Using social media is a powerful strategy for B2B businesses.

Why?

Because it allows businesses to create content that informs and engages their audience. This helps build trust between the business and the customer.

However, the right balance between social media advertisements and organic content is essential for B2B businesses to reap the benefits of social media. Companies must learn what their audiences want to see and then add it to their social media content strategy.

IBM, Google, and Nike are all examples of B2B organizations with great social media presence.

Despite not broadcasting their products or services constantly, these companies share content that informs, engages, and grows their audience. Using social media to build a brand has changed the landscape for B2B companies.

Follow these 10 B2B social media strategies for engaging and attracting an audience in order to succeed with your social profiles:

1. Set SMART goals

A successful social media strategy should come from set goals. Setting measurable key performance indicators (KPIs) for your business social media will help you measure results.

It’s important to define what success means for your brand before you determine your KPIs.

Are you using social media to acquire customers? Would you like your business blog to gain more readers? Clicks, along with conversions are important metrics if your business is looking for leads. Engagement, impressions, shares, and reach are crucial for brand awareness.

2. Observe your competitors

Through social media, you can discover your competitor’s content marketing strategy or, at minimum, their strategy for social media. The tracking of competitors is a part of doing business. To determine if their campaigns are successful, you need to know what type of campaigns they run. Then you can take inspiration from that campaign if it matches the demographic you’re aiming for.

Tracking your competitors’ social media activity isn’t about copying their strategies. It’s likely that your target audiences and interests will overlap if you’re involved in the same industry. So, try to find ways to do things differently. Maybe your brand should respond to trending news if your competitors don’t. You can set yourself apart from your competitors if you look for opportunities that they’re not taking advantage of.

3. Create original content and share it

Many businesses create social media strategies through content curated from other sources. However, original and creative content is more likely to catch your audience’s attention. This strategy is better than merely posting content for the sake of having a presence on social media.

If you have difficulty coming up with original content daily, it might be a good idea to take a step back with your content production. Additionally, only spend your time on the channels your audience is most active on if you don’t have the bandwidth to post on them.

4. Use multiple media types

Each social media channel offers multiple media types. For example, Instagram Stories, TikTok videos, Twitter polls, Facebook Lives, and LinkedIn documents. Experimenting with these features allows you to find the type of social content and media types that is right for your audience.

According to Social Pilot, the average engagement rate for all posts type is 0.83%. And business accounts that have less than 10,000 followers have a 1.11% engagement rate with their posts. Sharing multiple media types is a way to make your social media accounts more interesting to your audience, improving engagement.

For example, it would be pretty boring to scroll through Instagram, a visual platform, only to see text-based visual posts. The reason Instagram is addictive is that every post is unique. It is possible to find memes, polls, videos, photo collages, and gifs in a quick scroll. So, make use of all the different options for your brand as well.

5. Show company culture

Showing company culture by spotlighting employees is a great way for B2B companies to beef up their social media strategies. By doing so, the audience can identify with the brand. Big and small businesses should remember that people are the heart of their business, whether they sell bicycles to other businesses or open a local restaurant.

By having a strong company culture and showcasing the activities and achievements of your team on your social channels, you are likely to reach a wider audience who will also promote your business. Engage your audience and increase your reach by showcasing your employees, not just your product or service. Rather than posting a photo or graphic of the product, you might post a picture of the team who worked hard to create it. Your team will likely share the content on their social channels too.

6. Identify your brand’s voice

Your brand voice should be integral to your company’s blog posts or social media content. Just like your logo, your brand voice should be easily recognizable to your customers. It should also match your buyer personas. Keeping your social content aligned with your company’s brand is crucial to your marketing success.

Do you offer advice or information to your readers?

In an increasingly crowded market, you can also stand out by having a unique brand voice throughout all your content. According to Forbes.com, your brand’s presence, voice, and tone can shape the end user’s experience and how the company is remembered.

Consider updating past blog posts or product pages if you can’t identify the brand voice. Try to communicate the emotion and tone of your brand in your messaging on social media, too, by using your other content as a guide.

7. Provide support

Getting no response from a brand when you tweet about customer service is the worst. It’s a good idea to be aware of issues like these and reply to them immediately, even if there isn’t enough bandwidth. If a problem arises and you handle it professionally, you’ll show future customers that you are present for them.

Forbes.com reported that 87% of customers who shared that they had a good customer experience with a company would be more than likely to do business with them again. That’s a great reason to ensure your business has good support integrated into your social strategies.

8. Be consistent

Maintaining consistency is a challenging aspect of publishing on social platforms. You have to spend plenty of time creating content for each social channel. If you’re just starting, spend time creating aligned content that adds value to your target audience’s social feeds. And then find a manageable publishing schedule for you or your team and stick with it. It is better to post high-quality content only three times a week than it is to publish poor-quality content daily. 

Maintaining consistency is best achieved by creating a sustainable publishing calendar and scheduling posts in advance.

9. Test different posting times and content types

The next step is to dive deeper into audience insights. Using social media for your business can be challenging since your target audience is unique to you. So, you’ll have to figure out what works well for your business.

Don’t be afraid to experiment with what you post or when you post it. You might find these ideas inspiring:

  • Test which type of question attracts your audience by using statistics and questions in your copy.
  • Check if users click more on links when they are positioned differently.
  • Try adding emojis and see if it impacts post-engagement.
  • Increase how often you post.
  • Reduce how often you post.
  • Observe what post performs better, a video or a still image.
  • You can test how an ad will perform with different segments of your audience.
  • You can test the impact of different hashtag amounts on impressions.
  • Reply to posts more often and gauge if you see an increase in your followers.

You will always find your own best practices when you experiment with content to determine what works best for your business.

10. Engage with your following

Connecting with other people is the reason for social media. Despite brands’ presence in the space, this sentiment has not changed. If all you do is push your product at your audience, you won’t be able to connect with them. In addition to being disruptive, it’s not the best practice for trying to appeal to customers as an approachable company. Social media users don’t want posts that interfere with their desired social feed. Authenticity and engaging in interesting conversations are key to staying relevant on social platforms.

Create your B2B social media strategy

Using social media strategies isn’t limited to B2C companies. Your B2B company can benefit from using these platforms as well. Many B2B businesses have already demonstrated that these strategies work for various industries. So, it’s worth giving it a try!

Do you need help creating powerful B2B social media content for your business? See how you can team up with creatives in different industries through the ClearVoice Talent Network by talking to a content specialist today.