Social Media is “literally” not just for millennials and B2C exploits anymore. It’s a space B2B companies can be a bit more business casual and showcase their personalities on social media. From LinkedIn to Instagram, businesses are successfully connecting with their consumers and enticing new prospects. But this success not only demands an understanding of which platforms your business-to-business audience is socializing on the most, but what kind of messaging is getting their attention. As a busy B2B marketer, you want to make sure your time and effort is being spent on the right conversations.
Here are a few social media trends that will get it started and keep it going.
Social Video
Easily digestible by busy consumers, video continues to dominate B2B marketing and social media. No matter what it looks like — an artfully-crafted brand film or a spontaneous video shot on your phone highlighting your time at a conference — social video is the key to creating more engagement. In fact, 93% of businesses report that new consumers often reach out to them after seeing a video of their brand/service on social media.
So it is no surprise, with social video generating 12 times more shares than text and images combined, social networks are spotlighting video over other content. From long-form, vertical videos on IGTV from Instagram, new options for YouTube Creators, Twitter making mobile video easier to view, Facebook’s launch of Facebook Watch, to the Twitch phenomenon marketers need to top their social strategy with video content.
A great example of a B2B brand excelling with social video is MailChimp. Their fun, colorful social presence teaches us that, just because it’s B2B, sharing helpful content doesn’t have to be boring.
User-Generated Content
Weary of fake news and data breaches, consumers are yearning for transparency and eager to be involved and interact once they believe in a brand’s authenticity. Social media does a fine job of helping you share the story of your brand across all of its networks. But, in addition to telling stories about your employees, solutions, and services, you can also invite your customers to be part of your brand with user-generated content.
It’s a winning situation for a few reasons:
• When you share your customer’s content, your audience increases.
• You save time in needing to create original content.
• You establish trust for your brand.
A great example of a company using user-generated content well on social media is Adobe. Their Instagram account showcases images mostly from user-generated content. Averaging 849K followers, to date, Adobe has most likely gained a more significant amount of brand credibility and trust by sharing the content created by their audience on social media than if they used a traditional method of promotion.
Leading on LinkedIn
Although LinkedIn has been around for quite some time, it still needs to be recognized as the best social network for B2B companies. For the B2B industry, it is the leader in content and lead generation (80% of B2B marketing leads from social media come from the LinkedIn platform).
When you consistently post well-informed content on LinkedIn, you gain respect as a thought leader in your industry and deliver meaningful visibility for your company and brand. “Of the network’s 500 million members, 61 million hold senior leadership positions and 40 million are B2B decision-makers.” You can continue to read more at about how influencers are prevailing on LinkedIn here.
In the meantime, let us know how you are crushing your social media. We’ll be sure to give you a follow for a follow.
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