Social Media for B2B
Almost everyone is on social media these days. Platforms like Twitter and Facebook allow us to connect with family and friends from afar, share funny pictures and videos, comment, like and more. They also allow us to connect with our favorite companies and brands. What’s more, they allow businesses to connect with each other.
While social media marketing has generally been used for business to consumer (B2C) marketing, B2B marketing is absolutely possible on these platforms. Social media is a great tool to use to help your business reach out to other businesses, generate awareness, compile leads and drive sales.
People in other industries that your business serves spend a lot of time on social media and are often willing to engage with content that helps make their lives easier, inside and outside of work. Put social media to good use within your company to strengthen your marketing strategy and expand your reach.
Generating an Overall Social Media Strategy
There are a few best practices that hold true regardless of the social media platforms your business operates on. First, you’ll want to create and maintain a brand personality that is consistent across platforms and that is appropriate for your business messaging. Social media is not the place to be stuffy and professional—people use it to let loose and have some fun but be careful not to shift into a tone that is inappropriate for your company.
Next, make sure you have a plan to generate content to share across your social media channels. B2B companies have a lot of industry-related information to talk about, so build a process for creating and broadcasting interesting articles, videos and images to followers.
For all social media platforms, you’ll also want to create obtainable goals for your marketing efforts and determine the ways you can measure your progress, whether that’s through impressions, followers, engagement or other metrics.
Finally, choose the platforms that make the most sense for your intended audience. Not all businesses or employees will operate on all social media platforms. Find out where your audiences are and go to them. It is useful to employ specific strategies on each platform based on the website’s strengths and weaknesses.
Twitter has taken the online world by storm in the last few years thanks to its real-time updates and short, punchy messaging. Many industry professionals use Twitter to stay up-to-date on industry news and engage in conversations.
- Use hashtags: Twitter uses hashtags as a way to search and categorize topical tweets. Do keyword research to identify relevant hashtags for your industry. What words and phrases are your customers using to find information or solutions to their problems? Use those words in your tweets to get their attention and join in on the conversation.
- Engage with industry leaders: Twitter is a conversational platform, meaning your business should be talking with other businesses regularly. Engage with industry leaders and shout out other brands you partner with to expand your reach. Retweeting thought leaders and replying to tweets can help build relationships and trust online, opening the door for additional opportunities for your business.
LinkedIn is considered to be the most effective B2B marketing platform available online, and for good reason. It’s where almost all of your business peers are compiled, sharing industry-relevant news and business trends.
- Dive deep: Users on LinkedIn follow specific brands and topics to learn more about their industry. This makes it a great platform to share in-depth information in the form of articles, whitepapers, infographics and more with the purpose of educating and showing your business provides value.
- Reach out directly: LinkedIn is a great place to look for leads, thanks to its search capabilities based on industry, specific company and job title. Use the InMail and connection features to make connections with related businesses instead of cold-calling to generate leads.
Facebook is not just for friends and family—many individuals follow and like brands and company pages, as well. Your business page is a great place to build a hub of interesting content, positive reviews, photos, company information and more.
- Create a community: Followers of your business can comment, like and share the content you post to your page, opening the door for you to engage with them further. This can help create a community of individuals interested in your industry and build trust.
- Go live: Facebook Live is an interesting feature that utilizes video, one of the biggest social media tools of today. Go live to broadcast talks and seminars, answer questions, dive deep on a topic or even give a brief tour of your company’s space.
Instagram is a visual medium that many brands are jumping on board to. You may think your B2B company is too “boring” to share visual content, but that’s absolutely not true.
- Share UGC: User-generated content is a powerful tool for all B2B companies to employ. It’s a great way to engage active clients by sharing their photos or videos and build a good relationship online.
- Use infographics: Infographics are the perfect visual medium for Instagram. Keep them simple and eye-catching while using relevant hashtags so they’re more easily discovered.
The main thing to remember when generating your B2B social media strategy is to identify your target customers and meet them where they are with interesting content. Stay creative and engage in conversations, and you’ll build powerful followings from other businesses and their employees who will trust your brand.