B2B Social Media Marketing
Have you ever wondered how you can make the most of your B2B social media marketing? In this article, we explore the best practices that you should be following to boost engagement with your audience, develop strong and long-lasting relationships, and build a recognizable and respected brand.
Before we dive into the best marketing practices and B2B social media strategy, it’s important that we get an insight into the playing field that we’re on. Why is social important within B2B space? We know how explosive it has been in B2C, but in B2B it doesn’t feel like it has quite reached the same level of craziness. At least, that statement used to be true. It’s not the case anymore. Social media and B2B are heavily partnered together, and it certainly doesn’t look like changing any time soon.
The following statistics curated from around the web explore just how important social media marketing is becoming within B2B.
- Ideally, 2-5% of revenue generated by a B2B company should be allocated to marketing. – BDC
- Of that budget, just under 15% of it should be focused on social media over the next year. – CMO Survey
- During a typical buying process, almost 85% of those making decisions in B2B transactions will use social media to influence their decision. – Backlinko
- Talking of using social media, B2B consumers need an average of 31 touch points during the buying process before reaching the decision stage. – Deamdata
- Across those 31 touch points, most B2B consumers will access an average of 11.4 pieces of content. – Forrester
- Increasingly, we’ll see B2B companies using paid channels to direct consumers toward content rather than focusing purely on lead generation.
- Almost 50% of B2B focussed social media traffic originates from LinkedIn. – LinkedIn
- The majority of B2B content is distributed using social media. In fact, 89% of content marketing professionals within B2B use dedicated social tools to assist their campaigns. – CMI
- The vast majority (76%) of all B2B companies will analyze the effectiveness of their content campaigns by using social analytics. – CMI
- Looking to the future, it is expected that by 2025 nearly 80% of all sales related to B2B will take place digitally. – Gartner
B2B Social Media Marketing: Top 5 Best Practices
So we know that B2B social media marketing is an important part of larger B2B marketing campaigns, but how can you ensure that any campaign that you’re running is effective, efficient, and, importantly, profitable? The following best practices are a great starting point. They’ll steer your marketing ship in the direction of glory, help you navigate any storms, and deliver quality results.
Audience Research
A great place to start with any campaign is to consider who it is that is going to be consuming your content, otherwise known as your audience. Learn as much as you possibly can about them. Ask yourself questions that help you to find out where they hang out (online, not in real life), what they like to do, what they like to consume, and what issues they’re looking to deal with.
It’s definitely tempting to cast your net as wide as possible, potentially falling into the trap that every single business out there could benefit from your product or service. That might be the case, and if it is then kudos to you, but even so you’ll want to segment that audience into smaller sections to market in an effective way. One business won’t be as receptive to a particular marketing campaign as another might be.
Create B2B Content
People need to feel that the content they’re consuming is genuinely useful. This is especially true on social media, the last thing you want is for the business you’re targeting to feel like they’re wasting time by reading your content. That it’s just a timesink (like much of social media can be). Instead, try to deliver actual value to them. Think about what benefits they can get from your content so that it’s a reciprocal relationship, rather than a sales process.
Check out our blog on creating B2B content for social media here!
Choose The Right Platforms
When learning about your audience one of the items to research is where they hang out online. This should influence the platform that you work with and where you are posting content. It’s highly unlikely that you’ll have a successful campaign by posting the same content on all of the leading social media networks. Each audience wants a different type of content, the same goes within the B2B world.
You do, however, have to consider your brand and your content alongside your audience. Think about where your content would best be served and roll with it. That might mean breaking the mold and using newer platforms (more and more brands are diving into TikTok) as well as targeting tried and tested platforms (LinkedIn is resolutely the best B2B platform and isn’t going anywhere soon).
Create a Brand Identity and Voice
Your brand is as unique as the people within it, therefore your social campaigns should be too. Yes, it takes a great deal more effort to build a fresh and unique brand voice rather than copying trending and leading businesses. The results will be so much better in the end for doing so. Not only will your brand stand out in the crowd, but your audience will grow an affinity with your brand’s voice and learn to identify with your identity.
It’s also far more likely that your brand will create engaging and genuinely interesting posts when they’re directly related to the brand. Remember that people buy from people, so leverage those within your business to build trust and a genuine connection with your audience.
Prioritize Networking
You know as well as anyone that B2B is built on networks. The people and businesses that you connect with drive the growth that you’re looking to achieve. Social media is built for networking, there’s a reason that they’re called social networks! Remember that the content you put out on social media is another step towards building a long-term relationship with the audience that takes the time to consume it.
Each piece of content that you put onto social media should create opportunities to strengthen or develop new and existing business networks and relationships.
Not sure how to start networking? Have you tried Twitter? Read here to get started.
Key Takeaways
Developing your B2B social media marketing skills will take a bit of time and effort, but you will definitely reap the benefits in the long run. Not only will you develop a brand that has a significant voice and delivers value, but you’ll also have an audience that trusts you and wants to work with you.
- Always research your audience and find out what they’d like from your content before launching a campaign.
- The statistics don’t lie, now is the perfect time to put effort into B2B social media marketing.
Ervin Kalemi
