16 B2B Social Media Advertising Methods for Any and Each Business [Social Media Trends Report Data]

B2B social media advertising and marketing typically will get a foul rap.

It’s handled just like the strict faculty principal of enterprise. It’s seen as boring and “unfun.” It gained’t allow you to inform jokes, discuss to your folks on social media, or break with custom. (And it actually wouldn’t allow you to chew gum at school if it might.)

Nonetheless, if my final decade of serving to entrepreneurs promote their companies has taught me something, it’s that these are all simply nasty rumors.

B2B (business-to-business) advertising and marketing, particularly social media advertising and marketing, may be simply as inventive, relatable, and thrilling as B2C (business-to-consumer), and admittedly, it has to be to achieve success.

Fortunately, there are a selection of B2B social media advertising and marketing methods and ideas that make it potential, no matter your trade. Let’s discuss by means of a few of the greatest and take a look at examples from manufacturers like Google, Slack, Shopify, and extra.

Desk of Contents

To know B2B social media advertising and marketing, you actually simply want to grasp the distinction between B2B and B2C.

Merely put, B2B means a enterprise’ providing is meant to be purchased and utilized by one other enterprise. It has an expert objective.

B2C, alternatively, refers to items and providers meant to be purchased by particular person shoppers for private use.

Fairly simple, proper?

Understanding that, B2B social media advertising and marketing is when what you are promoting makes use of social media platforms to advertise its product, service, or model to different companies that will purchase them.

Suppose Shopify concentrating on eCommerce companies or Slack, companies that want real-time digital communication.

However let’s be actual — it’s not like Slack or Shopify themselves are scrolling by means of your Instagram feed or slapping subscribe on YouTube. It’s nonetheless a person.

So, I often suggest my fellow entrepreneurs to consider B2B social media advertising and marketing as when a enterprise makes use of social media to succeed in people who make purchases on behalf of companies or can affect these purchases.

Like all advertising and marketing technique, a B2B social media technique have to be formed round objectives to succeed. Objectives information you and make sure you’re working towards the appropriate issues.

Whether or not your objectives are centered on model consciousness or acquisition, one of the simplest ways to stipulate them in your staff is utilizing the SMART methodology — particular, measurable, attainable, related, and time-bound.

This helps your staff know precisely what it’s attempting to do and by when, the way it will observe its progress towards attaining it, and why it’s one thing they’ll truly do.

Let’s illustrate with an instance. Say your objective is “To construct model consciousness on social media.”

Considering this by means of with the SMART methodology, this turns into:

• Particular: I wish to enhance our firm’s model consciousness by posting frequently and often on X, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Fb. I’ll improve our posts on X from as soon as to 4 instances a day, publish each day on Instagram, and improve weekly publishing frequency on LinkedIn and Fb from 4 to seven instances per week.
• Measurable: Our objective is a 4% improve in engagement price throughout the board.
• Attainable: Our engagement price elevated by a mean of two% final month once we elevated our weekly publishing frequency and spent extra time on considerate, partaking copy.
• Related: By rising the engagement price, we’ll enhance model consciousness and generate extra leads, giving gross sales extra alternatives to shut.
• Time-Sure: Finish of this month.

Placing that every one collectively makes our SMART objective:

“By the top of this month, we’ll improve our common engagement price throughout our social media channels by 4% by rising our publish frequency and concentrating on considerate, partaking copy.”

See the distinction?

Professional tip: For those who need assistance pondering by means of the SMART methodology, we’ve got a template to assist.

Obtainable as an Excel and Google Sheet, this template offers step-by-step directions for setting a SMART objective, calculates achievable numerical targets, and helps you consider the roadblocks to attaining your advertising and marketing objectives.

2. Take inspiration out of your opponents.

Social media may give you a glimpse into your competitor’s advertising and marketing technique. Monitoring them ought to positively be a part of your routine.

You wish to know what campaigns they run, how audiences reply, what new merchandise or options they might launch, and what questions or issues audiences could have.

All of this perception helps you higher perceive what you’re up in opposition to and the way you could want to regulate your technique.

You additionally wish to “Discover a white house,” as HubSpot Senior Social Media Supervisor Emily Kearns advises.

