Top 5 social media channels for B2B marketing (and when to use them)
The advantages social media offers B2B marketing are clear by everyone by now. The lockdown following the Covid pandemic accelerated the use of digital platforms. According to the Content Marketing Institute (CMI), 83% of B2B marketers use social media in their campaigns.
The big question is: which channel to use for which marketing activity? Below we reveal our Top 5 B2B social media channels and included ‘when’ and ‘why’.
5) Instagram: Use for visibility and humanising your brand
Instagram has grown significantly over the years and reaches now 1 billion monthly active users. According to research by Instagram 90% of people on Instagram follow a business on the platform.
Thanks to its visual features including reels and carousels, Instagram is the catwalk of all social media channels. The visual nature of Instagram makes it ideal for creating a window to your world. Whether you post a video tour of your new office, or pictures of your summer party, followers can get a feel for the people behind your brand.
Instagram is also a great vehicle for enabling your staff and customers to act as advocates for your brand. Every time they post a picture or video using your product, your brand reaches all their followers – and if they re-post, that reach grows exponentially.
4) YouTube: Targeting video content to specific audiences
The video streaming- and hosting platform we all know is used by more than 2 billion active monthly users worldwide. The platform is popular by users of all ages. The lifespan of a video posted on YouTube lasts more than 20 days.
One major advantage of YouTube is that it is used by everyone. 90% of Facebook users and 93% of Twitter users, use YouTube. This enables marketeers to create campaigns that targets audiences across all platforms. A perfect way to build Brand Awareness and get more people to recognize your brand.
B2B Marketeers know the advantages YouTube as a social media platform has to offer. But video notoriously is expensive content to produce. So, feeding a YouTube channel with the video content it needs to generate and sustain a YouTube community of active followers can be challenging.
3) Twitter: Use for getting seen and increasing engagement
With around 465 million monthly users, Twitter is great for the awareness stage of a campaign, which explains why it’s used by 87% of B2B content marketers, according to the CMI.
Twitter is the ideal platform for getting your brand out there and starting conversations with prospects and experts. And things like Twitter polls make it really easy for people to engage.
Of course, ‘getting seen’ and ‘getting seen by the right people’ are two different things. Using hashtags relevant to your audience, and sending personalised messages, can help filter out some of the noise (and there’s a LOT of noise on Twitter).
The direct style of communication makes it ideal for those who want to talk directly with a large audience and engage in conversations in real time.
2) Facebook: Use for increasing traffic and customer support
The Daddy of all platforms in terms of number of users, for many Facebook is the channel of choice for personal sharing, but it also plays a big role in B2B. With over 1.93 billion daily active users; its broad audience gives B2B marketeers a big advantage. It is not restricted to a demographic.
Not least because it is cost-effective, particularly for small businesses. It costs nothing to set up a Facebook page and to start interacting with customers and prospects. However, to really reach your target personas, paid advertising is a must.
Facebook is also a handy customer support tool. If someone posts something negative about your product – for example, they’re struggling to use one of its features – you can reach out to them and address that issue. Offering proactive support goes a long way to building long-term relationships with customers. Those relationships can turn into real communities.
1) LinkedIn: Use for networking and generating leads
The most business-focused platform out there, boasting 500 million users. The CMI report shows that 97% of B2B companies use LinkedIn. And there’s a very good reason for that – it’s the most effective social channel for generating leads.
Why? Because people are there for work purposes only. No ‘cute’ cat videos. No pics of their kids. Everyone is there to network and do business better – which means they’re more open to connecting with people who can help them do just that.
For these who need and want to connect with C-Suite executives, business owners, vice presidents and directors, LinkedIn is the most suitable (pun intended) of all social media channels.
One more (important) thing…
Clearly, whoever runs your social channels needs to ensure your brand is an authoritative voice in the marketplace. Industry knowledge isn’t enough. They also need to understand how the different social platforms work from a B2B perspective. The different audiences they attract. The different content audiences respond best to.
And, of course, your posts’ tone-of-voice needs to be on-brand and the messaging consistent with your other communications. So, you might want to consider recruiting a social media specialist or appointing a social-savvy B2B agency.
More and more businesses outsource their social media activity. Because building a presence on social media can be time consuming and expensive. Click here to book a meeting and get introduced to duomedia’s social media services.