Any marketer will tell you today that social media is a great advertising channel. With 3.6 billion social media users worldwide, it’s easy to see how companies can use social media to attract new customers and grow their business.
Every time people mention social media marketing, the focus is usually on B2C customers, and a lot of B2B companies tend to turn down this type of marketing. However, if you have a B2B company, there is a great social media marketing campaign to be had.
All you have to do is use the right strategies.
Choose the right platforms
There are many different social media platforms out there, and through trial and error, marketers have recognized that some are better suited for B2B businesses than others.
While B2C customers typically focus on Facebook and Instagram, B2B companies need to focus more on the social media platform, which is geared towards professionals. That is of course LinkedIn. Up to 4 out of 5 B2B leads from social media come through this platform.
Another platform that is widely used by businesses is Twitter. So while you are in the early stages of your marketing campaign, these two platforms are your best bet. You can use both to connect with brand followers and customers, and to build strong and lasting relationships.
The important thing is not to spread too thinly. This is exactly why it is ideal to start with one or two platforms. Trying to connect with your audience through a lot of different channels is going to have to be done with limited resources, which ultimately leads to social media exhaustion.
If you already have a large following on LinkedIn and Twitter, be sure to expand your strategy to Facebook, Instagram, and other channels. If you are new to social selling, stick with these two platforms as you scale your business.
It’s easy and free to open your profiles. The hard part is learning how to do them. Because of this, the best place to go is to hire a social media agency who can help you grow your profiles and create the best content for your followers. With experts running your social media campaigns, you will see rapid growth and plenty of engagement from your audience.
Use social media tools
Trying to manage social media campaigns on your own isn’t easy. As your profiles and business grow it becomes virtually impossible to do manually. Because of this, almost all successful businesses use at least one social media tool to make managing their accounts easy and hassle-free.
Here are just a few of the reasons you might need a social media tool:
- Organize conversation. Everyone knows that social media is for socializing, but this can get tricky as the number of connections you have continues to grow. Using the right tool can keep up with all of your conversations and make sure you never miss out on anything important.
- Have more time for real-time engagement. When you use a tool that automates most of your simple tasks, you have a lot more time to focus on real-time engagement and responses right away. You have more opportunities to have new conversations and connect with people.
- Set automatic replies. Real-time engagement is not required for all conversations. In some cases, automatic replies can help you keep track of some new connections and establish a good relationship right away.
However, it is important to note that there are many different tools out there, each of which has some advantages, but not all of which are suitable for B2B social media activities. It’s important to invest in the right tool that will help you achieve your marketing goals.
We mentioned earlier that LinkedIn is the best choice B2B companies can use for their social media strategy, and it would be a great addition to use a tool made specifically for LinkedIn. With LinkedIn’s automation tools, you can expand your network, create intelligent message chains, gather contacts from multiple sources, and much more.
Create meaningful content
Content is king and there is no point in denying it. 95% of B2B buyers have admitted they view content as a trustworthy marker when evaluating a business.
When it comes to content creation, B2B marketers mainly focus on two things:
- Build expertise. When you publish content that is relevant to your industry, you are providing your audience with educational content that can help them make decisions. However, they also have a high level of knowledge that will establish you as an expert in your field.
- Capture leads. Social media gives you the perfect opportunity to collect leads. If you create the right content that encourages them to continue exploring your website, then creating a list of prospects can be easy. You have a new lead with every person who signs up for a newsletter or a free e-book.
To ensure that your social media profiles will help you grow your business, you need to post the right type of content in several forms. Publish articles, blog, create videos and present data in the form of infographics to keep your content up to date.
For B2B companies, the easiest way to achieve both of the goals above is to tailor the content they post to suit their audience. Instead of focusing solely on business and self-promotion, try to post content that you think your target audience would like to see.
For every piece of content you post, put yourself in the shoes of your customers and ask yourself if it would be interesting if it wasn’t related to your business. If not, try something new and fresh and always look for ways to update your social media content.
Invest in paid advertising
Social media gives companies the opportunity to connect with their audiences like never before. When you have a strong social media presence, every post and interaction is part of your marketing strategy. This still applies to brands with smaller followers, but you can’t rely on posts and customer interactions alone.
Instead, you need to invest in paid advertising on social media. Paid ads can help your content reach a much wider audience, especially if you still have low engagement and a small fan base.
Even if you don’t have a huge advertising budget, don’t worry, as social media ads are generally inexpensive and you can always adjust your budget to suit your needs. You don’t have to pay any fees for fixed-fee advertising when you can get detailed analytics from sites like Instagram and Facebook to keep track of your ads’ progress.
Plus, you can customize your audience segments so that every ad you pay for reaches the right people.
Final thoughts
Don’t think that only B2C ecommerce companies can take advantage of social media marketing as B2B companies have numerous growth opportunities thanks to social media platforms.
Using the strategies you just read about can help you connect with the right people on the right platforms, build trust, and establish yourself as an expert in your field. And as long as you remember to customize your ads to target your audience, you won’t run into any problems.