The popularity of social media continues to skyrocket as newer platforms spring up and find their footing among the giants. But many B2B marketers still see social media as a weak point in their strategy. Aren’t most social channels too consumer focused to be valuable to a B2B brand? Not at all, though that sense of skepticism is understandable. Social media isn’t one-size-fits-all: each platform attracts different audiences, suits different purposes, and has different features available.
You’re probably more comfortable with the social media platforms you use on a regular basis – that’s how we pick up on the nuances of each. But it’s important to understand all of the platforms, so you can make informed decisions about your digital marketing mix.
In this white paper, we’ll explore the nine primary social media platforms in the U.S. – LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, Reddit, TikTok, and Snapchat – through a B2B lens, including best practices and key considerations for your social media strategy.
The popularity of social media continues to skyrocket as newer platforms spring up and find their footing among the giants. But many B2B marketers still see social media as a weak point in their strategy. Aren’t most social channels too consumer focused to be valuable to a B2B brand? Not at all, though that sense of skepticism is understandable. Social media isn’t one-size-fits-all: each platform attracts different audiences, suits different purposes, and has different features available.
You’re probably more comfortable with the social media platforms you use on a regular basis – that’s how we pick up on the nuances of each. But it’s important to understand all of the platforms, so you can make informed decisions about your digital marketing mix.
In this white paper, we’ll explore the nine primary social media platforms in the U.S. – LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, Reddit, TikTok, and Snapchat – through a B2B lens, including best practices and key considerations for your social media strategy.
6 Keys to B2B Social Media Success
There tends to be a perception among some marketers that B2C social media tactics can’t be successful for B2B companies, but that’s not necessarily the case. Having a strong sense of your audience, a realistic view of the quality and quantity of your content, and a channel-focused strategy can ensure that your foray into new social channels is more strategic and meaningful and less “how do you do, fellow kids?”
Before diving into the individual channels, let’s take a look at six steps you should take when considering any new social media platform.
1. Identify your why.
Consider why you want to be on a certain platform. Is it because you see other brands share content and want to jump in for your company? Is it because your audience is there? Is it because your boss’s kid says it’s the hot new channel? What does your business stand to gain from this platform?
2. Do your research.
Before you produce a single piece of content for your brand, you have to get to know the channel. Ensure that you or someone on your team has taken the time to dive in, have a good look around, and even practice creating personal content. It’s the best way to get a feel for the channel and begin to understand its nuances. That could mean subscribing to and reading various subreddits, testing the waters on Twitter, or setting up a TikTok account and creating a video. Don’t worry, you can set it to private.
3. Assess your bandwidth.
Each social media platform should be treated as its own entity – because it is! Before getting started on a new channel, be honest with yourself and determine whether or not you and your team have the bandwidth to create and publish channel-specific content on a consistent basis. Additionally, you’ll need time and resources to moderate and engage with users and measure and analyze metrics.
4. Determine the content you need.
The type of content you’ll need depends on the social platform you’re considering. For instance, on Instagram, you’ll want to have a bank of photos or short videos, so you can upload at a consistent cadence. For YouTube, focus on gathering long-form video content. And for any channel you might be considering, you’ll need high-resolution, clear, and well-lit visuals. Any audio should be similarly crisp and clear. When it comes to copy, plan to develop unique commentary or insights for each post across every channel.
5. Plan cross-platform content wisely.
While you can (and should) use your content to the fullest, be strategic about how you share it across platforms. Why should your audiences follow you on your social media channels if you post the exact same content, word for word, to every channel? Promoting the same blog post across Twitter and Facebook is perfectly fine, but change up the copy to engage people in different ways. If a piece of content is evergreen, then post it to different channels on different days rather than all on the same day. Don’t reuse the exact TikTok on Instagram Reels or post a vertical Instagram Story to YouTube. Keep the nuances of each channel in mind as you’re creating content, remembering to treat them as different entities within your marketing mix.
6. Set goals and measure your progress.
It’s hard (read: impossible) to measure success without setting goals. Research industry benchmarks for how organic posts perform by channel, but also, go easy on yourself when you’re first starting out. After all, neither Rome nor Facebook were built in a day. Once you have a couple of weeks’ to a month’s worth of data, you can use those as benchmarks to set goals and measure success over time. Keep in mind that growing your organic social media presence can be a slower process. Set realistic goals based on both industry performance as well as your historical data.
B2B Guide to Social Media Platforms
Now that we’ve gone over the considerations you should make before adding any new social channel to your marketing program, let’s take a closer look at each individual platform. We’ve outlined platform demographics, features, engagement options, and a brief overview of advertising options.
Keep in mind that although we’ve focused on these nine platforms due to their popularity in the U.S. and globally, there may be other platforms to consider if you’re targeting more niche audiences, like gamers (Twitch) or audiences concentrated in other parts of the world (Sina Weibo or WeChat).
LinkedIn is arguably the most important platform for B2B brands, thanks to its focus on professionals and businesses. More than 675 million users currently use the platform for networking, job hunting, and keeping up to date with their industry.
In addition to individual users, over 30 million companies are also on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is the perfect place to share company news, recruit new talent, and reach professional audiences with your content. But even though the platform is less consumer-focused, you should still strive to produce high-quality, unique content that educates and engages users.
Facebook continues to be the largest social media platform, used by more than 2.5 billion people each month for both professional and personal uses. Since virtually every type of audience has a presence on the platform, Facebook continues to be a solid option for B2B companies. However, with other social channels increasing their engagement features at a rapid pace, Facebook is no longer the end-all-be-all channel for brands on social.
