There’s no “one magical way” to do social media marketing that works for everyone. But, there are a few universal pitfalls that can sink anyone. These range from PR nightmares to more seemingly innocuous mistakes.
Let’s break our “Definitive Guide to B2B Social Media Marketing” into three parts:
- Basic Social Media Marketing Strategy
- Tactics to Get Started (or start over)
- Pro Tips (Advanced)
We’ll start off with what on earth we’re doing here. Then, we’ll get into the nuts and bolts. Finally, we’ll end with some actionable tips.
Okie dokie. Let’s dig in.
Basic Social Media Marketing Strategy
You can Google “Social Media Marketing Strategy” and get a million hits from “experts” with all sorts of vague recommendations. But what’s the whole point of this thing? Why are we bothering? Do YOU even spend much time on social media? I know I don’t.
Good news. You don’t have to be a social media maven, but you DO need to utilize social media marketing to gain market share.
According to a 2021 Gartner report, 40% of B2B buyers use social media to help inform their software purchasing decisions. The top three sites for those B2B buyers are Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.
Interestingly, the same report lists LinkedIn as the “go-to” place for B2B social media marketers—though their 2021 graph puts LinkedIn in 5th, by a small percentage.
The whole point is to put out engaging, informative content so we can get in front of our target audience (as well as those that influence them) be a part of the conversation. We also want to be visible and accessible by our customers and the employees that work for those organizations. Social media “marketing” is an umbrella term for doing all of that and more. All it takes is the big three: time, talent, and treasure. ;)
Tactics to Get Started
Ok. Sounds simple enough. How do we get from here to there?
Schedule Content in Advance
Don’t be a “last minute Melvin.” Plan all social media content WELL in advance. Put it all on a Social Media Editorial Calendar. Start 3-months out. Then, work to push that to 6-months out. Don’t go more than 6 months in the future as your content will be stale by then anyway. A lot can change in 6 months.
Here’s a social media marketing editorial calendar template you’re welcome to use and abuse.
Design & Produce in Advance Too
Once you’ve got all the content for the next 3-6 months down, it’s time to make it look pretty. Get with your designer to come up with images that support the content you’re promoting. Make sure all designs adhere to the brand standards. Ideally, these images are not something you just stole off Google Images. Custom, unique images grab attention. Everyone has already seen your new favorite meme. Make your own.
NOTE: Each social platform has their own “rules” for ideal image dimensions. Here’s a cheat sheet to make sure your designer is getting you all the image size variations you need.
High-quality video, no matter how short in run time, should also be produced well in advance.
Also, make sure the property itself looks oh so clickable. This includes creative cover image designs. Here’s a post listing a few great examples of what I’m referring to. Hope it gets your creative juices flowing…
Use HootSuite’s Planner
As I mentioned before, you need to create an editorial calendar and produce content in advance. Get all that content reviewed by at least one more person than yourself. Ideally, request review from more than one team member.
Once approved by all, get it into Hootsuite. Use their Planner to schedule all the approved posts and then monitor their progress in Analytics.
Pro Tips
Getting a little advanced here, but I think you’re ready for it now.
Strategic is better than clever.
In short: be strategic in all your social media marketing actions. Nobody wants to buy from a clown.
Sorry Jack in the Box…
Audit Analytics and Build Reports
No matter how “fire” you think your social media marketing is, it can always be better. Run a monthly social media audit using HootSuite Analytics to find and refine your top-performing content and the best times to post.
Build a simple, 1-page report so you can show off how you’re doing to management and the trends over time as you work to get even more “fire.” Also, try and stop saying the word “fire.”
DON’T Always Use ALL the Platforms
It’s a common misstep for the average social media marketer to post the exact same content on every platform they participate in every time. Pro tip? Don’t. That’s because each platform has different “etiquette” and its users are looking for different things from brands on the platform. Here’s a quick & dirty reference for you.
LinkedIn is Fancy
Content offerings that provide valuable business insights and advice to target audiences work well on LinkedIn, but keep it professional. LinkedIn is social media in a 3-piece suit.
Twitter (X) is Fast
“X”, formerly Twitter, is ideal for those who want to connect with a large audience in real time, engage in relevant conversations and offer practical insights. Anything that offers insights, advice or news that’s VERY timely increases engagement on X. Because the feed moves so fast, this is a place for evergreen content posted often and, more importantly, for quick time-sensitive stuff. It’s also a great place for application support, up-to-the-minute updates, and last-minute promotions.
Facebook is Personal
With more than 3 billion monthly active users (and counting), Facebook is the largest social media platform. Because Facebook is not primarily a B2B social media platform, like LinkedIn is, B2B marketers often overlook it. However, it offers several features and targeting capabilities such as lead capture forms, custom audiences, lookalike audiences and dynamic ads that B2B software marketers can leverage to reach and engage their target audiences.
Facebook is ideal for connect with prospects and customers on a more personal level, building stronger relationships, and as a recruiting tool. In terms of average interactions per post, posts with multiple photos perform best on Facebook, outperforming single photo posts by 67%, according to another Gartner report (I can’t seem to find).
YouTube is Educational
It’s not just millennials who are glued to YouTube, the word is out and B2B brands are turning to this platform to reach and engage their target audience. In fact, 67% of software marketers plan to increase their YouTube video marketing efforts in 2023. Crap. That means we gotta get this one right.
Since video content allures everyone, YouTube is used by people of all ages, from all walks of life and all corners of the globe. This makes it one of the best channels for all types of software marketers. It’s also expensive to produce high-quality video, so that weirdo down the hall trying to sell vaporware probably can’t afford it—and that gives those that can a cleaner marketplace.
Educational videos that address your target audience’s queries perform best on YouTube because viewers go to this platform for learning purposes. While creating videos, keep in mind that they should be helpful, informative, and engaging. Leave the purely “promo” stuff unlisted.
Don’t Let Sales Write for Social
The long-form content (ideally hosted on your own website/blog) needs to leave the salesperson’s voice at the door. This is not the place for your sales pitch. It’s not even the place for some sort of sales promotion. This is all about being informative, giving something away, helping others, and creating engagement. The content can (and probably should) relate to what you’re selling, but not be all about it. There’s a (very hard to remember) “rule” in social media marketing people call the “70-20-10 rule.” It goes a little like this…
For example, a post about how LoopSpire is helping kids in alternative schools, sounds promotional. However, a post about how technology is helping kids in alternative schools is not obviously promotional or (obviously) self-serving.
Share the Love
Nobody wants to hear from you. It’s a hard truth, but truth nonetheless. Share other people’s content with a custom comment that calls out exactly what’s interesting about their content. These kind of posts often gain a lot of flattery by their original authors.
Quick Example
So, we created an over-the-top “fan page” for him and used social media to tout his praises. It was kind of like the whole “Chuck Norris once killed two stones with one bird” meme thing (which was cool at the time).
He (the influencer, not Chuck Norris) was so flattered by the whole campaign, we gained more exposure from him laughing it off as we would have if we had paid him to say we were awesome—and the whole thing felt more authentic and demonstrated our creativity without just saying we have some.
Ok, that’s enough story time.
Got Better Ideas?
Social media marketing, like most things marketing, is more art than science. Do you have any tricks you’d like to share? Which of these tips do you hate the most? Good or bad, we don’t mind. We just love the conversation. It’s kind of the only “fun” thing about social media marketing in B2B anyway.