Social Media, B2B and The Best Platforms with the Highest Impact to Connect & Convert

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Effective use of social media is a crucial component of any successful B2B content marketing strategy. By utilizing the best social media platforms for B2B marketing, you can strengthen your message, broaden your reach, and put your brand, product, or service in front of the right corporate audience.

Best social media platforms for B2B marketing

Each social media platform has its own style, functions, benefits, and limitations. Instead of throwing time and money into the wind to see what works, we recommend you focus your B2B social media strategy on the two best social media platforms for B2B marketing: LinkedIn and Twitter.

With over 500 million users, LinkedIn has been developed specifically for B2B industries. Twitter is the standout when it comes to a strong presence of B2B tech thought-leaders and other niche topic advocates among its user base.

Both Twitter and LinkedIn can be used to fill the top of the funnel, build a social presence, attract an audience, and generate leads for your B2B business. Let’s take a look at the advantages of each.

Why is LinkedIn good for B2B?

Establish your business as a thought-leader.

B2B experts use LinkedIn to share knowledge and build peer networks. You can use LinkedIn to connect and develop relationships with these people and showcase your own expertise through the variety of content formats available on LinkedIn. By doing so, you’ll immerse yourself and your brand in industry news and trends and demonstrate leadership within your field.

Generate high-quality leads.

LinkedIn makes up over half of all social traffic to B2B websites and blogs. As one of the best social media platforms for B2B marketing, it’s the platform of choice for B2B personas, professionals, and decision-makers.

Start your lead generation efforts on LinkedIn and fill the top of the funnel with quality leads in your specific field. Share original content and drive traffic towards your website through content upgrades and opt-in downloads.

Organic content performs well.

While paid campaigns are becoming the only way to cut through the clutter on most other social channels, LinkedIn’s algorithms still favor organic activity such as engagement and interaction. You can boost your reach simply by producing credible and relevant content that encourages conversation.

As your content gains traction, it has the potential to trend in your industry hashtags, which will help you reach and connect with even more people in your target audience. For this reason, using the right industry-specific hashtags is key.

Build a reputation and nurture long-term relationships.

Buying cycles tend to be long for B2B industries, so markets are challenged with keeping prospects entertained and engaged over longer periods of time. LinkedIn is the best social media platform for B2B lead nurturing, as it allows you to build authentic, professional, long-term relationships and maintain them.

Your organization’s top leaders can build a reputation of trust and authenticity with their audience by engaging through their personal LinkedIn profiles. The 94% of B2B influencers creating content on LinkedIn would surely agree that LinkedIn is truly a powerhouse for B2B marketing potential.

Why is Twitter good for B2B?

A melting pot for thought-leaders and experts.

Twitter is a melting pot for the voices and opinions of industry thought-leaders, experts and advocates, often with huge followings and well-established communities. The software, cybersecurity, and deep tech industries are particularly well represented. You can gain invaluable insights that you just don’t see on other platforms.

No matter how niche your B2B product or service is, you’re sure to find communities of people on Twitter interested in talking about it. While many of these people may be micro-influencers with a smaller presence, their audiences can be incredibly loyal and engaged.

Deep dive into discussions.

Twitter provides a way to dive deeper into conversations about trends, innovations, and news relevant to your field. The thoughts and opinions of your potential leads are much more accessible on Twitter than any other platform, and anyone can contribute to the discussion.

By adding your voice, you can build a reputation for engaging in rich conversation and forge a strong position for your brand as a relevant player and contributor in your industry.

Generate new leads simply by engaging.

Twitter’s short, engaging tweets and fast-paced, conversational nature provides an ongoing stream of opportunities to increase interactions and build a following, which ultimately generates new potential leads. Ask questions, reply to mentions, retweet relevant content to engage with other users and give your B2B brand a human aspect.

Other types of social media formats that work well for B2B

Webinars.

Webinars are incredibly useful for catering to specific audiences, whether it’s pitching to new leads or strengthening existing relationships by providing expertise. The live aspect provides a chance to respond to real-time feedback, but you can also record and distribute a webinar for future use.

Webinars are typically easy to produce, and much more affordable than holding in-person meetings, which are restricted by travel costs and other expenses. By eliminating the need for people to travel, you open up the number of people you can reach at once. You can hold a webinar for multiple locations at the same company at the same time.

Live streaming on social media has some similarities but is slightly more relevant for B2C than B2B. The exception is LinkedIn.

YouTube and other video platforms.

Video has become more popular than ever, with 88% of marketers who use video believing that it delivers a good return on investment. YouTube is the most widely used platform for video, but LinkedIn and Facebook have also emerged as strong performers for video content.

Video is a powerful tool for building an understanding of products and services, making it particularly valuable for B2B organizations to demonstrate the benefits of a corporate offering. It also reduces the volume of incoming customer support requests by providing clients and customers with ways to problem-solve independently. It’s an excellent tool for organic growth opportunities, with people twice as likely to share a video than any other form of content.

Our analysis of the best social media channels for B2B marketing should be taken as a guide only, and shouldn’t deter you from trying other social media channels. Always monitor and evaluate your metrics as you go, so you can see how well your content performs and how effective these channels are for you. With time and experience, you’ll discover which channels are the most appropriate for your B2B business, and which deliver the best ROI.

This article was originally published on the author’s blog and reprinted with permission.


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