“The B2B panorama is comparatively simple, comparable, and boring. Deep dive into your opponents, see how they’re executing on social, and attempt to decide a singular space the place you possibly can add worth and stand out.”

In case your competitor is not responding to trending information, then possibly your model can cleared the path. In the event that they discover success sharing movies with actionable recommendation, how are you going to incorporate an analogous model and enhance upon it?

Search for alternatives to emulate issues which can be doing properly and differentiate your self.

3. Set up a singular model and voice.

You additionally have to develop a constant voice on social media. Not solely does this make your feed look extra organized, cohesive, {and professional}, but it surely additionally permits guests to acknowledge your content material even out of context.

For instance, you possibly can spot a Canva publish from a mile away with its constant fonts and colours.

Ask your self:

• What makes what you are promoting totally different?
• How will its content material feel and look?
• What would make somebody be capable to acknowledge it even when it wasn’t in your platform?
• What feelings and phrases do folks affiliate with you?

The solutions to those questions will type the muse of your voice. If you’d like extra ideas for constructing your model voice from the bottom up, here’s a useful slideshow to get you began.

Professional tip: LinkedIn discovered that 64% of executives desire “a extra human, much less formal tone of voice” over “an even-toned, mental voice.” So, maintain it pure and conversational.

“Consider your model as an individual, a good friend to your viewers,” particulars HubSpot Senior Model Social Staff Lead Chi Thukral.

“What would they sound like, what would they be taken with speaking about, how would they be at work, what would their FYP appear like? This all will humanize your content material. B2B doesn’t should be severe and dry.”

When you need your social media voice to be constant along with your larger model and firm tradition, you’re nonetheless speaking to fellow human beings. Publish accordingly.

4. Publish on a constant schedule.

Alongside along with your voice and visible model, goal to be constant along with your posting schedule.

Having a set time to publish content material provides you a deadline to comply with and provides your viewers a selected time to anticipate listening to from you.

Create a content material calendar for as far into the longer term as you possibly can. I like to recommend mapping out a minimum of two weeks and having your content material prepared every week earlier than publishing, so that you aren’t left scrambling on the final minute.

HubSpot has a social media calendar template that will help you get began.

Professional tip: One other option to keep consistency is to schedule posts forward of time utilizing a social media software.

HubSpot’s social media administration software program means that you can run all of your social media from one central location, together with scheduling to Fb, Instagram, X (previously Twitter), and LinkedIn.

5. Give attention to authentic, thought management content material.

Wanting on the success of all of the meme accounts on social media, you could suppose curating content material from different sources is a fast ticket to success — however this method is short-sighted.

You could get a like or share at the moment, however why ought to anybody comply with you over the unique supply long-term? Sharing third-party content material showcases the expertise, distinctive worth, or experience of its authentic creator, not you.

So, relatively than simply curating content material from others, goal to share high-quality, authentic content material frequently. Your viewers can be extra inclined to share authentic content material, in flip exposing your title and data to new audiences.

However what sort of authentic content material must you publish?

Think about your viewers’s pursuits, questions, and objectives, and create content material that addresses them with your distinctive perspective. Present solutions and factors of view solely your group can; insights out of your staff’s expertise.

The probabilities are infinite, however in case you’re having hassle arising with concepts, you’re not alone. Creating partaking content material is the #1 problem entrepreneurs anticipate with social media within the subsequent 12 months, but it surely doesn’t should be.

We’ll get into specifics within the subsequent part, however you may also head to The Final Information to Content material Creation for some inspiration.

6. Diversify your content material mediums.

There is a purpose we social media entrepreneurs get excited when platforms launch new options. They’re new mediums to play, get inventive with, and possibly ring a bell with our audiences.

Instagram Tales, Fb polls, TikTok Slideshows, and LinkedIn paperwork are all examples of multimedia codecs that added new methods to have interaction with audiences on their platforms and diversified content material mixes.

However why does this matter? Consider it this manner — For those who scrolled by means of Instagram and solely noticed pictures, you’d most likely get bored fairly shortly. Or in case you solely created the identical format everybody else was, you’d seemingly get misplaced within the crowd.

A part of the explanation Instagram retains folks hooked is due to its selection. In a 10-second scroll, you would possibly come throughout a meme, a Reel, a Story, a picture with a ballot, a carousel, or a dwell video. There’s a potpourri of choices to maintain folks and interacting.

