B2B social media means using social networks as levers to increase your brand awareness, generate new leads, and strengthen your employer brand. Complementary to a traditional marketing strategy, it also allows you to use data to target specific audiences and build relationships over time.
How to set up an effective social media strategy in B2B in 5 steps
1. Define your campaign objectives
Simply wanting to use social networks isn’t enough — you need short- and long-term objectives based on metrics, in other words, measurable figures. That way, you can adapt your strategy according to the results.
Objectives might include:
- Improving your visibility in your sector
- Generating leads
- Introducing customers to new solutions
- Starting partnerships
- Etc.
2. Rely on your personas
Your ideal customer is the foundation for building a B2B social media strategy. To create one or more personas, you need to know which social network they use and how they use it (staying in touch with former colleagues, keeping up with job opportunities, etc.). This enables you to produce targeted, relevant content.
3. Be present regularly
Another question to ask is how much time and budget you can invest in creating social content and monitoring it. Decide who will manage social media (the marketing manager, if you have one) and whether you need external providers.
4. Create an editorial calendar
Create an editorial calendar to plan your social posts and know exactly when to publish them.
5. Establish your key performance indicators (KPIs)
To know whether your digital campaigns are working, you must measure them.
This involves various indicators, some of which are available directly on social platforms:
- Number of post views/impressions
- Clicks on links
- Number of comments
- Visits to your website from social networks
- Number of contacts made
- Number of leads generated
- Etc.
Which social networks should you use in B2B?
LinkedIn: the B2B network par excellence
With no fewer than 22 million users in the US alone (11 million monthly active users) and 830 million worldwide, LinkedIn has established itself as the professional social network. For companies, that means having an active company page. It helps you gain legitimacy, involve your employees — especially salespeople seeking new meetings and clients — and collect valuable data such as prospect email addresses using dedicated tools. LinkedIn also enables other actions, like Account-Based Marketing (ABM), to build engagement.
How to use LinkedIn to start your social media strategy
- Organic content sharing from your company page
- Paid campaigns, with a wide range of ad formats to target your audience precisely
- Expert contributions from your employees who share their messages to increase visibility and generate business
Facebook: the largest network by volume — with a notable B2B impact
Although Facebook is primarily for individuals, it’s still the most popular social network globally (2.8 billion users) and in France (40 million users per month). Do B2B companies have an interest in investing there? Yes, if the professional profiles you want to reach are more present on this type of network.
Facebook is also ideal for gaining broad brand awareness and measuring it easily. The platform offers many formats (organic and paid) and measurement tools for businesses, and enables retargeting.
Twitter: a network of immediacy
Twitter is the platform of immediacy. Buzz happens fast and typically involves opinion leaders, journalists, experts, and influencers, so it depends on the target audience.
To use Twitter in B2B, consider its advertising solutions, which are well-targeted according to users’ topic preferences. Ads appear naturally in the feed, which tends to drive engagement. You can also like or retweet posts to extend reach.
However, a risk with Twitter is the large number of accounts using pseudonyms, which limits opportunities for meaningful contact and high-quality lead generation. Keep in mind that creating posts and various content as part of a B2B social media strategy should be accompanied by marketing automation tools and performance measurement. This will help you stand out from the competition.