The 5 Best B2B Social Media Practices

If you have a B2B company you might find it trickier to leverage social media for marketing purposes but many B2B companies have run very successful campaigns by following the B2B social media best practices and so can you.

 

 

You simply need to follow the B2B social media best practices outlined below.

Choose the right platform

 

The first best B2B social media practice to apply if you’re a B2B company is to choose your social media platform wisely. Between Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin, in can get quite confusing and a lot of people make the mistake of creating an account for each platform.

If you do, chances are you will end up mis-managing them or feel too overwhelmed or be too time poor to do a good job consistently.

This is why it’s best to pick just one social media platform where you can target company decision makers. Linkedin is usually the preferred platform for B2B companies because finding company decision makers is easier than any other platform.

 

Optimise your account

 

The second best B2B social media practice is to optimise your B2B social media account. In other words, customise it so you stand out from the noise and attract the right audience.

This starts by uploading a profile picture that is square. If your picture is not the right dimension, then chances are it will be cut off, and make you look unprofessional.

If you are the face of your business, the profile picture should be a headshot of you. If you aren’t the face of the business, then your profile picture can be your logo.

 

 

Then, depending on which platform you’re using, you might have to upload a banner. Your banner is the first element your prospects will see, and you have approximately 7 seconds to make a good impression and capture their interest.

Take into account the size of the banner and never upload any images that are not in the right dimension. If you do, it might lead to part of your image being cut off and make you look unprofessional. It’s also critical that your image or images included in the banner are relevant to your business.

Too often I see pictures used as banners that do not reflect what the business is about or what the ultimate benefit of using their services is. A banner should always include some copy. More specifically, your “unique marketing hook” or “headline”.

A marketing hook is a short sentence that explains to your audience what you do and the ultimate benefit of using your product or service. Below your marketing hook, you should also add your website url.

Once you’ve uploaded your banner, it’s time to focus on the description of your B2B social media profile. This is a short paragraph explaining who you are, what you do, how you help people and who you help.

For example, you could say “Business consultant, passionate about helping HR managers hire better performing sales people in the fastest possible way.”

 

Put together a strategic plan

 

Once you’ve optimised your B2B social media account, you need to put together a strategic plan. carefully putting together a B2B social media marketing strategy and content plan could be the difference between getting no results or accidental results at best and actually experiencing an increase in business with real evidence behind it.

If you need help putting together a strategic plan, feel free to check out our free training here.

This is why you shouldn’t do anything on social media before putting a B2B social media strategy and plan together.

A B2B social media strategy and plan is simply the summary of everything you plan to do and achieve for your business using social networks.

 

 

Unfortunately, only a very small percentage of business owners have a carefully crafted B2B social media strategy and content plan and therefore social media marketing ends up being a waste of time rather than a powerful marketing channel.

To put together a strategic plan, you’ll first need to set goals because goals will shape the B2B social media marketing strategy you will follow. Goals can vary from business to business depending on how competition is performing and what the business needs to achieve to turn social media into an important marketing channel.

Once goals have been set, create a content plan

To do so, simply reverse engineer how much content and what type of content needs to be published and when and how much advertising is needed in order to achieve these goals.

Depending on your goals, there are a variety of tools you can use to track your progress.

For example, if your main goal is to increase the number of clicks to your website from Twitter, you can use clickmeter.com as a tool to monitor clicks generated from Twitter in general, or from individual tweets. S

Should your goal be to increase the size of your audience on Facebook, using “Facebook insights” will help you monitor your progress.

There are of course many social media tracking tools that are very effective such as sproutsocial.com

If you need help putting together a strategic plan, feel free to check out our free training here.

Remember, a B2B social media marketing strategy and content plan is never set in stone and evolves as your business goals change and should be adapted based on the results generated.

 

Publish multi-dimensional content

 

The fourth best practice to apply if you’re a B2B company is to publish multi-dimensional content, consistently. There are many benefits to posting unique and engaging content.

First, it allows you to build trust with key prospects, then it allows you to position you as an expert or the go-to-person in your industry and third, it allows you to remain front of mind.

 

 

Therefore, publish daily if possible, content that is interesting and relevant to your target audience. This can be anything from industry news, behind-the-scenes footage and pictures of your business, infographics, videos, your articles, testimonials to humourous content.

The key is to vary the type of content so you don’t become predictable, as well as add value to your target audience and do it consistently.

 

Run paid advertising campaigns

 

The fifth best practice to apply if you’re a B2B company is to run paid advertising campaigns. There are many reasons you should consider using B2B social media ads.

The first reason is because of the current organic reach. Social media platforms such as Facebook have been dramatically decreasing the organic reach of your posts. In other words, they are showing your posts to only a very small percentage of your audience.

The second reason you should consider putting together a paid campaign is because it’s among the most inexpensive ways to get traffic and leads.

 

 

Another reason is because you have the ability to reach new audiences in a very short space of time.

And lastly, you should consider paying for ads because of the wide range of targeting options. You can market to people based on their geographic location, their language, their job title, their interests, their marital status, the people they follow, the media they consume, the mobile device they use and so much more.

So there you have it, the 5 B2B social media best practices you can implement right now to make the most out of your social media presence.

If you need help putting together a strategic plan, feel free to check out our free training here.

Remember to also subscribe to our Youtube channel for the latest social media marketing tips and tricks.

 

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