8 strategies to build a strong social media presence for B2B companies

As a marketer, you may have experienced the shift in your customers' preferences when it comes to interaction with brands, from in-person meetings to digital experiences. As per Gartner research⁽¹⁾, 44% of millennials prefer no sales rep interaction at all in a B2B setting.

Social media stands as a strong contender for building a strong brand presence for B2B companies. Here is why: 59% of the world population is using social media, and some of the main reasons for using it are:

• Finding content (e.g., Articles and videos) – 30.9%
• Finding products to purchase – 26.5%
• Work-related networking or research – 22.5%

Here are 8 successful strategies for building a strong social media presence

1. Setting SMART goals  - 

Creating and publishing content can seriously drain all your resources if you don’t have a well-thought-out, sustainable, and measurable plan in place. Thus, setting SMART goals is the first step.

• Specific – Rather than a generic goal like ‘increase website visitors’, be specific, such as ‘increase website visitors by 20% over the next quarter.’
• Measurable – Make it easy to measure the success by choosing the right metrics to track, e.g., using ‘number of impressions’ for tracking awareness.
• Attainable – Means setting goals that are reasonably attainable. Think, is 50% increase in lead generation more feasible using the given resources, or is 20% more feasible?
• Relevant – Set goals that are relevant to the overall goals of the business and meaningful to the team as well.
• Time-bound – Set a timeline for achieving each goal. Say, ‘Increase website visitors by 20% over a 4-month campaign.’

2. Choosing the right social media platform -

LinkedIn⁽³⁾ is the top organic as well as paid social media platform used by B2B content marketers, followed by Facebook. This is because 4 out of 5 LinkedIn⁽⁴⁾ users drive business decisions. There are a few ways to learn where your audiences are: using social listening tools to know where your brand is being mentioned, asking prospects and existing customers about how they learned about your brand, etc.

3. Creating consistent brand messaging  –

This should be the starting point before creating any content. Define how you want to come across to your audiences and what value you are offering, irrespective of the product, service, or medium of communication. For this, here are a few things you need to define (especially based on your audience base): tone of messaging, value proposition, terms that must be used, and terms that should be avoided. Audiences appreciate brands that always appear consistent in their messaging across mediums.

4. Creating original content relevant to your audience

87% of successful B2B content marketers⁽⁵⁾ feel that prioritizing the audience’s needs is an important factor to consider while developing content. For this, it is important to first define buyer personas and then create posts that acknowledge their challenges, offer them solutions, and help build trust in the brand. It is always preferable to create your own content that meets the needs of your audiences rather than rely on third-party content. You can either use in-house skills or simply hire an agency to create compelling content.

5. Engaging with audiences –

There are many ways in which you can engage with audiences. Initiate discussions that matter to them, and converse with them on the platform through – comments, responses, quizzes, polls, feedback forms, etc. These initiatives give you an insight into the likes, preferences, or even challenges of your prospects. Brands that only promote products in the name of content creation are sure to put off their audiences.

6. Using multimedia vs. mundane text  –

Obviously, images, videos, and GIFs attract attention and communicate the message in a much better way than plain text. While creating these, maintain your branding- colors, designs, and tone- to enable better brand recall.

7. Maintaining consistency –

Developing a social media calendar should be your first step. Randomly posting content with no clear line of thought can be perplexing to audiences. Posting too much content can disrupt the way they consume fresh content on their homepage. Strike a balance such that you can create content consistently and with quality. Learn when your audiences are most active on social media using analytics tools, and then post accordingly.

8. Explore different posting options for maximum results –

While some best practices are established, you will have to find out some for yourself by experimenting with various factors such as – time of posting, content formats such as quizzes, polls, and videos, different creative copy, different positioning of the CTA, etc. Over time, you will know what triggers the best engagement with your audiences.

Give your brand a few months for the results to start showing, and continue with the effort to see a gradual improvement in the way your brand is perceived and how it garners the desirable response from audiences.

Reference and Citation-

1.https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/future-of-sales-2025-deliver-the-digital-options-b2b-buyers-demand 

2.https://www.hootsuite.com/resources/digital-trends-q3-update 

3. https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/articles/b2b-power-content-marketing-research/

4. https://business.linkedin.com/marketing-solutions

5. https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/articles/b2b-power-content-marketing-research/