Strategies and Trends for Success in B2B Social Media Marketing

‍‍Is there any business that is yet to join social media?

Businesses of all sizes may effectively contact prospects and consumers via social media marketing.

‍You must take advantage of social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

‍Why?

Because this is where people find out about, research, follow, and make purchases from brands.

Therefore, excellent social media marketing can help your company succeed by fostering committed brand advocates and generating leads and revenue.

Marketers from various industries are advancing social media marketing (SMM) from a standalone tool to a multifaceted source of marketing intelligence on an important—and expanding—audience.

Did you know that over 80% of consumers report that social media, especially influencer content, significantly influences buying decisions?

This article is tailored for you to master the B2B social media marketing strategies that will boost your business.

Let's dive right in!

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What is B2B Social Media Marketing?

B2B social media marketing uses social media platforms for advertising goods or services through useful, informative content that produces qualified leads that result in lucrative contracts.

Social media offers B2B brands a lot, from nurturing prospects to showing industry impact.

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The Importance of B2B Social Media

So must you engage in social media marketing?

‍What do you gain from it, and how can you maximize it?

It makes perfect sense for B2B marketers to use this channel for advertising their products and enterprises because social media usage is the most popular.

The statistics show that in 2021, social media had 4.6 billion users worldwide, which is predicted to grow to about 6 billion by 2027. (Look at the graph below).

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You need more than simply looking at global usage statistics to understand why you should spend money on social media marketing.

To fully utilize B2B social media marketing, let's take a deeper look at its unique benefits:

1. Connect with Your Customers & Maximize Your Social Media Presence 

The demands of the B2B market have evolved.

A B2B brand used to be able to get by with only having a website and possibly a LinkedIn corporate page.

Your customers today expect to find you on one or two platforms at the very least.

Why? 

Due to the fact, that's where they are too.

Customers can connect with you through your professional articles, familiarize themselves with the leaders in the field, and even start conversations with the salespeople there.

In addition, on social media, customers spend much of their time in the B2B customer journey's discovery and evaluation phases, seeking pertinent material, assessing your customer service practices, reading reviews, and more.

‍Have a look at these data on B2B social media marketing:

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• Dive Brief shows that  90% of people will purchase a brand they follow on social media.

• According to Statista, 42% of customers prefer the phone, and 20% prefer email for customer care concerns, but 38% of customers say they prefer social media. (See the pie chart below)

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• The fastest and most direct way to communicate with a brand, according to 78% of consumers, is through social media (Sprout Social)

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The above statistics depict the available customers on social media.

They are mainly Millennials who are internet savvy and used to doing business online.

Consumers will likely ignore you and choose one of your competitors if you have a nonexistent B2B social media presence.

Brands that aren't engaged on social media these days appear stale; that much is certain.

Discover at least one platform that will work for you, making sure it's the one that your customers use most frequently.

This could be Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, TikTok, or Clubhouse.

You should then invest the time and money necessary to create a B2B social media marketing strategy that makes a solid and active presence.

Increasing your brand's reputation and gaining internet trust will be significantly facilitated by this.

2. Get More Eyes on Your Business with B2B Social Media Marketing

Even if you still need to be ready to begin selling on social media, it is a crucial tool to boost site traffic and point visitors to particular pages.

Social media is essential in B2B marketing for driving consumers to landing pages, content downloads, and free demo sign-ups.

Paid advertisements provide the same purpose, but consumers need to be more trusting of advertising (74% of people in a Survey Monkey poll believe they see too many social media adverts).

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This implies that you must rely on social media more than just advertisements to guide consumers to the appropriate locations.

Your B2B social media postings can be a much more effective approach to generate traffic where it matters most by providing value through knowledge or entertainment in a format your buyers are already accustomed to and use frequently.

3. Connect with Top B2B Brands on LinkedIn

Before the epidemic, LinkedIn was already a significant force in the B2B market.

LinkedIn's influence has only grown with the disruption in 2020, particularly the enormous rise in all-digital B2B selling and buying.

LinkedIn's statistics support this.

In the second quarter report for the fiscal year 2022, LinkedIn answered the query regarding utilization data.

There are currently more than 900 million subscribers in 200 countries.

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Every second, three new members register on LinkedIn.

You must consider this audience.

Consider B2B thought leadership content, perceptive commentary on news articles, industry issues, or current events, and the content your brand produces when deciding what to share on LinkedIn.

