When you hear B2B marketing, your initial thought may not automatically go to social media. Why would you want to have a social media marketing strategy for your B2B business?
In this day and age, having a social media marketing strategy is vital! It not only helps with brand awareness but it can also help boost sales, increase customers, and much more!
But first, before we get into that, let’s start from the beginning…what is B2B Marketing?
B2B stands for business-to-business. These are companies that market their products or services to other businesses, clients, or prospects. Oftentimes, B2B marketing is more straightforward and informational than the business-to-consumer marketing you are more likely familiar with.
Before, B2B businesses did not necessarily have to have a social media presence. They would operate off of their website as their main source of traffic and nowadays this is not enough. While B2B marketing is extremely common on LinkedIn, businesses should be considering at least one or two more platforms within their social media marketing strategy.
More and more people are on social media now. This number grows every day and it is actually rare to find someone with no socials. Why should it be any different for a B2B business?
Before you actually begin your marketing strategy, you are going to want to look at your customers and analyze what platforms they are on the most often. You don’t need to open an account for every single platform, but definitely invest your time and resources into the ones where your audience is showing up to.
Once you have chosen the platforms you want to have a social media presence on, you will want to start thinking of what you want to present online. You not only want to be informational but you also want to be engaging. Providing value through information or entertainment is key and what is going to gain more reach and earn trust from your clients.
Here are a few ideas of the type of content you can share on your platforms:
Blog posts
Reports
Other PR such as podcasts you/your business were featured on
Resources from the company
Industry information
Company culture
Now that you have some ideas of the type of content you can share, let’s talk strategy.
1. Make sure that your goals are aligned with your business objectives/pillars
Write down what the goals are for your B2B business and then think about what is going to help you achieve those goals. In this case, it will most commonly be to create brand awareness, educate, and gain trust from your audience.
2. Present your content in an interesting way
It’s not only gaining an audience on social media but it is also finding a way to get them to stay. You will want to think outside the box or brainstorm new ways to present your content. B2B does not have to be boring! It just requires testing new ways to present information and seeing what works for your specific audience.
3. Keep track and measure results
Social media marketing is not a one size fits all. Once you have begun posting and testing out different content, it is important to look at your metrics and see what is working and what isn’t. This will be trial and error but eventually, results will follow. In addition to measuring your results, you again want to lead back to the question of if what you are sharing is aligning with your business objectives and pillars.
4. Don’t fall into trends for the sake of falling into trends
Perhaps there are many others who are sharing content that is doing well or you see a competitor succeeding with something that may not be what you typically would post. Do not follow the crowd for the sake of numbers or a small boost of success. At the end of the day, building trust with your customers is most important. This can only be achieved by staying true to the company values and goals that you set out at the beginning when developing a strategy. If the trend makes sense for the company, then YES, otherwise NO.
5. The last bit of advice we will leave you with is to BE HUMAN
B2B has a reputation of being boring and that does not need to be the case. Yes, you’re trying to acquire a new customer that is a company, but you are still marketing to humans who are consuming and interacting with your content. You are trying to reach actual people and you need to make sure your marketing is speaking to them.
Now that you have learned more about social media marketing with your B2B business, it’s time to get started and benefit from having a social media presence! Let us know if there are any other factors that you think are vital when creating a social media marketing strategy for a B2B business!
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