B2B Social Media Marketing Strategies For All Businesses
B2B social media marketing is simply the process of using social platforms as marketing channels to promote your brand, products, or services to clients. Obviously, as B2B stands for business-to-business, the clients mentioned above are businesses –not individual consumers.
This marketing guide will walk you through every important step of creating an effective Β2Β social media strategy.
So, stick around to learn more!
Table of Contents
- Why is B2B Social Media Marketing Important?
- Does Social Media Marketing Work in a B2B Market?
- Best B2B Social Media Marketing Strategies for 2023
- Examples of Successful B2B Marketing on Social Media
Why is B2B Social Media Marketing Important?
The year is 2023. Whether your company is small, medium-sized, or large; It doesn’t matter. Β2Β Marketing is obviously important for you!
In fact, recent statistics argue that 84% of B2B executives use social media as a source for purchasing decisions.
So, let’s take a closer look at what a smart B2B social media strategy can help you with.
Building relationships
Of course, being on social media will allow B2B consumers to find you, even if this happens by algorithmic accidents. However, what’s more, important than people stumbling across your social media accounts is building an engaged brand community.
Social media is where everybody is at the moment –which means it’s where your customers are as well. They’re looking for market news and industry success stories, discovering thought leadership and decision-makers, and sharing opinions and pain points.
So, give them what they want! A genuine brand-customer interaction.
A strong B2B social media presence won’t only give your audience a personalized customer experience, but it’ll also raise your social media engagement.
Lead generation
A successful brand doesn’t really deal with sales only through a simple website and SEo-driven blog posts anymore. Social selling is currently hot in most industries, allowing consumers to make purchases directly from their social media feeds.
But, even if you’re not there yet, making a name for yourself in the social media world can still drive people to your website. Effective social media optimization strategies, like putting a “face” behind a company, help B2B brands move from likes to leads!
Improving brand awareness
It’s all about people knowing your name –and more than that, knowing exactly who you are. There’s no better way to increase brand awareness than killing it on the social media department.
Potential B2B leads always keep an eye on company accounts to find out how they’re treating customers and other brands. Meanwhile, businesses are currently working hard to produce high-quality original content and maintain a posting frequency to let their audience know their clear brand identity in visualized and easy-to-digest posts.
Does Social Media Marketing Work in a B2B Market?
To keep it short: Yes, social media marketing works for B2B companies, but only if you do it right.
In other words, as with most markets, any type of digital marketing for B2B businesses, including social media strategies, can benefit your brand. However, you have to be really careful with the way you’re creating content and sharing it across your social media channels.
Everything has to be suited for B2B buyers!
For example, using B2C methods, like overhyping your products or services, will probably work against you. B2B social media marketing is all about having a strong brand voice, getting your message across, and forming long-lasting relationships with other businesses.
Is Social Media Marketing Better for B2C or B2B Businesses?
Answering this question isn’t that simple. A B2B digital marketing strategy wouldn’t work for B2C markets –and vice versa! Hence, comparing these two impartially wouldn’t really be possible.
However, given the overall capabilities of a social media marketing strategy, one could Comprar cialis generico barato en españa argue that in most cases it would work better in a B2C market. For instance, social media thrives on face marketing, which is way more common in B2C strategies.
Not to mention that B2B’s primary goal, maintaining close professional communications, can be pursued through other digital marketing strategies, like email marketing, just as well.
Best B2B Social Media Marketing Strategies for 2023
Here’s a 10-step list for creating the best B2B social media strategy:
Discover B2B trends on social media
Kicking our list off with a no-brainer: You can’t perform anything related to B2B marketing, without constantly looking out for the best B2B social media trends.
Whether you’re scanning Twitter trending topics by yourself or letting the best social listening tools show you what’s viral on your market right now, one thing is for sure. You should always stay on top of your industry!
Just keep in mind to check from time to time what your target audience finds interesting, funny, or relatable. After all, you’re really posting for them.
Bonus: Top Social Media Trends in 2023
Hyper-target potential B2B customers
Standing out in social media isn’t always easy –especially if you’re not targeting specific audiences. Therefore, one of the best B2B social media practices is successfully hyper-targeting niche business audiences online.
Social listening helps brands realize how to reach potential customers with personalized messages, crafted specifically for them.
You can use Mentionlytics’ social listening software to identify new leads, analyze their online behavior, understand what they really need, and create meaningful connections.
Sign up for a free trial and convert followers into customers.
Pick the right B2B social media platforms
While the right answer should be related to your industry, niche, and brand philosophy, the question remains: Which social media is best for B2B?
According to stats, 86% of B2B marketing experts answered their most used social network was LinkedIn.
This makes sense, considering LinkedIn’s more professional tone and business-friendly design.
