September 19 2023
While the vast landscape of social media provides a multitude of opportunities for your business to connect with its audience, publishing content without a clear strategy won’t capture the attention of the ones who truly matter to your business. Successfully leveraging social media to reach B2B decision-makers begins with identifying where they are most active to refine your scope, understanding their unique challenges and pain points and optimizing your content efforts to reflect their needs.
Once you distill your audience, it’s time to perform a content audit to determine what you have, what you lack and how to share it. Ideally, your company’s content strategy should reflect a balanced representation of the PESO model: paid, earned, shared and owned media. Categorizing your content database in this way will help your business effectively reach its audience and convey value through a multifaceted approach. When thoughtfully developed and consistently monitored, your social media strategy will streamline the process of obtaining leads and provide valuable insights to help you retain them.
Before you take to every social media platform with the same message in the same packaging, take a look at your current customers and identify your desired customer personas. In addition to the array of content delivery methods social media platforms offer, factors like a customer’s age, gender, career and responsibilities will also influence where and how your target audience receives your content.
If your company’s product or service caters to a younger entrepreneur, Instagram is likely the social platform of choice to reach decision-makers in your industry. With additional pressure to stay relevant from TikTok’s rise in popularity, short-form videos have become increasingly more attractive and engaging forms of content. Focus your efforts on showcasing your products or services as well as sharing user-generated content to capture your audience’s attention and generate trust.
While Facebook still reigns supreme as the largest social media platform, there are limitations to the nature of its effectiveness. Build your relationship with your target audience by sharing a mix of informative content about what your business has to offer and featuring team members behind the brand for a more personal touch. Given the framework LinkedIn abides by, this social media networking hub is popular amongst professionals of all ages and career paths, particularly for B2B. Case studies, blog posts and posts featuring more technical jargon are welcomed on this platform and can help to position your company and your higher-level staff as thought leaders.
Prior to creating additional content, your business should review what it already has, how your target audience responded to it and what your goals are for this content. Your library should contain a variety of assets with information that is relevant to your audience housed on your company’s website.
With an average attention span of about eight seconds, businesses have even more pressure to stand out and make an impact at every touchpoint with a potential customer. Hone in on your key message and deliver it in a way that is engaging and impactful.
While authentic images traditionally perform best across all social media platforms, visual content like infographics is essential to any content marketing plan as it gives your B2B audience valuable content in an easy-to-consume format.
By-lined articles, speaking engagements and interviews are also fantastic ways to position your top team members as thought leaders in the industry and provide them with the platform to showcase their unique perspectives. Whether it’s well-written content or an opportunity to speak passionately about your company, these options increase your reach and allow you to showcase your expertise beyond traditional posts. Video is another valuable avenue for content creation as you can hear directly from leaders in the company. House this content on your company’s YouTube page and website to build an excellent resource for those interested in your business.
Within your content audit, there are assets that should stand out as cornerstone pieces. An informative video, a well-structured blog post or a thorough FAQ page are all examples of cornerstone content that could be broken into smaller forms of content or “cobblestones” and repurposed on your company’s website and social media pages in new and creative ways. Cross-reference your assets with your audience’s feedback and try to incorporate that into the next iteration of this content to show that you’re listening to them and addressing their concerns in your business strategy.
If you have an engaging blog post, consider turning it into an op-ed for an earned media opportunity or take the highlights from the blog article and use them as talking points for a short-form video on social media. You could also transform a successful blog post into a series of graphics featuring quotes from the individual who wrote it. Content could even be as simple as taking your company’s core values and highlighting those in ways that resonate with your audience. People are more prone to establish a connection with your brand when they feel seen and can relate to an experience. Take a look at your previous customers to identify the most successful projects and develop a case study about their journey. Remember to record and take photos whenever your team has opportunities to present their expertise. Webinars can be trimmed into shorter clips to share periodically on social media.
Developing video content also opens the door to creating a recorded series or live stream without breaking the bank and allows you the ability to segment the clips into Reels, stories and other feature content on your social media pages. If you have already developed effective video content, utilize the video’s transcript to create an engaging blog post for another medium to deliver relevant information and improve your SEO. The goal is to look for ways to extend the life of your content and steadily build trust with your target audience.
Customer knowledge is at the heart of any well-developed content marketing strategy. Coupling social listening practices with your target audience personas will help you identify the most impactful style of content, which platforms will be most beneficial for your business and how your desired customers use them. Leveraging social media and positioning your brand as a resource begins with excellent content that reflects a thorough understanding of its audience and the value it provides. Research relevant hashtags and your competitors to learn where B2B decision-makers are already engaging and gain insights into what does and does not work for them. Most importantly, diversify your inventory of assets and pay attention to the conversations that are already occurring surrounding your industry. These will inform your company’s appropriate next steps and help keep you at the forefront of key decision-makers’ minds.
