How to win at B2B social media marketing

When it comes to B2B, you may not think that social media is the ideal platform for your marketing efforts. However, you’d be wrong.

Time and time again B2B organisations have proven that you can become very successful on social media. It’s true the topics you are discussing may not always be as fun or exciting as those shared by your B2C counterparts, but the trick is finding out what your audience want and creating engaging content to attract your target market.

In fact, according to the Content Marketing Institute, LinkedIn is the top paid and organic social channels for B2B businesses which makes it an ideal platform to begin your journey into social media marketing.

In this post, we will be discussing how to win at B2B social media marketing.

Social media changes and evolves all the time and we want to show you that now is the perfect time to invest in these platforms if you haven’t already.

How to win at B2B social media marketing

Thoroughly research your market and competitors

Before you create a social strategy, we highly recommend researching how competitors within your industry use each social media platform. Look at what they are posting, when they are posting it, and what is getting them the highest engagement levels. Are they sharing blog posts? Creating videos and live streams?

If you carry out a thorough competitor analysis, you will not only get an overview of what does and doesn’t work, but also inspiration for your own content.

Don’t forget hashtags

For many social platforms including LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook, sharing a post with hashtags can make a big difference.

During your competitor research look at what hashtags they are using and then start looking up others related to your business to see how many followers that term has and what type of content users are sharing.

Using relevant hashtags will help extend your reach and enable others to find you easier, so make sure this is part of your strategy.

Set SMART goals

Just like you would with any other marketing campaign make sure you set yourself some goals and KPIs so you know what success looks like.

Make sure they are SMART to ensure your goals meet your business objectives. This could be something as simple as raising your brand awareness or driving traffic to your website.

SMART goals are as follows:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Relevant
• Time-bound

Setting goals at the beginning will help you figure out what type of content you want to post as well as any relevant call-to-actions (CTA).

Don’t solely share other’s content

This may seem like an obvious one, but make sure to post original content on your social platforms.

You can certainly share other’s articles if they are relevant to your company, but make sure you create your own content as well. This will help drive engagement, as your audience will be able to tell the difference between original and reused copy.

If you don’t have enough original ideas at the start don’t post for the sake of posting. You can start small and build on your platform as you gather more ideas. The more you post you may find it easier to come up with new ideas.

Mix up your media

When you are posting, make sure you add a good mix of different media; from videos and images to infographics and live streams.

If you only post text-only posts, it will make it more difficult to increase your engagement rate, as well as be seen in feeds – a smaller post size means less real estate space taken up.

Users often engage better with videos so make a point of trying out different multimedia to see what works for you.

Promote your brand values

We always say you need to “practice what you preach” which in marketing terms means, following your brand values.

Honesty and transparency are two important aspects of marketing and something users will be more attracted to, so make sure whatever your values are that you are infusing them into whatever you do on your platform.

Do you promote your brand as being very team oriented? Post about your employees. Are you a company who prides themselves on sustainable, eco-friendly solutions? Show off the tools and ways your company is being environmentally friendly.

When you post on social media, your users don’t just want to know about what you sell, they want to know about the brand, the team behind the products and the company. So, make sure you show the world how great your business is.

Consistency is key

When you are posting on your social media platforms make sure you are staying consistent with your brand voice and overall branding. The language you use, and colours applied on the website, blogs etc should be emulated on your social media platforms.

Consistency is key as this will help build up brand awareness and brand loyalty for your company.

Engage with your audience

Social platforms are a great way to really engage with your target audience. Don’t be afraid to ask them open ended questions on your posts to try and start a conversation.

 If they comment on a post, reply to them. You will find your target audience may be more receptive to giving you feedback on these platforms, so make sure you welcome these conversations.

They may well give you some useful insights into not only what works, but areas you need to improve upon.

Trial and error

This may seem like a strange thing to say, but with social media there is no set rule on when is best to post or even what is best to post. The only way you will see the best times to post for your company is to experiment.

Make sure you post at different times and days, to see which ones get you most engagement. Feel free to also experiment with content to see what works best. After a while you will see what works for you, which will help you to properly structure your social calendar and work around the best times as well as the best types of posts.

There you have it, you now know how to win at B2B social media marketing. So don’t be afraid and just jump right in. Write/create/film a few posts, set up and create your pages, and start interacting with your audience.

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