There are tons of social media platforms out there, each with its own niche. As B2B companies start to think about their brand identity, many wonder, “should we join all of them, or some, or focus on just one or two?” To decide what type of social media strategy is right for you, you need some social media management guidelines. Once you have a good idea of each platform’s strengths, you can begin to narrow down your choices. During the process, consider the types of content you have to offer or are prepared to produce, and create a strategy that keeps leads moving along your sales journey.
In this blog, we’re covering top tips and tactics for six of the most popular social media platforms, so no matter which you choose, you’ll have a great starting point to develop your brand identity, grow your audience, and generate leads and sales.
1. LinkedIn
No platform creates as much opportunity in B2B as LinkedIn. LinkedIn offers amazing potential for connecting with the right audience quickly, as its users are more likely than any other platform to understand and engage with your content.
- Refine your company page to generate leads: Build out your company LinkedIn page with a compelling header image and a clear call to action in your company description. LinkedIn only displays the first two lines of your company description, so it’s critical to make effective use of that space to grab potential readers.
- Create a showcase page: LinkedIn Showcase Pages help segment inbound traffic with dedicated pages that only connect to a particular target audience. LinkedIn describes these pages as helpful in representing a brand, business unit, or company initiative to develop long-term relationships with a specific audience.
- Make use of Advanced Search: LinkedIn’s advanced search enables you to quickly identify the exact types of people you are targeting. You can filter searches by location, current company, industry, past company, school, profile language, and nonprofit interests to find prospects in a specific region or anywhere in the world.
2. Twitter/X
With hundreds of millions of Tweets sent every day, there’s no denying the reach of Twitter. Users rely on the platform for local and global news and views on just about everything. While LinkedIn is the most used platform for connecting B2B companies to their audiences, Twitter/X houses many of those same people and offers another opportunity to generate leads and sales.
- Keep it short and sweet: With a character limit of 280, good tweets have all the important info right up front, are easily scannable, and actively compel readers to take the next step, which typically means clicking a link to a product or service, article, or method of contact.
- Use hashtags to your benefit: Use the hashtag (#) symbol before specific, relevant words and phrases without spaces to make your posts searchable. #digitalmarketing #hashtagtips #socialmediamanagement
- Interact with followers: B2B accounts typically don’t use Twitter as a customer service tool to the same effect as B2C accounts, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have personality. Pose questions about industry experiences or specific pain points that resonate with people and prompt responses, and guide them towards your solutions.
3. Facebook
With roughly 2.8 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the most popular social network worldwide. That’s a huge pool of potential customers, but most of them aren’t in the market for B2B services, so specific tactics should be employed to help reach your target market quickly and effectively.
- Use high-quality imagery: Facebook is great for sharing photos of your people, products, facilities, equipment, fleet vehicles, and anything else that helps build people’s mental image of your business. From there, your level of engagement and continued efforts mold that image into a memorable and attractive option for quality products and services. Images generate likes, comments, shares, and follows more effectively than any other type of content on the platform.
- Consistent post scheduling: Scheduling your posts helps save a ton of time compared to creating individual posts every time the mood strikes. It provides consistent content for your followers and allows you to engage with more people more effectively. Facebook has a native post-scheduling system, or you can use third-party scheduling tools that suit your posting process and frequency.
4. Instagram
Instagram is focused on photo and video content and is a great platform for B2B marketers to make connections in just about any industry at any stage of development. More than half of all millennials are active Instagram users, and 40% of the workforce in most average companies is comprised of millennials. Within 10 years, that percentage will likely grow to over 70%, making Instagram a fantastic opportunity to build your brand and generate leads.
- A personal tone: Instagram is an excellent platform for promoting a more personal tone for your business. Posts can range from business-professional to quirky and funny to emotional. They often tell stories that help people associate a certain feeling, level of trust, or sense of dependability with your brand.
- Feed, Story, & IGTV: Instagram offers three ways to share your content. The Instagram feed is the primary way that people and businesses share photos and videos. Previous posts are displayed in a grid on your profile. Instagram Story lets users post photos and videos with some flexible built-in creative tools. Story posts are not saved to your profile and disappear after 24 hours. IGTV is a mobile-only video-sharing tool that lets users post up to 10-minute videos, which are saved on your profile for later viewing and sharing.
- Link in bio: All over the platform, you’ll see posts with the caption “Link in bio.” Instagram does not allow links in post text or comments, so if you want to direct someone to a link, it must be updated within your bio. Double-check any shortened URLs to be sure they’re sending people to the right place before posting.
5. YouTube
As the current undisputed king of self-published video content, YouTube can’t be ignored. YouTube has been around for a while now and is a proven video platform that allows businesses and people to expand audiences, strengthen brand personality and recognition, and boost search rankings.
- Case studies and webinars: YouTube is a great opportunity to highlight past projects or notable work that can help generate interest and trust in your business. These videos can be in the form of a formal business presentation or presented as a casual vlog or webinar.
- Highlight your products and services: Short of an in-person demo, video is often the most clear and convenient way to showing off what you do, how you do it, and the overall quality of your products and processes. Update older videos as products or services change or consider starting an ongoing weekly or monthly series to discuss industry news and updates.
- Showcase your people and culture: There are countless types of B2B companies out there, and not every service warrants a video demonstration or traditional commercial-type production. But one thing that’s easy to show off with video is company culture. Having passionate speakers who believe in the business is invaluable in driving excitement and engagement for your products and services.
6. Pinterest
Pinterest acts as a digital bulletin board/scrapbook where users post and organize pictures of things they like, such as products, styles, hobbies and interests, aspirations and goals, and anything else that can be represented with images. Users “pin” photos to their board, where their followers and friends can see, share, and re-pin to their boards.
- Share your work: Can your products or services be represented and understood easily using photographs? Post pictures of past projects or examples and use the provided space to describe the image and outline features and benefits. Images can be grouped by topic, theme, size, features, and more, essentially helping you create a visual resume or product catalog.
- Link back to your site: When you pin a product or service and link back to your site, this counts as a backlink. Backlinks are important in SEO because they represent a vote of confidence from one site to another, signaling to search engines that your content is what people want. The more you develop your content and encourage sharing across platforms, the more high-quality leads you can generate.
Building Your Brand
With these tips in mind, you’re ready to start building out your social media profiles, generating content and posts, and connecting with new prospects and existing audience members. Keep in mind that your social media presence is just one part of a complete brand identity. As a top area of marketing spend for companies worldwide, a company’s brand is the first impression that can instantly make or break a business relationship.
To learn more about developing your brand, download our guide, Branding Made Simple. In it, we cover what makes a brand great, what makes a brand ineffective, and where your brand falls on the spectrum right now.
