Christian Klepp  00:00

When leveraged the right way, social media can help B2B businesses build trust, credibility, relationships and a stronger presence for brands online. That said, juggling social media while running a business and managing a marketing campaign with many moving parts can be overwhelming and challenging. So how can B2B companies leverage social media for greater impact. Welcome to this episode of the B2B Marketers on a Mission podcast, and I’m your host, Christian Klepp. Today I’ll be talking to Maggie Carey, who will be answering this question. She’s the CEO of Master It Media LLC, who helps elevate brands by inspiring an optimized online presence through strategic social media planning and engaging content. Tune in to find out more about what this B2B marketers mission is. 

Christian Klepp  00:51

And we are off. Maggie Carey, welcome to the show. 

Maggie Carey  00:55

Hey. Welcome Christian. So happy to be here. Thank you for having me as your guest today.

Christian Klepp  01:00

Absolutely delighted to have you on the show. And for the folks that are listening to the audio version of this, I’ve got to say that Maggie is very consistent in terms of color. I’m seeing a lot of purple here, right? Like, there’s a purple shirt, there’s a purple lampshade, there’s a pair of purple lips in the background there, and purple, light purple nails. I mean, it’s just, it’s just a purple world. 

Maggie Carey  01:24

It is. It is a purple world. It’s always a purple world in my world, it’s one of the best branding advice I ever received. Christian it is one of those things that just sets me apart in a sea of black. 

Christian Klepp  01:38

Yes, yes, absolutely. Be the signal amidst the noise, as they say, right? 

Maggie Carey  01:44

Yes, exactly. 

Christian Klepp  01:46

Yeah. And speaking of being the signal amidst the noise, I’d love to jump right into it, because I think this is going to be a very relevant topic to B2B marketers out there, some of them may already know something about this. Others don’t. And the people that you serve are people that are just struggling with the overwhelm, and you help them to get unstuck and pull them out of the quagmire, as it were, right?

Maggie Carey  02:11

Yeah, I say clear the cacophony of chaos.

Christian Klepp  02:14

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s a great way of putting it, for sure, for sure. All right, so let’s dive in. So Maggie, you’re on a mission to elevate brands by inspiring, let’s say, an optimized online presence through strategic social media planning and engaging content. So for the purpose of this conversation, let’s narrow it down. Well, I say narrow it down, but like let’s focus on the topic of how B2B businesses can leverage social media for brand awareness, thought leadership and relationship building. So I’m gonna kick off this conversation with two questions, and I’m happy to repeat them. So what is it about social media that you think many B2B businesses don’t understand? And given that question, where do you see many marketing teams struggle?

Maggie Carey  03:04

You know, that’s a great question that we could have countless hours talking about. But in a nutshell, where I see marketers missing the mark is when they forget about the human element of social media. Now, I’ve got 40 years in IT. I’ve been an IT professional. I’ve seen technologies come and go. Social media is just another tool that we use to communicate. And I tend to find that sometimes marketers think of it more like a billboard or a you know, the marketing tool that’s more about promoting the product, and they forget about the human element. And that’s where I think they could really benefit from by focusing on the client’s pain points, their customers pain points, right? So we’re B2B marketers helping other businesses. We needed to explain to those businesses. Look, it’s yes, your product, your service, is amazing, but we need to story tell, show social proof. Give something real time that’s going on. You know, during covid, I ended up my business soared because so many people were looking for ways of promoting their business, right, without having an in person element. So how do you adjust and adapt. 

Maggie Carey  04:28

To answer your second question about where I see them struggle? I think it’s the, you know, the three Cs, consistency, clarity, capacity, right? Like, how are they posting consistently? And by consistently, it could be, you know, I’d like to see them posting three to four times a week for their clients, right? This is where, um, they maybe, if they can’t do every day, this will give them a solid presence. But if their message is muddied, if they’re not sure where they’re going or what like are you looking for brand awareness? Are you looking for lead gen? What’s your goal? It’s like having a conversation and not knowing where it’s going. You kind of get lost in the mix. Business owners face this all the time, right? If they don’t have a goal, they end up getting sidetracked by all this minutia, other people’s priorities, and they don’t have clarity. Same with your social media. You have to have a goal, and you have to have clarity on what you’re selling and why you’re selling it, and it’s always focused around that client, so you know, and it comes down to your capacity, your time. 

Maggie Carey  05:50

If I didn’t have time to do my social media, that’s an issue. How am I going to find the time? And a lot of that time is because they’re using a tool that helps them fast track their creation. They don’t get stuck. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve helped businesses and they’re stressing over finding the exact, beautiful, perfect photo. And there it’s time wasted. Get something that’s good enough that says what it needs to say, and go with it, or take that picture. Take multiple pictures. So those are kind of some, some pitfalls I see many of us. And look, I fall fallen into this trap as well, right? This is how I know what the problem is, because I’ve experienced it. And I think many business owners face that too. The reason they can address a problem, the reason they have a solution, is because they’ve been thr