B2B Social Media Marketing 101

Marketing and social media go together like milk and cookies.

Social media provides an inviting, user-friendly platform where Marketing can highlight their solution in the most attractive light possible.

Think about it. Social media platforms allow us to market ourselves daily, so it works just as well for many businesses.

But there are different types of businesses that require slightly different approaches to social media marketing depending on your type of organization. In fact, B2C organizations have been doing this forever. Below, we compare B2C with B2B marketing practices and what we can learn from the different strategies.

B2C vs. B2B Social Media Strategy

Business-to-consumer (B2C) companies, “sell products to end-user consumers”. Business-to-business (B2B) companies, in contrast, sell products to other businesses. Think software, hardware, SaaS, medical devices, CRM systems….or basically, things that aren’t easily understandable for the average person or used daily by the average consumer.

Marketing for these services creates some extra challenges, but that’s also where the real fun lies in B2B marketing!

Instead of letting the complexity of your product limit how you post, look at this as an opportunity to learn from B2C for ways to promote your solution.

B2C Strategy Example

Bob is the owner of the store, Bob’s Bakery. He sells cookies, cakes, and pastries. He is running a B2C company with a product that anyone can understand. His products (AKA fresh pastries) sell themselves by simply looking delicious.

His marketing strategy is very straightforward: take a picture of his new baked goods every morning and post it on social media. Near the end of the day, he might do a “2 for 1” special to help sell the goods before they become stale.

To follow the 80/20 rule of business, Bob mixes up his self-promotional posts with related articles about baking tips, baking equipment, baking events, etc. He’s directly connecting with the customers he sees regularly through social media. He thinks social media marketing is pretty darn easy.

This works well for B2C, but unfortunately, you can’t take this approach and apply it directly to B2B marketing.

B2B Strategy Example

Now let’s say that your B2B company sells computer hardware, with an average deal size of $10,000. You could log into your social media accounts and post pictures of your hardware, but somehow it seems a lot more likely that people will

Marketing and social media go together like milk and cookies.

Social media provides an inviting, user-friendly platform where Marketing can highlight their solution in the most attractive light possible.

Think about it. Social media platforms allow us to market ourselves daily, so it works just as well for many businesses.

But there are different types of businesses that require slightly different approaches to social media marketing depending on your type of organization. In fact, B2C organizations have been doing this forever. Below, we compare B2C with B2B marketing practices and what we can learn from the different strategies.

Now let’s say that your B2B company sells computer hardware, with an average deal size of $10,000. You could log into your social media accounts and post pictures of your hardware, but somehow it seems a lot more likely that people will scroll right past your posts to drool over Bob’s fresh cheese Danishes.

Do you think this image will draw your audience’s attention?

Versus: this cheese Danish that sells itself (we can almost taste it through the screen).

And this is exactly why B2B marketing lets you be more creative than ever before.

How To Create Content For B2B Social Media Marketing

• Leverage All of Your Vertical Markets. What are all the different markets or industries that your customers are in? Maybe you sell to a semiconductor company, a computer software company and a banking company. This means you can create content tailored to each of those industries – which gives you a lot more variety in your content.

• Think Conceptually. Unlike Bob, you probably can’t post a picture of your hardware and assume it’s going to wow your prospects into purchasing unless you find a way to appeal to your target audience and get your message across. Instead, focus on prospect pain points and how to visually communicate those pain points. Or, focus on your product’s benefits and how it changes people’s lives. For example, maybe your hardware helps computers process very quickly. Instead of using the computer hardware image from above, try a visual representation of how your computer hardware speeds up computer processing.

Help people see how your product is going to benefit them.

• Provide Interactive Product Tours. SaaS demo software has evolved to a point where you can now give your audience a taste of the software without having to create and maintain a sandbox environment. An interactive product tour lets potential customers explore your solution without having to be a subject matter expert or have access to the full product.
• Educate and Persuade Your Audience. Bob’s pastries do the persuading for him. They sell themselves by being simple and delicious. Maybe your product can sell itself, but if people can’t understand its value at first glance, its message is lost. Start by posting articles or writing blog posts that dissect the most common pain points of your vertical industries. Maybe your product solves a problem that prospects don’t even recognize they have. Educate them, and then persuade them as to why your product is the solution. We use the educate and persuade methodology in our own Consensus demo.

• • Use #hashtags to target your posts to certain audiences. For example, if you’re targeting the banking industry, add “#banking” or “#banks” to your post. This helps posts get more exposure in the right areas.
  • Share other peoples’ work: articles, funny stories, infographics, etc. because it helps you get noticed and people like having their work appreciated and shared.
  • Post helpful content: Remember the 80/20 rule of business – especially in the B2B world, nothing is more boring than repeated self-promotional content about topics few can relate to.

Lastly, social media serves as a great way to show your company’s culture and personality. Keep your content entertaining, light, playful and educational to ensure the biggest audience!