Because live streams on LinkedIn get 7x more reactions and 24x more comments than ordinary video broadcasts, live streaming on the site is also a fantastic opportunity to communicate with potential clients.

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4. Personalize your B2B Customer Experience with Social Media Marketing 

B2C and B2B customers want personalization, which social media may help your company achieve in many ways.

B2B social media marketing, mainly if you've been diligent about creating your brand voice, offers them a more human perspective of your brand.

Like B2C customers, B2B buyers anticipate being able to communicate directly with the firms they're dealing with.

When they ask questions or write about their interaction with your brand, you should respond to them personally and humanely.

Connecting with customers on this level, anticipating their requirements, and providing prompt, sympathetic service are the first steps in retaining them.

But, your business could gain even more from the social media presence of your B2B brand than your customers do.

You may better understand your customers' value and engage with them by interacting with them on social media channels.

For instance, the number of engagements when you share content on social media might reveal your customers and future consumers' overall interest in that particular content.

You can directly request their input to acquire their direct opinions (otherwise known as collecting zero-party data).

Your paid advertising plan, B2B content marketing strategy, and even your product and service offerings can all be improved with the help of the information you acquire through social media analytics.

Social media for B2B lets you see your consumers for who they are online—their interests, wants, desires, and more—just as it allows your customers to see who's behind your brand.

5. Empower Your B2B Buyers with Self-Service Options

According to a McKinsey survey, 97% of B2B buyers stated they would feel comfortable using a digital, self-service model to make a B2B purchase, with the majority of that group comfortable spending $50k or more.

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What role does social media play here?

One approach to providing digital self-service is through social chatbots like the kind brands might use on Facebook.

Social media posts can also point users there if your self-service channels are stored on an app or website.

B2B buyers want to access your resources without going through a salesperson or representative, whether through text-based knowledge bases, video channels, or databases of consumer preferences.

6. Take Your B2B PR to the Next Level with Social Media Marketing 

Last but not least, social networks are great for boosting your B2B PR placements and, as a result, raising your industry share of voice.

Many companies, including B2B PR firms, ignore this important stage.

After obtaining press hits, they cease their efforts.

Yet, you need to amplify your PR coverage by using it to support further marketing initiatives, sharing it, and reusing it.

In that case, your business is only reaping a small portion of the rewards it could.

Though the media sources which covered you will indeed distribute the story, podcast, etc., you still need to spread it on your social media accounts.

This can help expand the audience for your press mentions and act as social proof that your company is trustworthy.

Social networks are undoubtedly the best location to promote PR successes to increase your trust with potential customers.

Whatever you can do to project authority and break through boundaries between your company and prospects is a benefit, especially with so much competition among B2B brands.

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How to Create a B2B Social Media Marketing Strategy 

One of the finest strategies for brand development and audience discovery is B2B social media marketing.

Here is how to start.

1. Defining Your Goals for Successful B2B Social Media Marketing

Goal-setting is crucial for B2B enterprises but critical for all businesses.

After all, competition is high, and there are various marketing avenues.

But don't use social media simply because everyone is on it.

Consider that B2B social media is different from retail or ecommerce.

Regarding B2B, enterprises use social media for content promotion and awareness rather than selling.

B2B content marketers should focus on the following, according to recent research:

• Awareness (86%).

• Educating audiences (79%).

• Credibility (75%).

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So, how can B2B social media marketing achieve each goal?

Creating Brand Awareness for Your Business 

It would be best if you introduced yourself first.

Since there are several B2B voices, losing track is easy.

Companies must therefore define their mission, values, and identity.

Bite-sized material highlighting all of the above can be promoted on social media.

For example, the diagram below shows some benefits of increasing brand awareness: 

• 46% of customers prefer to purchase from well-known brands.

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More consumers will buy from you since they know, appreciate, and believe in your brand's growth.

• 64% of the brand relationship is derived from shared value.

• Customers are willing to pay 50% more for impactful businesses.

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Therefore, creating brand awareness will go a long way in promoting your sales.

Effective Audience Education

It's a fact that the B2B buyer's journey entails more than merely looking at a website or a pricing page.

B2B purchasers are overwhelmingly independent researchers who wish to validate the legitimacy of the businesses they support.

Educating your audience may be the best method to establish your reputation.

Any B2B social media strategy should focus on instructive, practical material, whether blog entries, e-books, first-person accounts, or how-to videos.

