B2B Social Media Campaign Case Study

An example of using humour in social media for B2B to build business and strengthen customer relationships

When I train people to use social media, I often have delegates complaining that it's "all very well for B2C companies, but our product is so boring, it's never going to work on social".

I'd argue that so long as your content is timely, relevant and compelling (yes I know - all those things can be a big ask), it's going to be interesting for someone. And if you manage that and can inject a dollop of humour along the way then you are onto a winner.

As a result I'm always on the look out for new case studies of B2B companies doing social media well, and if that's managed in house and on a small budget then even better.

I'm therefore delighted to share with you this guest post that my friend @LisaRobb of accounting (yes potentially extremely boring) software company FreeAgent wrote up for us over at The Digiterati. For those of you who have followed my posts before, you'll know I have frequently written about the B2C Pet market social media case studies on Park Bench and Scratching Post - well they were the work of the genius that is Lisa Robb too. She's now applying her expertise into the B2B arena.

Can accounting software be life-changing?

For some, the answer is a resounding yes. FreeAgent is a multi-award winning online accounting system specifically for freelancers and micro businesses, and some of their 40,000 customers feel quite passionate about how much easier it’s made doing business for them. So passionate that they’re often quick to share the love on social media.

Six years a user now, and I still love @freeagent!

— Rich (@richard_butler) July 31, 2014

@freeagent I could kiss you for the “Smart Payment to User” wizardry. I won’t… but I could. — Ed Moore (@edmoore) February 19, 2015

@freeagent I've already told you I love you but it's worth saying again. Just filed and you've made the whole process so amazingly easy 😉

— Stephanie Holland (@StephTHolland) July 10, 2014

@freeagent If I was a dog I'd hump your leg. (I mean that in totally professional way.) — Heather Burns (@idea15webdesign) December 4, 2013

Tweets like these sparked the imaginations of the FreeAgent Comms department, and an idea was born. They would share the love back by writing and performing personalised love songs to anyone who tweeted them something lovely and kind over the past year. On Valentine’s Day*, FreeAgent tweeted each person back with a link to their surprise song on YouTube.

They also created a hub page so that all of the songs could easily be viewed in one place. Every song was a personal “thank you” for sharing the FreeAgent love, and included their original tweet. To make sure that none of their other loyal customers felt that they weren’t loved too, FreeAgent kept the momentum going by taking requests on Twitter throughout the day. They even took the bold step of allowing requests to suggest topics or song styles. In the end, FreeAgent recorded 37 songs – 28 beforehand and nine throughout the day.

Highlighting that ‘customer love’ in a campaign did a number of things:

• Let their customers tell their story for them
• Helped attract new customers in a genuine way
• Built upon their playful brand tone to generate awareness
• Set them apart from their competitors
• Raised awareness of the FreeAgent brand and demonstrated their phenomenal customer love
• Showed off specific product functionality
• Generated social shares of videos and tweets from subscribers and partners alike
• Generated social awareness and shares about the overall campaign

And it also generated positive and tangible results, including:

• 2487 video views
• 106 retweets, replies and favourites during the day
• 191 social shares of the landing page
• 234,034 total reach on Twitter and Facebook

When customer @danjdavies tweeted

The lovely @freeagent wrote me a song 🙂 freeagent.com

his pal @ItsRab tweeted

@danjdavies @freeagent I’m going to switch to FreeAgent now.

@danjdavies @freeagent I’m going to switch to FreeAgent now.

— Rab (@ItsRab) February 13, 2015

And that, really, is what it’s all about. FreeAgent plans to randomly surprise customers throughout the rest of the year with lovesongs, just because.

Have a look for yourself at http://www.freeagent.com/l/thanks.

* On Friday 13 February, actually

Lisa Robb is Head of Customer Communications at FreeAgent, a multi-award winning cloud accounting system designed to meet the needs of freelancers, micro businesses and their accountants.

Lisa has worked in Digital Marketing for over 10 years and has an MSc in Digital Marketing Communications from Manchester Metropolitan University.

We also feature other Smart Insights case studies on Social media marketing for B2B at the end of our hub page for this topic