That is one thing it’s best to emulate in your model’s particular web page.

Totally different folks get pleasure from consuming data in numerous methods, so in case you solely create one sort, you could be ignored by many in your target market.

Plus, not each matter lends itself to each format. For instance, a software program tutorial is probably going greatest suited to a video relatively than a sequence of pictures. So, let your material information you as properly.

Workplace house supplier Regus makes use of a wholesome combine of various mediums throughout its social media profiles. On Instagram, you’ll discover short-form movies, Tales, single pictures, carousels, and even graphics to diversify its feed and spotlight presents in numerous methods:

And their LinkedIn follows go well with with movies, slideshows, and graphics:

Professional tip: Repurpose your current content material for various mediums with synthetic intelligence (AI). Repurposing is one in all smartest methods to get essentially the most out of the work you’ve already performed and it doesn’t should be time consuming, because of AI.

Share a weblog article with ChatGPT and it will possibly shortly spin up drafts for social media posts or captions. It may even create video scripts or even photos and graphics.

There are additionally an rising variety of AI instruments being explicitly constructed with content material repurposing in thoughts like HubSpot’s Content material Remix.

With Content material Remix, Skilled and Enterprise-level customers of Content material Hub can repurpose current content material into new codecs.

This may be supplies you’ve gotten hosted on HubSpot (i.e. photos, social posts, textual content messages, adverts, and weblog posts) or new content material you add to the software.

7. Use AI — however sparingly.

Talking of AI, it will possibly dramatically enable you save time in B2B social media advertising and marketing in a variety of methods. It may enable you:

As tempting as it may be, nonetheless, use AI strategically in your B2B social media exercise because it does have its shortcomings.

As an example, in the case of writing, the comfort and velocity additionally comes with considerations of plagiarism, privateness, and even bias. Actually, our analysis discovered that 96% of the time, the content material AI creates isn’t prepared to make use of as-is. So, by all means, use it to get you began, however be ready to edit.

Take what the software provides you and form it into your closing product along with your model’s particular voice, persona, and authentic thought.

As for social media engagement, trendy audiences can often spot automation, like this message from Lyft, from a mile away.

Messages like this could come off as chilly and inauthentic, particularly on social media platforms the place the objective is connection. So, maintain your exercise as natural and human-to-human as potential, at any time when potential.

Be taught extra about how AI to in your B2B advertising and marketing.

8. Lean into the appropriate platforms.

There are dozens of social media platforms, however that doesn’t imply it’s a must to be on all of them.

Kearns defined, “You don’t have to do the whole lot on all social channels. Begin small and centered and put sources behind one platform to grasp how your viewers engages with that content material.”

In line with our analysis, the highest 5 channels for B2B entrepreneurs are Fb, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, and X.

She continued, “Get to know your viewers: It’s essential to analysis to grasp the place they’re spending their time on-line, what their pursuits are, and what they’re searching for in social. This needs to be the muse of your content material technique and channel technique.”

These options act as social proof of your claims and assist audiences higher envision themselves as potential clients.

Plus, based on Gartner, 86% of companies contemplate verified opinions essential of their buy selections, so having a real-life buyer communicate to your worth can do wonders for gross sales.

Professional tip: Don’t be afraid to lean into user-generated content material. When your followers or clients love your model, they’ll typically be joyful to share their experiences and ideas on social media.

Create a branded hashtag and encourage them to make use of it. Then you possibly can then reshare this content material to your individual social media

12. Spotlight your staff.

You can too introduce your social media followers to your staff. Spotlighting your staff lets audiences to place faces to the corporate and humanize the model.

That is essential for small and huge corporations alike, as a result of whether or not you are promoting computer systems or supply industrial cleansing providers, clients wish to know who their cash goes to and in addition who can be there in the event that they run into points.

Google and Pinterest each do a beautiful job of this:

Moreover, highlighting your staff permits for employer branding—or the popularity your organization has as a spot to work. This can assist appeal to expertise and make you extra likable to clients general.

Showcasing your employees might also improve your attain and engagement. As an example, as an alternative of simply posting a photograph of your new product, you may also publish a photograph of the 20 individuals who designed it.

