B2B social media marketing may not be your first thought when we’re exploring social marketing.
But digital is B2B’s future, and social media is a powerful digital tool that can be used to build trust and better relationships with your audience, reach a wider audience, build brand awareness, and in time even generate leads.
Here’s how to build a winning B2B social media marketing strategy in 2023, for more effective customer service, social selling, lead generation, and more.
1. Align Your Social Media Goals With Your Business Objectives
Ensure your B2B social media marketing helps achieve your company’s business objectives.
Your goals can range from creating brand awareness, building trust and credibility, educating your audience by creating thought leadership content, and nurturing your audience, to building a personal brand for your leadership team.
2. Identify Your Target Audience and Customize Your Messaging Accordingly
All marketers should know who they’re trying to reach. B2B social media marketing is no different.
Focus on building elaborate buyer personas that will allow you to create social content that speaks to real people, on their platforms and channels of choice, and about their favorite topics and pain points.
3. Use The Right Social Media Platforms
As a general rule, you should be where your customers are. While LinkedIn is the obvious choice for B2B businesses, don't discount other platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube. Depending on your industry and message, those might be the best places to reach them.
Here is a quick guide to the content type you can post for each platform:
LinkedIn is the best platform for thought leadership content, and employee advocacy & engagement.
Facebook is ideal for organic company culture and paid content.
Instagram is great for infographics, short videos, highlights, and culture-centric content.
YouTube is the best platform for interviews, presentations, and events/webinars.
Twitter can be used to spot trends and interact with your audience, as well as promote events.
Make sure you’re delivering the information your audience wants in the right place and at the right time.
4. Mix Your B2B Content
B2B social media is about starting conversations and building relationships that lead to sales in the long term. Your content needs to educate, delight and engage your audience to stick around for the long term.
Your social media posts should make your followers’ lives easier, delight them in some way, and provide information, news, trends, and tips.
5. Measure And Improve Your Efforts
Depending on your business goals, your social media metrics change. You may focus on engagement rate, impressions, response time, conversions, and more. The important thing is to set realistic benchmarks and achievable goals.