social media to take part in something, for example; a survey (along with an incentive) could be - Fill out this quick 10 question survey to be entered into a draw to win a free place on our content marketing course! Most of your audience will be willing to support your business but you could get the occasional troll. *Look out for our upcoming blog on 'Crisis aversion and reputation management on social media'.*

To summarise there are a number of different ways you can collaborate effectively using social media, some of our favourite include the following;

Staff Collaboration - Collaborating internally to generate ideas and allowing your staff to have an input into campaign generation is a vital element in the success of your social media campaigns.

Business Collaboration - Collaborating with a complementary business is also an excellent way to grow your audience, demonstrate your value and increase your web presence. However, don’t forget - when you’re collaborating with similar companies you don’t want to overlap your service offerings and lose credibility. Make sure you weigh up the benefits and only collaborate with businesses who have an audience that is relevant to your business.

Audience Collaboration - Don’t forget about collaborating with your audience, they are vital at giving you a different insight into your business and can highlight any gaps you haven’t explored. However treat with caution! Your audience can be your biggest fan or your biggest fail - it’s all about the customer experience so treat your customers as you’d expect to be treated and they’ll be your best asset.

Have a look at how one of our clients - Northern Ireland Tyre Safety Association (NITSA) - collaborated with members and manufacturers on their social media profile.

Stay tuned for our final blog in our series of 8 which will be published next week, it's all about Customer Service!

We hope you enjoyed reading our latest blog on collaboration, if you’d like to hear more from us fill out the form below and we will be in touch with you shortly to discuss your current business requirements.