According to Backlinko, 38% of B2B companies educate their audience with blog post content.

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The Importance of Building Trust

With so much competition among B2B companies, anything you can do to establish credibility and demonstrate your company's value is positive.

Positive feedback, rewards, and accolades (think: customer milestones, awards) are all excellent for sharing and can do this.

Social media is the best location to both collect and spread social evidence.

For instance, the review below would win the trust of your clients.

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2. Customer-Centric B2B Social Strategy Builds Trust and Loyalty 

It's common knowledge that brands need to be more human.

The same is true for businesses that sell to other companies.

Because of this, you must keep your clients at the forefront of your social media initiatives.

Customer engagement can instantly humanize your business no matter how specialized or technical your product may be.

For instance, think about how Twitter has established itself as a standard for SaaS marketing customer support.

Social media is a transparent platform that is a quicker substitute for email for exchanging questions, praises, and comments with your consumers.

By offering helpful, proactive customer service, you win the favor of your consumers and demonstrate your concern to potential clients.

For instance, the image below shows you how to be customer-centric.

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The message shows that customer interactions should be key to your strategy, both in service and content.

Pay attention to @mentions and branded keywords to take advantage of every consumer engagement opportunity.

3. Business-Focused Social Media: Aligning B2B Strategy with Your Company's Direction 

It's worth noting this point.

Why?

Because some feel there needs to be higher ROI related to social media.

But how can this be reverted?

Marketers must connect their businesses' social media performance to organization-wide data (like sales and traffic).

However, social media is ideal for supporting company-wide initiatives.

From product launches to PR, it's vital to connect the base with people outside of marketing and add context to your initiatives.

Below is an example of using Sprout's custom reporting to measure social media engagement for a product launch and tell stakeholders about it.

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The lesson here is to measure your social initiatives in the context of business goals and to disclose the results periodically.

Reporting tools can significantly facilitate the process.

4. Engaging B2B Social Media Content 

This is an important point to consider while posting social media content.

You could argue that words like software, security, or financial don't make people jump out of their seats.

Even though your industry could be more exciting, your prospects will nonetheless be interested in your service.

It can be difficult, but making your social presence less snooze-worthy is possible.

The following are some helpful B2B social media methods to consider:

Refining Your Brand Voice

Make sure you avoid sounding robotic.

A conversational brand voice may show the real people behind your social media profiles and help you become more approachable.

Contrary to common assumption, a professional voice need not sound stuffy or formal.

Boosting Your B2B Social Media Strategy with Adapted Content

It's interesting to learn that changing captions and formats can increase engagement.

Would you follow someone who posts links without commentary?

‍Here are some ways to spice up and entertain your social feed(s):‍

• Short infographics from blog posts or listings

• Instead of linking a podcast or video, post a minute-long clip.

• Twitter threads and LinkedIn long-form text entries can replace external links and blog posts.

Remember: social media users have short attention spans.‍

Links are tedious; the formats above are more engaging.

Stay Up-to-Date with Industry Trends

Trends are known to dominate B2B social media.

These include innovative advertising, business cycles, and industry opinions.

Keep an eye on what customers and competitors are saying on social media.

It will be easy to notice trends and join industry dialogues.

Social listening can also save you time searching Twitter and LinkedIn for news.

Building Your Brand with Employee Advocacy 

Like customers, staff should speak for your brand.

From a Global Study by Weber Sandwick, it's known that employees 50% posts' on social are about their employer. (Source: Weber Shandwick).

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Who better to show your humanity than your support staff?

Workers may provide individuality and culture to your brand voice.

Yes, some employees' accounts have a much broader reach than just business accounts.

Building a sense of belonging among your coworkers will help you become more socially active.

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5. Maximizing B2B Social Media Strategies Success with Analytics

B2B businesses must be efficient with their time when it comes to marketing.

According to recent data from the Content Marketing Institute, only a few B2B social media channels are best:

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To avoid overcommitting, use one or two of the following sites for your social selling.

• LinkedIn: The top B2B network for thought leadership, employee engagement, and ads.

• Twitter: This is a great space to spot trends and communicate with customers and influencers.

• Facebook: B2B advertisements dominate Facebook, but employee-focused, non-promotional material works well there too.

• YouTube: great for how-tos, interviews, presentations, and ads.