Twitter’s 186 million daily active users, the largest segment of whom are between 25-49, send roughly 500 million tweets each day on the platform. Twitter’s fast-paced, conversational nature, featuring bite-sized posts of 280 characters or less, makes it a perfect choice for live-tweeting events or webinars and sharing timely brand content.
Additionally, Twitter’s open API and keyword and hashtag search functionality make it the best channel for social listening, a crucial part of brand and industry monitoring. With Twitter, B2B brands can engage with their customers and prospects, monitor and enter wider industry conversations, and promote in-the-moment content.
Instagram is a photo and video sharing app that continues to increase in use, with 1 billion Instagram accounts active each month. 63.4% of Instagram users are over the age of 25, with the heaviest usage among users between 18-34. The Instagram Stories feature is particularly popular, with more than 500 million accounts using Stories each day to create and watch the 15-second clips.
Some B2B marketers can be hesitant to leverage the platform because of its dependence on high-quality visuals rather than copy (stock images and low-quality or overly branded graphics don’t perform as well on the channel). However, 90% of Instagram accounts follow at least one business on the platform, making it a strong contender for brands interested in reaching audiences within the Millennial demographic.
YouTube
YouTube is a Google-owned video sharing platform that continues to be massively popular. 500 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute, and users watch more than one billion hours of YouTube videos a day – more than Netflix and Facebook video combined. 70% of YouTube views come from mobile devices, and the average mobile viewing session lasts more than 40 minutes.
While this channel tends to be misused as a content depository, ideally it should have its own channel strategy to make the most of the platform’s features. YouTube works best for B2B brands when they upload videos at a regular cadence and optimize them for organic search, since high-performing YouTube videos tend to rank well on Google. It’s also important to remember that new videos from channels appear in consecutive order in their subscriber’s Subscriptions feed. This means, if you publish multiple videos at once, they all appear in your subscribers’ feeds, which can quickly lead to content fatigue and a decrease in subscriptions.
As with other visual-forward platforms like Instagram, YouTube videos should be high-quality, unique to your brand, and useful or entertaining to the viewer. B2B brands with a video catalog or ongoing video creation capabilities can and should leverage YouTube as part of their marketing strategy.
Pinterest is an image sharing site, or essentially a virtual pinboard. It has roughly 416 million monthly active users who have shared over 240 billion pins. Pinterest users skew heavily female, with 71% identifying as such, and 69% of its users are between 18 and 49 years old.
Although many popular pins focus on cooking, fashion, or home inspiration, infographics across industries do particularly well on Pinterest. As with other platforms, content with custom insights and imagery are the most successful here, with vertical pins seeing more engagement than horizontal due to the channel’s mobile-friendly user experience. Compared to other social media platforms, Pinterest is less useful as a one-to-one customer engagement channel or a channel for time-sensitive content.
Reddit is a social news aggregation, web content rating, and anonymous discussion website. Or in simpler terms, a massive collection of forums. While users aren’t required to enter personal information like age or gender, recent surveys indicate that the largest part of Reddit’s audience, or roughly two-thirds, skews male, with 93% of its audience estimated to be between the ages of 18 and 49.
Reddit users can be as anonymous or transparent as they want, which results in authentic conversations and opinions, but also has created a community known for its brutal honesty. So, if you choose to engage on the platform on behalf of your brand, make sure you know your audience. Read posts and comments in the subreddits where you wish to engage and be transparent and authentic, erring on the side of customer care instead of brand promotion.
TikTok
Ah, TikTok. The video-sharing app has been heavily scrutinized in 2020, ultimately being spared from a threatened ban – at least for the foreseeable future. The platform has seen skyrocketing popularity since its inception and merge with the musical.ly app. Ultimately, it’s become a social platform used to create short videos with filters, green screens, live streaming, duets and reactions, music and sound effects, and more.
If your target audiences include Gen Z or young millennials – particularly those at the forefront of the latest trends – TikTok should be a part of your social strategy. The app was installed more than 738 million times in 2019 and has more than 100 million monthly active users who spend a whopping 52 minutes per day on the app on average.
However, brands are under stricter guidelines than users due to the desire to “embrace the creativity and authenticity of the TikTok community.” While most B2B decision makers aren’t on the platform quite yet, B2B businesses wanting to launch consumer-focused campaigns could start with clever educational videos aimed at teaching viewers about certain aspects of their industry.
Snapchat
Snapchat is a messaging app that lets users send temporary Snaps – or messages, photos, and short videos – to friends and followers. Snapchat features include engaging add-ons like filters and GIFs, chats between users, and privacy settings for Snaps and messages that can be limited to friends or open to anyone. Users also subscribe to verified profiles, including media companies that create episodic content.
Although Snapchat sees approximately 249 million active users daily, 73% of these users are between 18-24 years old. Professional audiences, like the decision makers most B2B brands target, haven’t made their way to the platform in significant numbers and may or may not get there in the future. As such, while Snapchat is a valuable platform to monitor B2C brand initiatives for inspiration, it’s not currently a channel we recommend for B2B companies.
De-risking Social Media Exploration
While considering which social media platforms your company should be on can seem overwhelming, it gets much easier when you put a vetting and decision-making process into place. Follow the six steps above to find your why; do your research; understand your bandwidth, content, and audiences; and set measurable goals. Then, use this guide as a jumping-off point for each platform as you consider them.
You don’t need to spend months learning the ins and outs of social to be successful. A trusty guide and a trusted partner will go a long way. And one last word of advice on social: don’t forget to have fun with it!
