When it comes to define a B2B Web Marketing Strategy social media can play a crucial role.

Where should a B2B share their content, create and interact with their community?

There is no a unique answer. It depends on your business, on your audience and on the other marketing activities that you are managing at a specific time.

In general Facebook aims to create personal connections while LinkedIn is more focused on professional interests.

But there are some points to keep in mind when approaching the 2 platforms:

1) Numbers

If we think in terms of numbers, LinkedIn looks really small compared to Facebook.

Have a look at these numbers:

  • Time spent by Users: Facebook: 35 mins/day vs LinkedIn 17mins/month

2) Lead Generation for B2B

LinkedIn seems to generate more leads than Facebook. According to the  State of B2B Digital Marketing report (Demand Wave), B2B Marketers place LinkedIn at first position as the main social source of leads. Facebook comes fourth after a “Not Sure”, Twitter and before YouTube.

It seems that people spend more time on Facebook but when they are on LinkedIn are more interested to buy and have a professional contact.

3) Branding vs Conversions

Of course both platform can help you reach different business goals: Facebook gives you a higher reach and helps you create brand awareness on a wide audience of users.

LinkedIn can help you reach more tangible results in terms of contacts generated.

4) Facebook Groups vs LinkedIn Groups

Again: Facebook groups are more focuses on personal connections while LinkedIn Groups are tailored on specific professional interests.

Facebook Groups can be wide and generic while LinkedIn Groups remains quite focused on specific topics.

Interaction is possible on both groups. Maybe Facebook Groups allow more immediate interactions with the possibility to create event, share live videos (which is useful for example for webinars, online demo…).

On LinkedIn there are more limited sharing options. But on LinkedIn Groups you can share PDF files.

Facebook Group Posts are more visible and often sent to group members as notifications. For a LinkedIn Group Post it can be more difficult to be seen and get out of the crowd. LinkedIn members have to manually scroll each single post. Some notifications are sent by LinkedIn to announce “Recommended Posts”.

By the way, interaction on Facebook is sometimes less relevant than LinkedIn as members often go out of theme and care less of their “business image”.

On LinkedIn group members want to gain visibility and grow in authority in their business fields. That’s why they can generate quality interaction focused on the theme of the post and of the group main topic.

5 Advertising

Ads Formats: Both platforms have developed interactive ads formats ( video, carousel, lead ads …). With LinkedIn the sponsored In-mail option is also available: the possibility to send a message through the LinkedIn inbox to selected audiences.

Advertising Costs: LinkedIn is in general more expensive than Facebook. This also because Facebook can afford to serve cheaper ads, because there are millions of Facebook users with less chance for them to see the same ad over and over again.

Advertising Target: if you are targeting a specific professional category (role, industry, seniority…) maybe LinkedIn can offer you a more accurate targeting (it seems that professional info is more precise and up-to-date on LinkedIn than on Facebook). Of course Facebook can help you target people on a wide range of more personal criteria (life milestones, activities, behaviours..)