Instagram: great for visuals (infographics, concise how-tos) and culture-centric material 

• Pinterest: expanding B2B presence The five networks mentioned are crucial for B2B social media marketing.

Best B2B Social Media Marketing Channels 

Which B2B social media marketing channels are used in social selling?

1. LinkedIn

Did you know the oldest social networking site still widely used today was created in 2003? It's called LinkedIn.

It is the most dependable social network while having just 900 million users.

The platform secures users' data and privacy, according to 73% of LinkedIn users.

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LinkedIn is the greatest way to connect with decision-makers for networking and content sharing because of its professional focus.

Also, 97% of B2B marketers utilize LinkedIn for content marketing, and it is the best social network for disseminating content overall.

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Using the platform is an excellent approach to engaging in discussions with business decision-makers and consumers searching for suggestions on goods and services.

This makes it among the top B2B selling site. Use it well.

2. Twitter

Twitter is among the best platforms for connecting with potential customers for B2B firms.

Twitter is the place to stay updated in your sector, with over 330 million monthly active users and 500 million tweets made daily.

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To engage in lively discussions and gain a deeper understanding of the problems and demands of their audiences, B2B brands might employ current themes and hashtags.

More individualized interactions mean customers will see your business as helpful and trustworthy, increasing brand loyalty and retention.

3. Facebook

As of 2023, there were 3.05 billion daily active Facebook users.

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This makes Facebook one of the most popular social media sites. 

Facebook offers the most substantial possibility if you're seeking to reach a large audience.

Additionally, it gives B2B marketers access to company decision-makers, an essential demographic.

Facebook discovered that decision-makers in the company spend 74% more time on the site than other users do.

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These days, it is more challenging to increase organic reach on Facebook's business pages.

However, you can still use them to promote your brand and establish your company as an authority in your industry by utilizing them to share product news, insights, and valuable tips.

One of the most vital strategies for increasing Facebook user engagement is video content. 

Users will engage with the network for extended lengths of time thanks to a few appealing options like Facebook Live and Facebook Watch.

4. YouTube

As a marketing channel, video material has proliferated.

The vast majority of firms continue to use video.

In 2023, 91% of businesses were utilizing video as a marketing strategy.

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The most popular B2B social media site for videos is YouTube, which 87% of marketers who utilize it for their campaigns cited as a successful channel.

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A billion hours of video are seen on the platform daily by its over 2 billion monthly users, who also utilize it to watch videos.

Make sure your YouTube channel is SEO optimized because it can improve your positioning in Google searches.

Consider sharing brand-story videos to attract more B2B customers.

5. Instagram

Another popular platform for B2B marketing is Instagram.

More than 200 million Instagram users daily view at least one company page.

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Use your most aesthetically pleasing stuff on Instagram.

Get creative! The site performs best with high-quality images, intriguing infographics, and video.

With films of your office or team celebrations, you can show off all the inventive work that goes into marketing your B2B brand and take people behind the scenes.

Instagram's most popular B2B brands frequently use user-generated content to share unique and genuine material.

Increasing engagements on your page and showcasing your company's ingenuity by engaging users through caption competitions, surveys, and hashtags.

6. TikTok

Although just 20% of marketers used TikTok in 2020, the platform is expanding swiftly and has over 1 billion monthly active users.

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2020 was a turning point for the well-known short-form video app, now capturing more users' social media time.

TikTok is a fantastic platform for B2B marketers to register with unique username and add to your B2B social media strategy if your marketing team appreciates producing unique, experimental content.

10 B2B Social Media Strategy Across Any Industry

For a B2B company's social media content to be effective, it must balance being exciting and not interfering with its audiences' platform use.

Therefore, for these businesses to genuinely gain from social media, they must determine what their audience wants to see.

Which are the strategies that every B2B industry can apply?

Here is a list of ten.

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1. The Power of SMART Goal-Setting

A social media strategy must be founded on goals, just like any other marketing channel, to be effective.

The secret to gauging success in the future will be to define clear, quantifiable KPIs for your company's social media channels, whether based on brand awareness or customer acquisition.

The success of your brand must be determined before setting KPIs.

Do you intend to use social media as a medium for customer acquisition?

Do you wish to broaden your audience or drive more visitors to your company blog?

This will determine the metrics to monitor.

For instance, metrics like clicks and conversions are significant if your company seeks leads.

Engagement, reach, and impressions are crucial in determining brand awareness.

See the example below of how to go about setting goals.

