How Are B2b Companies Using Social Media For Business?

B2B companies have started to use social media marketing to get their name out there and promote their products/services. They have realized the critical role social media marketing can play in their business, and it can be an essential tool for small-medium companies to reach out to potential customers.

Social media and B2B marketing can help them generate positive brand awareness, expand connections, and increase customer engagement.

This blog will help you understand all the aspects of B2B social media marketing and how businesses do it in detail.

What is B2B Social Media Marketing?

B2B Social Media Marketing uses social media channels to promote businesses that engage in two-way communication. Just like every other marketing strategy that strives to create connection.

The main difference of this marketing strategy from others is that it uses social media platforms for marketing B2B products. Social media for B2B companies itself comes with a lot of challenges.

B2B products are created, sold, and supported by companies to help other businesses and not individuals. So, it is a little different from B2C. B2C marketing focuses on the customers’ emotional decision-making, whereas B2B focuses on influencing the logical decision-makers.

It is the most popular way to market B2B products because the marketer only needs to promote his product and not create the product or sell it. If a business is a well-known brand, consumers have a strong predisposition to trust the product for sale.

How to Create a B2B Social Media Strategy

B2B Social Media Strategy is a plan put together by a company and used to promote its products and services through social media marketing. A B2B social media marketing strategy’s primary purpose is to pique people’s curiosity and establish relationships with individuals who are related to your company.

The following are ways in which you can make an effective B2B social media marketing strategy for your business:

1. Set Goals

Every business strategy must start with setting objectives. You must clearly list all the things you would like to achieve by using the B2B social media platforms. Take a look at the common goals of B2B social media marketing:

• Creating brand awareness.
• Building trust and reliability.
• Educating the target audience.

These are the top 3 goals of B2B social media advertising. Revenue generation is one of the goals, but it isn’t the one you should be concentrating on when creating the strategy.

As you can see, generating revenue is not a part of it. It should be entirely about building trust, which eventually leads a customer towards buying from you.

2. Create Valuable Content

Many B2B social media marketing plans focus on first building a solid content marketing strategy. Building content that fits the needs of your audience is crucial because it allows the audience to relate to your brand and makes it more likely that they will read and engage with your content.

B2B social media content ideas must be informative and creative. Many B2B buyers now expect you to provide entertaining content, just like B2C companies do for their customers.

Making it more human should be your aim while creating B2B social media campaign ideas because buyers expect a connection with your brand. And as we said earlier, creating trust must be a priority.

3. Select the Right Platform

You simply cannot have the same strategy for both LinkedIn and Facebook. Both offer different features. Moreover, LinkedIn is one of the best b2b social media platforms you must use to create brand awareness. And Facebook is a platform you must use to make human connections.

So, based on the product/service you offer, you must find the right platform for your business. And never forget to use multiple social media channels to promote your brand values.

4. Find ways to measure

Identify how you will measure your B2B social media strategy’s performance. You must point out some KPIs that will tell you how your current system worked out.

Measuring the results will often let you discover new ways in which you can impress your audience. It will also find the weak links in your marketing strategy and help you eliminate them.

Companies with Amazing B2B Social Media Marketing

Here are five examples of B2B social media marketing that show companies how to use social media marketing to promote their business. We encourage you to explore these B2B social media marketing examples to better understand the different options available for your business.

The list of B2B social media marketing examples is not exhaustive; there are many other examples that we encourage you to explore. Some of the popular ones are as follows:

1. Facebook Advertising and Sponsored Posts

Here’s a statistic to prove that it is one of the B2B social media best practices. According to Statista, in Q1 2020, Disney spent around 213.6 million US dollars on Facebook advertising, and it gained them 25.7 billion impressions on Facebook.

2. Twitter

According to Oberlo, 75% of marketers promote their products through Twitter. For B2B businesses, Twitter makes a fantastic platform to post daily updates about your business.

3. Influencer Marketing

Microsoft’s Make What’s Next campaign was one of the best B2B social media campaigns, and it garnered over 91 million impressions. And all they had to do was post theory pictures taken by Women photographers on Nat Geo’s five different social media handles.

All of these stand as the best B2B social media strategy example. The engagements they got result from careful planning and not just a result of posting about their products/services.

Top 5 B2B Social Media Platforms

Popular B2B social media platforms are Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Each forum has a different strategy and focus.

Some platforms are more suited for product promotion, and some platforms are more focused on providing brand awareness.

Top 5 B2B Social Media Tools

You can set your company up for success with the top B2B social media marketing tools.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a platform that allows you to track your website’s performance.

You can obtain a thorough picture of your B2B social media efforts with Google Analytics. Keep track of your visitors’ origins and activities on your site. Based on the facts you’ve acquired, make changes to your strategy.

UTM System

Put the power of code to work for you. Using UTM parameters, you can keep track of the URLs you share. These snippets operate in conjunction with analytics packages to provide more information about your traffic sources.

Brandwatch

Brandwatch provides a thorough view of the internet dialogue with over 95 million online sources. Keep track of mentions, rivals, and consumer sentiment, among other things.

Then, from product creation to other company choices, leverage what you’ve learned from your research.

Salesforce x Hootsuite

Salesforce’s Hootsuite integration allows you to include social analytics into prospect and customer profiles.

Then you’ll be able to form better bonds with potential buyers. You may use a lead scoring algorithm to qualify leads and develop personalized contact lists based on social data.

B2B Social Media Marketing Best Practices

B2B social media best practices are the basic guidelines that companies use when performing B2B social media marketing. Here are some of the most essential B2B marketing best practices. Many of these best practices can be applied to any kind of B2B, and that’s why we chose them.

The best practices include:

• Creating a strong, consistent, and strategic social media campaign.
• Performing inbound marketing.
• Using a strong content marketing strategy. 
• Implementing a paid advertising strategy. 
• Identifying and developing influencers. 
• Building relationships with your audience.

Some Social Media Post Ideas to Get You Started

Here are some great social media ideas to get you started in promoting your brand through various B2B social media channels. A few good ideas are:

1. Share the latest news about your business

You can use any of the B2B social media platforms to do this. However, we recommend doing this on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Many businesses update their day-to-day activities on Twitter, and while they update news about upcoming seminars, new partnerships, and other such information on LinkedIn.

2. Promote your company website

A great way to promote your company site is by using a landing page or an announcement page. This is a great way to promote your site because it allows you to generate leads. This is done through a unique URL that will enable visitors to visit your website to sign up and purchase a product.

3. Share your company blog

A B2B social media management strategy must continually find ways to promote existing content. Try promoting your blogs on social media to direct traffic towards your website. This B2B social media marketing creates engagement on your website and establishes you as an information provider in your niche.

4. Share company reviews

Customer reviews are a good source of understanding your product from the buyer’s perspective. Moreover, you can post those reviews on your social media to create trust and at the same time generate more leads.

This is one of the most effective B2B social media campaign ideas that directly impact the target audience’s opinion about your brand.

Last but not least, be sure to edit and post your best-performing messages at least once a month. There’s nothing wrong with repurposing helpful knowledge. Use a hot topic in several posts on multiple platforms to duplicate the success of high-performing pieces.

Your message should be based on your observations. The more your best-performing content is shared on social media, the more likely you are to engage industry influencers and generate leads.

Final Words

There are many pros and cons to using social media for business. The pros are that Social media is inexpensive, accessible, and has a broad reach. The cons are privacy issues, the amount of time it takes to do social media marketing, and that you have to work smarter instead of harder.

But, with the help of a proper B2B social media marketing strategy and timely upgrades, you can quickly establish yourself as the leader in your field. So, get working today!