Social Media in B2B: Creating an Effective Strategy to Attract and Retain Customers
With more heads involved in corporate decision-making than ever before, it can be difficult to influence the right buyers.
In business to business (B2B) social media marketing, keeping in front of the right audiences requires a transparent and effective strategy: targeting needs, interests, and challenges of different personas across a variety of channels.
What’s new: Social media marketing is increasingly proving its effectiveness, and according to LinkedIn, 75% of B2B buyers use social media to make buying decisions.
However, knowing how to make the most of social media in a business sense can be a challenge, particularly with buyer journeys becoming more complicated. Gartner noted that the average number of stakeholders involved in a B2B purchasing decision has more than doubled in the last 10 years.
Marketers are under increased pressure to appeal to not only their target businesses, but the wide variety of individuals within those organisations. Engaging a larger number of people means casting a wider net, tailoring content, and catching attention quickly.
Social Media’s Role in B2B Marketing
Social media is quickly becoming a larger and more valued aspect of B2B marketing.
By the numbers:
- Research from HubSpot found that 77% of marketers say social media was effective for their companies to advertise their products/services and build brand awareness.
- The most utilised social network for B2B digital marketing is LinkedIn, as it reports 96% of B2B companies are using it to distribute content.
Utilising these channels is crucial for brands to grow their presence and retain loyal customers. Opportunities can easily be missed if marketers don’t recognise the value of social media marketing to target the right audiences.
Implementing a Solid Social Media Strategy
Using social media to distribute content provides a connected ecosystem to share educational pieces, such as articles and whitepapers.
Why it matters: A detailed and robust strategy is important to maintain trust, awareness and exposure. It provides options to go beyond organic reach with paid social strategies, helping to attract an even wider pool of potential customers by sponsoring certain posts or using social media ads. It can also drive new leads to sites from other channels.
Here are the key elements B2B organisations should consider when creating an effective SM strategy:
- Video Creation – Engaging and informative videos capture the attention of a busy online audience, making complex concepts more digestible.
Conveying product demos, wider company offerings, and complex ideas can be demonstrated better as a video snapshot. Creative design elements like animations, graphics and branding enhance the visual appeal and professionalism of these videos, fostering trust and credibility.
Videos often perform better than static images on social media algorithms, increasing reach and engagement. Tailoring content in your strategy for different channels will also help to attract and maintain clients. For example, cutting down videos for Instagram but posting the full-length version on LinkedIn.
- Gaining and Building Connections – As well as sharing company updates and content, social media is a great way to connect with clients and prospects. Most professionals will be active on LinkedIn at some point during their working week.
Establishing a strong social media presence alongside a solid content marketing strategy will firm your position positively in the eyes of clients and prospects.
By introducing a personality into your social media marketing, familiarisation forms between client and business as well as building connections with relevant stakeholders. One way to do this is by introducing the strongest advocates, such as your employees.
- Remembering the Human Element – Marketers must remember to consider the human aspect of B2B when building their social media strategies.
By developing a range of different buyer personas, organisations can create a tailored media content plan that targets and appeals to different needs depending on their position in the buyer journey.
Businesses must emphasise a problem, target how they may be feeling towards that issue, and then explain how a product or service could improve their lives. By aligning with a story, it will improve buying attitudes and add personalisation.
- Visual Refinement – Focusing on simple yet appealing visuals for social media with key facts and figures is a great way to capture the reader for long enough to educate but not overwhelm.
A static post is best utilised for showing statements, announcements and updates that don’t need to show a lot of information. Static visuals can also be levelled up with a bit of motion, such as text animation or background videos, to make posts stand out.
To find out more about the power of stand-out visuals in social media, read our blog here.
Elevating Your Reach
Refining eye-catching visuals, investing in considered videos and focusing on your audience and targets are all elements which begin to build a strong and responsive social media strategy to lift a business.
The bottom line: The benefits of creating a transparent social media strategy will allow your audience to engage, interact and share your business, as well as gaining a wider reach for new targets.
We have experts in social media, design and videography who are ready to define and create your social media strategy.
To discuss elevating your social media content and increasing engagement, contact us today at info@ilexcontent.com