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2. Spying on Your Competitors

Social media opens the door to your competitor's marketing strategy, or at the very least, their social media marketing strategy.

For larger companies, keeping tabs on competitors is part of the territory. 

You want to know what campaigns they're running to see if they're successful.

And if that company's target audience is similar to yours, you can take inspiration from that campaign.

But keeping tabs on your competitors on social media is about more than copying their strategies.

Involving in the same industry will lead to crossover with your audiences and their interests.

If your competitor isn't responding to trending news, it makes sense for your brand to do so.

Looking for these opportunities will differentiate you from your competition.

3. Maximizing Social Media Impact with Original Content

Although some may consider this obvious, many businesses build their social media presence by selecting information from various sources.

The truth is that your audience can identify the difference between unique, innovative material and content you provided merely to show that you were active on the platform that day.

The use of social media should go beyond simple distribution.

Social media marketers must also be content marketers to have a favorable effect on their brand.

Scaling back your operation is OK if you're finding it difficult to produce original content daily.

If you need more time to post on all the platforms, concentrate your efforts on the ones where your audience is most engaged.

4. Incorporating Multimedia

Social media marketers love new features because they give them a new venue to test with their audience.

For instance, Instagram Stories, Twitter polls, and LinkedIn documents use each channel's multimedia formats.

Multimedia content on social media attracts attention.

If you simply viewed text on Twitter, you'd become bored quickly. Twitter is addictive since each Tweet is unique.

A 10-second scroll may reveal a meme, poll, video, photo collage, and gif. 

Your brand's feed should too.

Consider the story behind the post in addition to the various methods you might tell it when you consider social media content.

5. Highlighting Your Employees is Good for Business

Many B2B businesses highlight their people, enabling the audience to attach names to the firm and humanize the brand.

This is crucial for small and large enterprises since people are the lifeblood of any organization, whether operating a neighborhood café or selling computers to businesses.

An excellent chance for employer branding is also presented by showcasing your staff.

By enabling people to talk positively about their workplace, employer branding raises the level of employee advocacy.

Showcase your personnel to broaden your audience and engage more people.

For instance, instead of uploading a picture of the product, you might publish a picture of the 20 individuals who made it, which would be shared with their networks.

6. Your Brand Voice Matters on Social Media

When your organization blogs, modify pillar pages, or writes on social media, you may show off your brand voice.

Like your logo, you want customers to know your brand voice.

Social content should reflect your company's viewpoint like any other marketing asset.

Is your company funny or helpful?

Fast-food chains like Burger King and Wendy's have a consistent social media voice.

‍For instance, look at the tweet below.

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From the above example, Wendy's approach sticks with customers because it's different from other brands.

Yet you don't have to mock a competition to be heard.

Friendly, casual, formal, snarky, hilarious, or severe—your brand voice can be any of these.

If you need help finding your brand voice, look at old blog posts or landing page material.

Try to convey the copy's emotion and tone in your social media posts.

In a crowded market, a unique brand voice lets you stand out.

7. Quick Responses are Crucial for Customer Support 

Nothing is more aggravating than tweeting a brand with a customer support issue and getting no response.

Even if you can't build a separate Twitter account for support, keeping an eye out for these issues and responding to them immediately is an excellent approach to fixing your customer connection and showing future consumers that you'll be there for them if they have a problem.

8. Maintain Social Media Consistency Without Burning Out

Maintaining consistency on social media takes time and effort.

Daily posting requires content production, planning, and time.

Instead of updating daily, try creating clever material contributes to your audience's feeds.

It's better to send one well-thought-out tweet that adds to the conversation and encourages participation than five short blog links with just the post title.

Create a publication calendar and schedule social media postings to ensure consistency.

9. Personalizing Your Social Media Strategy: Why Experimentation Matters

This is the next stage if you've established a regular posting schedule and want to dig further into audience insights.

Every audience is unique, so you'll need to experiment to know what works best for your brand on social media.

You can run limitless channel experimentation.

Try these suggestions:

• Try utilizing questions and statistics in your copy to discover which engages readers more.

• To increase clicks, try alternative link placements.

• Emojis may boost interaction.

• Increase posting.

• Reduce posting.

• Pay for a video and a still photograph to discover which performs better.

• To test ad response, segment your audience.

• Check impressions with different hashtag amounts.

• To increase followers, spend more time commenting on posts.

• Experimenting with your content is discovering your best practices, which will always be unique.

