The B2B Guide To Social Media Marketing
Are you finding it difficult to get results from your Social Media?
If you're reading this blog, we can safely bet that you clicked on it because you're facing at least one of these three problems...
Lack of Time
Lack of Expertise
Struggle with Consistency
If you said relate to any of those, don't worry, in this blog, we'll provide you with the practical and actionable knowledge you need to kick things off and see momentum with your marketing.
So, keep reading to learn how you can implement a successful social media strategy for your B2B business.
Why social media B2B is more difficult!
Since we’re focusing on B2B today, we’re going to talk about the specific challenges many people face when trying to reach other businesses.
Social media for businesses already leaves you at a disadvantage. As Facebook seems to be demoting the priority of business pages in the algorithm year upon year, the majority of users on social media are looking to engage as a customer, and LinkedIn business pages don’t traditionally perform as well as personal profiles.
B2B can be a tough niche to navigate and reach the audience you're trying to attract, but it’s not all bad news, with a clear social media strategy you can equip yourself with the steps needed to stand out on socials.
Step 1. What platform should I be on?
This is one of the most common questions we get asked, and it’s usually asked by people that either…
Are about to kickstart their business’s social media
OR
Have got social media, but it’s not performing as expected
The first and most simple step to make sure you're getting things right is to pinpoint where you should be posting. Finding the natural areas where your ideal customer hangs out online will help you to prioritise which social media platforms you want to focus on.
Here's an example...
At RED, we have a range of different clients with different target audiences who all need to be on different platforms where they can reach those people.
One of our clients partners with recruitment agencies, a extremely niche business with high-value services. Their ideal customers are expanding, invested in their training and value their employees.
Another of our clients is a singles coach. Their ideal customers are much wider, as long as they’re wanting to take charge of their love like, they’re welcome
Do you think that it would be easy to target recruitment agencies on Instagram?
Or how about finding people longing for love through LinkedIn on corporate pages?
Whether they’re in Facebook groups or love Instagram, finding out where your target audience spends their time can help you to market more effectively.
Step 2. How do I stand out?
In 2022, the average daily social media usage worldwide is 2 hours and 45 minutes.
With so much content to choose from how do you get people to read, interact and engage with what you post?
Be Yourself
There are lots of tactics, however, there’s one common denominator - be yourself.
Luckily for you, there are a lot of people out there who will like who you are and what you do. Make sure that your business isn’t a headless brand, but instead is remembered by being authentic with your content and letting people connect with you.
This can create a sense of trust between you and your followers, remember, ‘People buy from people’.
Create Scroll-stopping Content
Another tip is to make what we call scroll-stopping content. Whether it’s a video, a brightly coloured image, or something a little out of the norm of your usual posts. Make something that causes people to do a double-take and stops them from scrolling!
Be Consistent
Last but not least, be consistent. Business owners are usually very busy and don’t get the luxury of clocking in and clocking out, which can make it difficult to regularly and consistently update your social media.
However, in this day and age algorithms rewards regular users, so for your audience to recognise your brand, you need to be consistent.
Step 3. How do I know what to post?
Coming up with an ever-churning list of content is really tough! Even for us as marketers, it can be really difficult to come up with fresh content ideas.
Creating content pillars to reference, discuss, and create content for on social media, can make it easier to create high-quality content.
Here are a few examples of pillars you can include in your content!
1. Sales Content
Of course, you want to make sure that you’re promoting your services and products on your business. Share a breakdown of your services, testimonials, special offers, and case studies.
2. Engagement
Engaging content offers followers something useful or entertaining. This should be a reflection of you and your personality.
3. Humanisation
Let the people who follow you, see you! They’re interested in what you’re up to in the office so make sure to post some Insights into the business, personal insights (if relevant), photos from in the office or out and about with clients, and if you’re feeling brave some videos speaking to the camera.
4. News/ Timely Information
Share some news of things happening in your business industry, articles on trending topics, and national days that may be of interest to you and your audience.
5. Educational
Sharing educational content will such as tips, tricks, and answers to frequently asked questions, will help you to establish expertise, create brand awareness, and build trust with your followers.
Step 4. How do I make this less time heavy?
Social media can be a really time-consuming task. From platforms deciding to change some of their layouts overnight meaning you have to relearn where to find the tools you’re after, to those Facebook link previews that just won't behave!
From posting and engaging, to reaching out to potential customers, social media can take quite a chunk out of your day. So, here are a couple of our favourite tips you can use to speed things up!
Bulk Schedule
Instead of trying to come up with content over and over on the spot, make it easier and set everything up in advance. Block out some time to sit down and create your content at least a week in advance, and then schedule it in advance so that you can forget about it for another week!
We even have a super handy free Social Media Scheduler you can use, get it here.
Have response templates
Do you have regular questions that you get from your followers and you find yourself answering the same questions over and over again?
Type up a response and have it saved in your notes on your computer or phone so you can just copy and paste them when needed! Most social media platforms like Instagram will now even let you create and use saved replies, meaning you don’t even need to copy and paste them.
Use tools
At RED we’d be lost without some of the tools we use every day.
If you’re trying to create images from scratch, try using tools like Canva or Adobe Spark, these drag and drop creators make it so easy to create what you need in half the time and come with ready-made templates. To save even more time, make sure to create brand kits that include your business’s fonts and colours.
So, what now?
At this point, you should have a good understanding of social media marketing and how to get your B2B business seen on socials. Keep doing what you’re doing and over time the results will follow, think of your social media marketing as a snowball, when it’s small and just getting started, it will roll slowly but as this ball builds momentum it will be flying down the mountain full speed before you know it!
Not for you?
Social media can be a fantastic cornerstone of your digital marketing, but business owners often don’t have an awful lot of time to create an effective content strategy. If you are looking for some help, why not Get in touch with us today?
We’re an award-winning marketing agency that helps B2B businesses to develop an online presence and turn their followers into customers, with marketing that works. We offer services ranging from strategy creation to full-service marketing where we can act as your very own marketing department, or even a done with you service like our 1:1 coaching option meaning no matter what your budget (or business model) we have a service to suit you.