Is Facebook Better Than LinkedIn for B2B Lead Generation?
For a while, Facebook was seen as the perfect digital platform for B2C companies to promote their brand and it still is!
But recently, several studies have started to show how Facebook can be used to help B2B businesses gain those all important leads. Some of those studies have even suggested that Facebook may even be a better digital platform for B2B than LinkedIn.
After doing our own research into this, we can see how Facebook could potentially be a better platform than LinkedIn for B2B marketing. Our research has highlighted six reasons:
Facebook Has More Users
First of all, Facebook has more users than LinkedIn. According to the latest statistics Facebook has over 1.01 billion daily users (September 2015) and LinkedIn only has 300 million users (April 2014). The more users a social media platform has the better the outreach and distribution.
Facebook Has Better Visual Tools
The visual tools that are available on Facebook allows users to create adverts which are more visually attractive to perspective customers. To show you the difference, please see the figure below:
Facebook Has Better Content Distribution
When observing online social media consumer behaviours, users on Facebook tend to share posts and content more frequently than LinkedIn. Therefore your promoted posts will reach more perspective customers and have a better a chance of generating new leads.
Facebook Has More Usage Time
According to recent statistics given by both Facebook and LinkedIn. Facebook users, on average spend over 8 hours on the social media platform a month. LinkedIn, in comparison, has just under an hour a month. That means, Facebook has more usage time.
Facebook Has More Mobile Users
As for mobile marketing, which is the future of digital marketing, the Facebook app is one of the most visited apps. Just check out these statistics, which have been retrieved from Flurry, below:
Facebook Advertising
The beauty of Facebook is that it allows users to list personal information such as occupation, interests, hobbies and education on their profile and using this information can help you direct your Facebook advertising campaign to your target audience.
To give you an example, let’s say you are a B2B company that’s targeting IT companies. You can target your adverts towards individuals who have interests in computer programming or hold an IT related degree. Because chances are, those users are very likely to be working in an IT company.
Another great feature of Facebook advertising is that it gives you the option of uploading your own email list as well. This feature can help you reach out to any leads which have gone cold.
Should We Jump Ship to Facebook?
Not just yet. LinkedIn is still a great platform for professional networking and is still a major online platform to find B2B leads. After all, 80% of B2B social leads have come from LinkedIn.
We need to remember that Facebook is mainly used for personal use. The majority content that we see on Facebook is associated with humour, lifestyle, culture and opinions on the news. This is why it is a great platform for B2C.
With LinkedIn, it is mainly used a tool for professional development and to help professionals to stay connected with other fellow professionals. The content that is shared on LinkedIn is mainly related to business. Hence why it is a perfect platform for B2B.
We have to remember that even though Facebook has a significantly larger user base than LinkedIn, the uses for both LinkedIn and Facebook are completely different.
Unless Facebook tries to change it’s image to make it appealing for B2B, then Facebook will over take LinkedIn in terms of B2B lead generation. But that is not going to happen in the near future.
Thanks for reading! What are your thoughts on this topic? Please leave comments below.