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10. Engage Your Audience on Social Media 

We both know people use social media to connect.

That sentiment has stayed the same despite the brands' long presence.

If all you do is sell, your brand won't connect.

It's distracting, and no one wants to interact with it.

Staying relevant on social media requires participating in your target audience's conversations, even if they're unrelated to your product.

Over the years, 71% of B2B firms have prioritized high engagement in their content marketing.

For instance, look at this HubSpot tweet:

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HubSpot's audience is interested in this tweet, although it has nothing to do with their product.

HubSpot recognizes its users and potential customers are interested in tech and business news.

So, it generated discussion.

B2B companies have shown that these social media methods work for various target groups, so why not try them on your audience?

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B2B Social Media Budgets & Measuring B2B Social Media ROI 

How much should you spend on B2B social media selling?

Relax.

With social media marketing, there is more than one fixed budget.

Of course, teams of one have fewer buckets to think about than big marketing organizations.

To set a B2B social media marketing budget, you should bear the following in mind:

1. Percent of Yearly Sales Formula

Most organizations base their marketing budget ceiling on a proportion of predicted revenue.

For this method, put aside 5-30% of your projected gross income objective for marketing.

The average B2B firm spends ~9% of its revenue on marketing; according to Gartner's 2019 CMO survey, 67% of B2B enterprises foresee budget increases.

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What's your social media budget?

10–25% of your marketing spend should go to social media.

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For example, if you predicted revenues of $10,000,000 in 2023 and allocated 10% to marketing, you would have a $1,000,000 budget pool for marketing/advertising.

‍That leaves $100,000–$250,000 for social media, or ~$8,000–$20,000/mo.

Also, did you know that Social media spending reached 13% of marketing budgets by February 2020, the second-highest position in Survey history, and is predicted to rise to 21.5% in five years?

2. Social Media Expenses for B2B

Think about how your marketing money will be divided:

• In-house social media staff: Part-time and full-time. For instance, one social media manager and half of a graphic designer's time (shared resource) Equals 1.5 FTE salary.

• Outsourced social media work: Agency and freelancers for content production, community administration, and paid media.

• Paid media: Overall social media ad spends.

• Tools and technology: Social media marketing management and measurement software.

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Scheduling, monitoring and listening, ad-buying, reporting, and analytics are done with this system.

3. Social Media Recruitment and Activities

Recruiting via social media?

Social media activities should receive a portion of your recruitment budget.

From there, divide the spending allowance.

 Consider these:

• Content creation: Choose graphics, photos, and videos for your campaign. 

Want to show off your stunning office?

That's affordable with high-quality photographs.

Want to promote a fun workplace?

Video production is worth capturing.

Choose media that suits your campaign and budget accordingly.

• Sponsored advertising: Paid social is the best way to contact talented, eligible applicants unless you have a significant, engaged organic following. 

Choose how much of your recruitment budget to spend on ads.

• Outsourcing: Delegate the recruitment process to a third party.

‍What's the best approach to measure social media marketing ROI?

By now, we both agree that you must budget for a social media management service to handle your campaign.

What's the best approach to measure social media marketing ROI?

First, return on investment (ROI) measures dollars gained or lost.

The C-suite will only buy marketing-specific measurements if you think they're good.

That's why measuring ROI per channel or campaign is simpler (versus the totality of your efforts).

Owing to tracking pixels and other strong CRM software examples, success may be linked to leads or conversions from social media.

Analytics software can track users' social media channels, webpage behavior, and form completion actions.

Imagine you spent $10,000 on a LinkedIn and Facebook ad campaign for a new product launch.

You reached 100,000 professionals, drove 2,000 to your landing sites, and gathered 50 emails (MQLs).

‍Many options exist, including the following.

• ROI- Short term: Such leads are now sales prospects. If 10% of those 50 leads close transactions with a $10,000 customer lifetime value in three months, you'll make $50,000 from the campaign. ROI = $50,000 – 10,000 / (10,000).

• ROI long-term: After 6 or 12 months, how many campaign leads have converted? What were such deals worth? It gets exciting, then.

• Indirect ROI: What's a page visit worth? What's this channel's CPM? What other social or conversion actions can you attribute to the campaign, like saves, engagement, or downloads?

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Assessing the total reach, engaged (retargeting) audience size, or attributable brand lift is merely a proxy for success but is valuable to measure and report.

