How to create a B2B social media marketing strategy
Glenn Robinson, Head of Creative
If you run a B2B business and have decided to invest in social media marketing, you first need to set your social media strategy.
This involves deciding which social media channels to use, and how to use them – i.e., what types of content you will post, how frequently you will post, and how you will measure the success, or otherwise, of your social media activity. You also need to think about how your social media strategy will connect to your broader content marketing strategy.
Defining your social media strategy
To define the social media strategy for your business, make sure you clearly answer the following questions. Doing so will provide the rationale that will justify and drive your investment in social media marketing.
Why do you want your business on social media?
Decide what your overall goals are, and what business objectives social media will meet. What metrics are you going to measure to track progress and adjust as your strategy unfolds?
Who is your target audience?
You should already know the answer to this question. If not, you need to identify who your customers or potential customers are, as well as their interests and needs. Doing so will give you insight into how they use social media, and what social media platforms are best for communicating with them.
What type of content are you going to share?
Every business has interesting stories to tell. You just need to identify them. To set your social media strategy, you can organise your social media content into specific categories, such as educational, informational, humorous, and news.
Don’t forget that this is social media, so you want to give your content a personality that will appeal to your target audience. Yes, this is business, but it is still essentially about encouraging human interaction. And it’s not all done just with written words.
Be sure to throw into your social media content mix some multimedia content, such as video, audio files or podcasts, live streaming, animations, and infographics. It might also be appropriate to share user generated content and repost industry content that you find interesting.
“Don’t forget that this is social media, so you want to give your content a personality.”
How often are you going to post?
Create a social content calendar so there will be consistency in your social media marketing across all channels. Each channel that you choose to use needs its own calendar. There may be some crossover from channel to channel, but don’t be tempted to just post exactly the same content on each channel. It needs to be tailored to the channel, whether it’s for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, or Pinterest.
At Icon we typically recommend clients focus on two to three channels rather than post on every social media platform. It depends on the channel and the type of content as to how often you should post.
Rolling out your strategy
With your social media strategy defined, all that’s left to do is to create the content that aligns with the strategy, schedule content for posting, and measure the results. There are many social media management tools aimed at SMEs that make scheduling, posting, and measuring easy, including Hootsuite, Agora Pulse, Later, and Sprout Social, and more.
It’s also important to ensure someone in the business is not just scheduling your social posts, but also monitoring your social channels and promptly responding to questions or reviews from your users.
“The most important thing is that no social media strategy should be set in stone.”
Get your employees involved
Who better to highlight the human side of your business than the people who keep your business running? Employees can help amplify your social media content by encouraging them to share it and comment on it. Doing so will expand the reach and engagement of your social content. This is particularly true on LinkedIn, where individual profiles often have far greater reach than company pages.
Social media and Icon Visual Marketing
The social media landscape changes rapidly, and the most important thing is that no social media strategy should be set in stone. Icon Visual Marketing’s content and creative teams work together to define and execute social media strategies that deliver results for B2B businesses.
Read more about the work we do for our
clients, or call us on
1300 138 984 for a chat.
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