Posted by Social media is everywhere. It’s powerful, unavoidable, and certainly here to stay! No matter in which business you are in, social media plays a huge role in every type of business. The most widely used social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and Snapchat offer easy and effective ways to get your products and services to a broader audience in real-time.
For a B2B company to be successful on social media, it’s vital to figure out what their audience wants to see to get the full benefits of social media.
Being an owner of a B2B company or any brand, if you have been looking for overarching ways to stand out, you’re at the right place.
In this guide, I will cover a few social media marketing tips for B2B to engage and attract your audience. By applying the below strategies might lead your social accounts to success in the B2B space.
Social Media Marketing Tips for B2B Companies
1. Understand the target audience & niche platforms
You must be aware of the fact that social media is vital, but do you know which type of audience you are targeting? If not, then you need to understand your brand well enough to know who your target audience is. These are the people who will resonate with your products and business. To know them better, it’s a good idea to ask questions about themselves. So, we’ve compiled a list of checkpoints that will help you to find your targeted audience in social media:
- Create Personas: You should create a persona to identify diverse segments of your targeted people.
- Social Media Listening Tools: Don’t forget to use social media listening tools. These tools, such as Hootsuite, Crowdfire, TweetReach, and Buzzsumo, help to determine when your audience is spending time on particular social networks.
- Niche Platforms: You should gain insights into what your targeted group of people do care about. Their niche platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Pinterest, or Instagram can provide insights into what they interact with the most. By knowing the platforms, it will help you not to consider such posts, which are not relevant to them.
| Pro Tip: To understand their niche platforms for brands to remember as they seek to connect with their audience. With this, it will be easier to know where they are on social media. |
2. Use Multiple Social Media Platforms & Multimedia
You have probably heard of several times – social media would not work for my business. The truth is that social media platforms are not merely for the eCommerce industry. The key to getting success in diverse platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat) is to deliver the content that your targeted audience will like.
As you have already aware with popular social media platforms, let’s have a look what your B2B company can make most out of these platforms and their viral features:
Worldwide, there are over 2.50 billion monthly active users (MAU) for December 2019. There is a 8% increase in Facebook MAUs year-over-year, as per the report.
Love it or hate it, Facebook remains the most-used social media platform among all ages. It is used by 64% of Americans aged 12 and up. So, nobody can afford to avoid this platform in its social media marketing campaign.
Facebook is known for its frequent and engaging updates. It is implementing its features like Facebook Live, Watch Party, long-form videos, advertising capabilities, group videos, and Messenger Day. Also, it is undeniable that Facebook’s ultimate goal is to drive greater usage of its platform and to make a platform for companies to grab more users.
Any B2B company can use Facebook Live to host town hall meetings with their customers to get feedback, can do product walkthroughs, and conduct surprise-and-delight campaigns.
“75% of Instagram users take action, such as visiting a website, after looking at an Instagram advertising post”, according to the report from Smart Insights.
Instagram has always been a star in the world of social media because of driving massive engagement for brands and marketers. It helps brands to tell their stories through photos and videos.
“Instagram Live” is a feature on “Instagram Stories” that enables users to stream videos and engage followers in real-time. When a user broadcasts live video streams, a ring highlights his/her profile picture in ‘Instagram Stories.’ This way, it alerts followers/users to view the live stream.
A few popular brands, like Vogue Magazine, Real Salt Lake, and Cheerios, have started Instagram Live features to promote their products. The stories of these brands illustrate how a brand can be so creative with its CTAs.
The number of Pinterest active users is 291 million monthly. If the brands are looking to the platform for ideas, new products, and to be inspired, Pinterest is the best platform for those brands. B2B brands can leverage this platform to reach specific and niche audiences. They can target specific content exactly where it needs to go. Brands can also tag products and services to drive interests and sales. Moreover, by properly using platforms like Pinterest, B2B companies can win by posting relevant and shareable content in strategic places.
Snapchat
The photo and video sharing platform, Snapchat had 229 million active users worldwide, up from 190 million global DAU (Daily Active Users) in the corresponding quarter of 2019, according to the report from Statista.
Snapchat remains used by a younger audience, aged between 12 and 24 years old. It means that if your brand is striving hard to reach their target audience, your business needs to be on Snapchat.
It is highly recommended that your brand should be active on social media networks where a targeted group of people are. On the other hand, if your target audience is not on such platforms, you may not be active on those platforms.
3. Engagement is essential.
Initially, social media was created to help people to make connections with others. After sometime, brands have entered this area and occupied the space for a while now. However, the sentiments are still the same.
One of the most critical metrics that matter is – engagement. The engagement is the number of actions taken by people; it could be likes, shares, hearts, comments, or retweets. It also includes liking the page or subscribing to the page.
The key is to stay relevant and make your target audience engage and they can be engaged with interactive and engaging content.
Above all, no matter what kind of your target audience is, this is a proven strategy for B2B companies.
4. Have a distinctive brand voice.
An American entrepreneur, writer, speaker, and co-founder of Global Network Navigator and Ofoto, Lisa Gansky says it even better: “A brand is a voice and a product is a souvenir.”
Whenever your brand posts a blog, posts on social media, or edits a pillar page, it reveals the voice of your brand. When a customer recognizes your brand logo, you should try to make them recognize your brand voice, too. You also need to take care of your social content that should be aligned to the perspective of your business.
Your brand voice can be friendly, casual, formal, humorous, or serious. Having a distinctive brand voice always allows you to stand apart from the competition.
5. Offer superior customer support
Back your B2B company with superior customer service. Suppose, if your customers are on hold for long periods to solve simple problems, they would surely become frustrated. Eventually, they’ll start looking for something else.
- A few social media platforms provide an opportunity to offer quick resolutions to issues. This way, it can be a manageable task for a B2B company, because the customer base is typically smaller.
- You can also create dedicated support accounts as a growing number of customers in social media. Creating a separate social media account for dedicated support, you can focus on other areas of your social media strategy.
| Pro Tip: All you need to take time to find out what social media platforms are currently engaging in. After that, you need to develop a careful strategy in those spheres. Think out-of-the-box and keep checking your sales. |
6. Maintain consistency.
A key to establishing a successful B2B brand is to maintain consistency firmly. Posting to every single social media channel takes a lot of time, including content creation and planning. To maintain consistency, you need to create a publishing calendar and schedule posts ahead of time using social media tools like Lightroom, Canva, Kicksta, Crowdfire and Later.
Bottom line
For B2B brands, social media provides a great platform to hype up new services, products, features, or updates. The above-listed tips are already proven and can work for a variety of target audiences. Above all, give your customers a reason to engage with your brand. It’s a high time to employ these strategies on your audience.
Want to share your thoughts on B2B social media marketing? Comment below.
Kunjal Panchal is a Content Manager at Simform a leading mobile app development company in San Diego. She is passionate about content marketing and strongly believes in the power of storytelling for marketing. She has shared her inputs on high-end publications like Search Engine Journal, Entrepreneur and many more. Connect with her on @KunjalPanchal
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