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2024 B2B Social Media Marketing Trends

Since social media marketing is a strategy that we want you to find helpful in your business, in 2024, share these 7 B2B social media marketing trends with your team.

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Boost Your Brand with Influencer, UGC, and Creator Marketing 

Influencers and influencer-driven content are now used by B2B marketing despite being an old method.

Influencer marketing spending in the US shot over 26% yearly from 2019 to 2023.

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Influencers are costing brands more due to social proof's effect on buyers.

This habit has increased UGC's investments in customer reviews, testimonials, and case studies.

‍Quality content is also driving the trend.

Who would want to avoid creating content, told from a new perspective and made by talented creators, that may outperform your ads and posts?

From TikTok videos to Twitter threads, B2B brands use independent content creators to promote product information and education.

The existing proof is that 86% of B2B firms regarded their influencer marketing as successful in 2022 because it raised brand awareness and reputation.

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In 2024, B2B marketers will use influencers, UGC, and creators to influence buyer decisions, attract new audiences, and boost brand advocacy.

More brands are expected to modify their media budgets in this way.

The Impact of Generative AI 

AI isn't new to B2B, but its recent popularity is mindblowing.

With ChatGPT and other generative AI systems, firms are learning to use them for copywriting, decision-making, and personalized suggestions to improve customer experience.

AI's most significant benefit is speeding up social media content development for marketers. For engagement or marketing postings, this saves time.

AI shapes ad creativity too.

Also, AI models like Midourney, DALL-E, and Nightcafe can create unique social media photographs without copyright concerns (so far).

In 2024, more brands will leverage generative AI for marketing R&D and content.

Let's face it—you'll hear about this a lot.

Embracing TikTok: Exploring the Power of Short-Form Video for Business Growth

Even though advertisers are hesitant, we'll see more TikTok testing in 2024.

B2B marketers have benefited from short-form video platforms in recent years, but we don't anticipate it to replace Google anytime soon.

Many marketers have benefited from short-form videos for brand narrative, case studies, or thought leadership.

‍Sprout Social found that short-form video (66% of in-feed social content) is the most engaging.

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TikTok supports several video formats.

In addition, TikTok's focus on new formats and innovative approaches to social media can revitalize B2B firms' social media strategy. Here’s more reason to try out Tik Tok

• It's ideal for engaging your audience with innovative and relatable material.
• You can also repurpose that content on other channels.
• A TikTok-first approach to social can create a unique, engaging presence that competitors will envy.
• TikTok leads in time spent, but Instagram has the most daily users.
• TikTok users spent 95 minutes each day in the fourth quarter of 2022.
• The platform allows B2B businesses to create and broadcast informative videos to consumers' feeds, each lasting 21 to 34 seconds on average.

Social Media: The Future of Search

Social networking is a priority for Gen Z.

You've probably heard that 40% of Gen Z searches used TikTok or Instagram before Google to learn about items, reviews, and who to learn from.

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TikTok, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter are improving their products to improve searches in response to this growing usage.

Use the proper keywords in your profile, title, and posts to keep up with social media SEO trends.

Consider what content will rank well on search engines for platforms like TikTok.

The Power of Executive and Employee Branding on Social Media 

Executives and staff must be part of B2B social media campaigns in 2024.

Company communication via your brand page needs to be improved.

Yes, feedback is essential.

‍Employee advocacy formalizes the process, tools, and incentives for employees to promote their company's content on social media in some B2B social media initiatives.

They raise online traffic 5x and lead 25%.

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CEOs and other leaders on social media allow present and potential consumers, employees, and investors to interact with decision-makers.

This makes your brand more relatable, which promotes transparency and credibility.

So, employee social media content gets 8x more interaction than the corporation channel.

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Gartner expects 90% of B2B social media marketing plans to involve scaled employee advocacy programs by 2023.

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All hands on deck will boost your social media efforts, no matter what.

Investing More in Building Communities

B2B content marketers have invested more in online B2B communities since the pandemic.

HubSpot showed that 64% of marketers invested in social media communities in 2022.

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Also, 88% of C-suite executives noticed an improvement by year's end.

How So?

• Better customer-brand relationships

• Better customer retention and revenue growth

• Feedback, ideation, and crowdsourcing to improve products and services faster.

• Online communities like Reddit, Private Discord Servers, and LinkedIn groups can help B2B firms sell on social media.

