Want more Facebook Followers? Upload Photos.

Many of you are running a B2B social media strategy and probably debating the merits of Facebook for your audience. If your ultimate goal is to build brand awareness and you have a focus on driving website traffic, Facebook is a good option to showcase your brand’s personality. We found that we have the most success on Facebook when we treat it completely different than the other networks (not surprising, right?). Most of all, we have success when we use Facebook to showcase our staff.

One of the most important rules to remember in B2B social media is that not all social networks are created equal. There is a different goal, audience, purpose and method to each site (even if driving website traffic is your main goal across all of them) and they need to be handled accordingly. When users are on Facebook, they are looking for a far more social experience than when they are on Twitter or Linkedin–as marketers, it is our responsibility to keep that in mind and to produce appropriate content for each space.

If we are thinking about Facebook alone, it should come as no surprise that the most popular pieces of content on our Facebook page are photos. Photos of the team working, photos of our portfolio companies, photos of us having fun and being silly. Photos resonate with the Facebook audience. Can I get a “Duh” from readers? Of course, this is obvious, but it is easy to forget when you are pumping your other social channels full of links. My tip? Sprinkle in photos once or twice a week. The results? On OpenView’s Facebook page we get 3-4 new fans for each photo we upload! Obviously the more fans you have, the more users are exposed to your content and the more traffic you can drive.

So, lesson here is: break out your camera, or cell phone, or flip cam and shoot something that shows your true personality. At the end of the day, that will really resonate with the audience on Facebook.