This may seemingly get shared by these 20 folks and seen by their networks if tagged.

At HubSpot, we’re no strangers to highlighting our staff on social media. On this instance, we highlighted HubSpot staff who can be performing as “correspondents” for INBOUND this 12 months.

By doing this, we get to acknowledge and present appreciation for a few of our staff members whereas additionally giving our viewers real-life people to attach with on the occasion.

13. Accomplice with related manufacturers and influencers.

In line with Matter Communication, 69% of shoppers belief messages from influencers, pals, and household over manufacturers themselves. In different phrases, you want others to vouch for you.

Discover which influencers, creators, or different companies your patrons have interaction with. Collaborating with them can enhance your attain and the belief others have in you.

Figma frequently collaborates with influencers and real-life customers of its software program for partaking social media content material:

Be taught extra about your choices for influencer advertising and marketing.

14. Use related humor.

In line with a current research by HubSpot analysis, 97% of entrepreneurs plan to proceed or improve their funding in humorous content material on social media within the subsequent 12 months. And why not?

In addition they reported that humorous content material delivers extra ROI than some other sort.

Humor grabs consideration, is memorable, encourages sharing, and makes you likable general. So, search for methods to include it naturally into your social media content material like Sprout Social.

Shopify additionally does an ideal job on its Instagram profile:

Professional tip: Hold the humor you incorporate on model and match in your viewers. As you possibly can see within the Shopify instance, they use some profanity, albeit censored. For his or her model and viewers, this is sensible, but it surely doesn’t work for everybody.

Humor is subjective. There’s at all times an opportunity your joke gained’t land everybody, however the very last thing you wish to do is offend a possible buyer. So, know your viewers.

15. Begin and interact in dialog.

Social media was created to assist folks make connections with different folks. Although manufacturers have entered and occupied the house for some time now, that sentiment hasn’t modified.

Your model gained‘t be capable to join along with your viewers if all you’re doing is pushing your product at them. You want to slot in naturally and supply actual worth.

The important thing to staying related on social is to start out and interact within the conversations your target market is taken with having.

One of many best methods to do that is by asking questions. As an example, on LinkedIn, Shopify began with a ballot.

This was a sensible method for a number of causes:

• It took benefit of a enjoyable, interactive medium to face out in feeds
• It encourages dialog within the feedback
• It additionally gathered authentic knowledge within the course of

You can too immediate questions or discussions in your photograph or video captions or in texted-based posts like this tweet from HubSpot.

Picture Supply

Whereas this specific matter isn’t essentially associated to HubSpot’s product or trade, it’s associated to enterprise and digital advertising and marketing and is a dialogue its potential clients are taken with.

This exhibits we perceive our viewers and what’s on their minds and are additionally updated on what’s happening on the earth.

16. Experiment and refine.

Clearly, there isn’t a scarcity of greatest practices for social media, however the fact is that each viewers is totally different, so you may wish to run experiments to determine what works greatest in your model.

HubSpot’s Kearns shared, “Social is the one channel the place you’ve gotten a chance to experiment and get viewers suggestions every day. Strive new issues, iterate, and optimize! Take learnings out of your viewers and apply them to future content material.”

There are infinite experiments you possibly can conduct in your channels. Listed here are some concepts to encourage you:

• Use questions and statistics in your copy to see which pulls your viewers in additional.
• Take a look at totally different hyperlink positions to find out if it makes customers extra more likely to click on.
• Add emojis to see if it will increase interactions.
• Run adverts to a video and a nonetheless picture on the identical matter to see which performs higher.
• Phase a special a part of your viewers to check how they react to an advert.
• Take a look at totally different hashtags to see if it impacts impressions.
• Spend extra time replying to posts to find out if it will increase your follower rely.

Experimenting along with your content material is how you determine your individual greatest practices, which is able to at all times be extra customized than trade requirements.

Put the spark again in B2B social media.

With the guidelines and techniques we outlined, B2B social media advertising and marketing doesn’t should be boring, stoic, or forgettable. The secret is merely to know your viewers and their objectives and let their preferences information you.

The extra you hearken to their suggestions and take lead from their behaviors, the higher geared up you’ll be to craft a social media technique that drives actual bottomline outcomes.