However, the ideal B2B social media marketing strategy includes a high-quality presence in all major social media platforms, such as:
- Youtube
- TikTok
Build a thriving B2B social media community
As shown above, you always have to find new, original, and honest ways to create strong social media communities. When it comes to B2B, it’s more important to have a few followers that are highly engaged with your content than the other way around.
Use tools to monitor social media, like Mentionlytics, to extract valuable insights and really learn your audience’s social media behavior and preferences. Use this information to make informed decisions that will convert your casual audience into a passionate brand community.
Strengthen B2B bonds with social partnerships
You shouldn’t use social media just to promote your products and/or services. Besides, you’re not there to showcase your brand but rather to let your brand exist, form a distinguished voice, and shape relationships.
In that case, brand collaborations are vital to B2B marketing, so try to be honest, creative, and engaging with partners online. Follow your partners’ social media accounts, re-share their content, and don’t miss out on meaningful discussions started by them.
Measure efforts on social by PR campaigns
One step at a time! Your marketing efforts will be more productive, once you adjust your digital marketing campaigns on specific business goals.
Don’t forget to measure the success of your social media efforts through PR campaigns. This will show you what B2B social media strategy works for your brand –and what doesn’t.
Use a media monitoring tool to create social media reports, visualize data, and measure KPIs, like engagement, reach, and Share of Voice.
Educate B2B visitors with amazing content
Creating a customer-centric B2B social media strategy means putting your potential buyers’ needs first.
Illustrating your features over and over again won’t do it. You need to start teaching your audience, by creating original and honest content. Use your knowledge to offer expert advice and gain credibility in return.
For example, you can create how-to videos on Youtube, TikTok, or Instagram Reels. After all, researches show that 86% of content marketers use videos in their marketing strategies.
Other ideas include publishing original data and insights from your own research and going behind the scenes to show there are humans behind your B2B social media content.
Leverage social media for B2B lead generation
Social media channels are the perfect place to apply some of the best lead-generation practices.
Optimize your profile, update your information, and add smart CTA’s on your original content. The more your social media accounts are being recognized, the more people are landing on your website.
Measure your engagement by channel and know which one would be more profitable to focus on. As mentioned above, highly-engaged audiences are more prone to be converted into customers.
Try advertising on B2B social media platforms
Paid ads will always be a thing, so you better leverage the better parts of B2B social media advertising. Pick the right channels and don’t overdo it.
The best social media platform for B2B marketing is still LinkedIn, but not all businesses thrive in the same places.
Also, don’t forget to take into account who’s behind your B2B customer goals. For example, according to surveys, Millennials make 73% of all B2B buying decisions.
Be consistent
This one is the most difficult to nail –but also, the most important. None of the above matters, if you’re not planning on doing it frequently.
Of course, consistency doesn’t necessarily mean tons of posts on each channel on a daily basis. You’ll be the one testing and deciding which frequency works for you.
One thing’s for sure. Doing it all manually will steal time and energy away from other parts of managing a brand’s B2B media image.
Social media scheduling tools will be your best friend in crafting a successful (and measurable) posting consistency.
Examples of Successful B2B Marketing on Social Media
Let’s go through some case studies and see what three of the best B2B social media accounts are doing.
IBM
IBM’s B2B social media strategy example shows us that each channel is different –and taking advantage of that can help you grow your marketing game.
In fact, they tend to create different content for each platform, based on what the platform wants more!
Also, it’s interesting to observe that their posting frequency changes according to the networks –and probably, based on their niche. For example, as a tech brand, it makes sense that they post educational videos on YouTube more frequently than they share company news on Instagram!
Adobe
When it comes to high-quality content, Adobe is one of the best B2B brands on social media.
Working with a big group of content creators –most of which they connect with via social media, Adobe’s social media feeds are filled with aesthetically pleasing images (that showcase their products in a subtle yet effective way), inspirational employee advocacy speeches, and useful how-to videos from experts!
Slack
Slack’s really been killing it in the content creation department lately!
Everything, from a positive customer review/comment to new feature introductions, serves as reasons for creating high-quality graphic videos and sharing them across all their social channels.
But Slack doesn’t stop there. The marketing team produces short how-to videos, original TikTok content, and light-hearted yet educational posts, such as productivity tips for each zodiac sign.
We can all draw inspiration from these out-of-the-box B2B social media campaigns!
Now Over to You
So, this is everything you need to know about B2B social media marketing and why it’s so important.
Crafting the best B2B social media strategy isn’t easy. From hyper-targeting customers to measuring your marketing efforts and maintaining a consistent presence, it’s a lot for just people.
Luckily, there are social media monitoring and scheduling tools, like Mentionlytics, that can take care of the heavy stuff and leave you focusing on content creation! So, what are you waiting for? Sign up for a free trial to access all the premium features of our app!
Originally posted on Mentionlytics: www.mentionlytics.com/blog/b2b-social-media-marketing