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Maximizing Results with Organic Focus During Budget Cuts

In 2023, 58% of US and UK B2B marketers predicted their marketing spending to remain the same or decreasing.

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Several B2B firms slash social media budgets because 86% of CEOs foresee a recession.

Start fighting!

Marketers must balance strategies that boost sales or brand image with minimal expenses.

They will pursue organic marketing options and cut paid or pricey campaign spending.

To offset budget cuts, we advocate investing in advocacy, exec social, UGC, AI-assisted copy, internal thought leadership initiatives, and targeted influencer marketing.

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5 Best Strategies for B2B Social Media Marketing

In this section, we present five B2B social media marketing to assist you in advancing your B2B social media marketing.

1. Crafting a Brand Personality 

B2C businesses frequently share entertaining and exciting content on social media.

B2B businesses, on the other hand, frequently commit the error of becoming uninteresting. 

Personality and style don't matter because you aim for professionals rather than the typical consumer.

Whether you're trying to attract the attention of a high-powered executive or a 20-something college student, posting boring, dry information on social media won't work.

In B2B social media marketing, brand personality is just as crucial—if not more so—than anyplace else.

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Consider the example above. It's exciting and branded to capture the customers' attention.

• Some rules to help you write in your niche include:

• First-person writing gives your brand a far more "human" sense.

• Have some fun with your content; don't be scared to use humor.

If you want customers to have the same experience personalized niche-like experience every time you contact them, be consistent across all your social media channels.

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2. Finding Your Ideal Customer

Audience research in B2B social media marketing should be considered.

Before writing conversion-focused content, you must know your audience.

Again, your audience is individuals, not companies.

Thus, instead of targeting industries or companies, target decision-makers within them.

They'll decide whether to buy your goods and services.

If you offer office supplies, your customers are managers or employees, not enterprises or CEOs.

‍Here are the general steps to implement this best practice:‍

• Since many people are involved in the buying process, find out the decision-makers in your industry.

• Create a buyer persona after researching these decision-makers. Find out their interests, demographics, and needs.

• Develop and share social media content that addresses those interests and requirements.

• Regarding the last issue, don't just make audience-targeted ads. It's better to address their needs broadly.

Let's examine these B2B social media best practices to clarify.

3. Inform, Educate, and Engage

Social media is about communication and interaction, not just direct advertisement.

So, it's best to engage your audience with entertaining and engaging content than immediately selling to them.

Buyers are after informative content such as white papers, webinars, case studies, and (less so) e-books, infographics, and blog posts.

B2B enterprises are significantly affected by this.

Consider this well-tailored example;

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Therefore, instead of selling directly, consider providing the following:‍

• Data, insights, interviews, and anything relevant to your buyers' industry.

• Produce material that teaches buyers about one of their major interests, whether it's helping them or not.

• Helping buyers perform tasks and develop new abilities (with or without your products/services) using tutorials and other resources.

As B2B buyers are busy, you should refrain from posting this content in full on social media.

Hosting it on your website and sharing teasers on social media with links to the full versions is best.

It's easy to share your blog posts on social media by automating the process.

4. Selecting Your Platforms Strategically

There are several social media platforms, each with its style, audience, and pros and cons.

You can only market your firm on some platforms due to time constraints.

Choose a few significant sites to focus on instead.

There are three main ways:

• Determine which social media platforms your ideal customers use and focus your efforts there.

• B2B marketers should target platforms that work.

• Concentrate on less-used sites to attract underserved populations.

In this case, put your content where your audience is.

5. The Power of Building Relationships in Business 

Social media connects and facilitates communication, as its name implies.

B2B marketers need social media for this reason.

While many B2C enterprises can survive on one-and-done purchases, what you sell demands continued commitment.

Your items or services may be more expensive or long-term.

If you can create a relationship with repeat customers, your marketing will yield a better return.

Below is a good example.

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The best way to ensure you establish a relationship with your customer includes the following:

• Checking and replying to communications on all platforms. Ask questions and share helpful information.

• Find industry buyers and interact with them on their profiles. Be sure to come to you before your audience comes to you.

• Keep your encounters friendly and valuable.

Since customers benefit your business, try to show them you can help them too.

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AI Bees: The Game-Changer in B2B Social Media Marketing 

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Have you had enough of struggling with your B2B social media marketing plan?

AI bees is here to help.

You've been looking for a game-changer, and our able team is your answer.

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