Social Media for B2B Companies
By Heidi AshStrategy is the key to success with this often overlooked marketing tool.
If you think social media is just for business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing, think again. Digital and virtual interactions have become the norm in the last couple of years which means business-to-business (B2B) companies simply can’t afford to ignore social media.
B2C companies often use social channels to reach millions of consumers and influence their buying decisions. Effective B2B social marketing, however, is a bit more complex than getting eye-catching ads into your followers’ feeds to entice them to click and make an impulse buy.
If you are a B2B marketer, you can’t just create a business account, pop your logo into your profile picture and expect that followers will come to you. In the B2B world, target audiences are much narrower and more defined. Typically, you must reach business owners and decision-makers, cultivate relationships and foster trust before you can sell your product or service. With this in mind, you need to consider your strategy well before you even create your first post.
WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME?
We know, social media is one more thing to manage and find time for—but it’s definitely worth it. What can your B2B company achieve with a well-executed, strategic social media presence? Here are a few benefits that make social marketing worth your time and budget:
- Increase brand awareness
- Build trust and credibility with your customers and prospects
- Educate your audience
- Generate leads
- Increase sales and market share
- Retain customers and increase loyalty
- Distribute content
- Improve SEO
- Promote events, speaking engagements and your team
- Showcase your company culture and recruit talent
WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME?
The benefits of social sound great, but don’t think these things magically happen just because you throw up a haphazard post here and there. The first step is crafting your strategy—but don’t fret—you don’t have to be an expert influencer to create a sound social marketing plan.
Your social media marketing strategy is simply the summary of what you want to achieve on social media and what you will do to achieve those objectives. It will be the roadmap for your actions and help you evaluate your progress toward your goals.
Don’t overthink it. A simple and specific plan will be most effective—especially if your company’s presence on social is nonexistent or not very well established. Be realistic and don’t make your goals so big or so general that that they will be unattainable or difficult to measure. Remember, social media is just one tool in your toolbox. It isn’t going to solve every marketing challenge you face.
CASE IN POINT
In late 2019, long-time client Syngenta Flowers knew that they wanted their North American team to establish a presence on social media. The MarCom team didn’t have the bandwidth to attack this goal with the level of expertise they knew it needed, so they partnered with Waltz to consolidate existing scattered and unauthorized social channels, develop a comprehensive strategy and build new accounts and audiences from scratch. Research, discussions and a workshop with the entire MarCom team yielded a strategy with which everyone aligned.
More than two years later, this strategy still guides every move on social. As the Waltz team manages Syngenta’s social presence end-to-end, this roadmap allows us to work efficiently and generate monthly content that is aligned with the brand and marketing strategy and requires little oversight. This allows the MarCom team to concentrate on other responsibilities that demand their focus and attention.
WHY ARE WE DOING THIS ANYWAY?
An important part of your social media strategy is your social media mission statement—and it’s not as difficult to craft as you might think. To create your mission statement and define your strategy start by answering the following questions:
- Why are we on social media?
- Who do we want to follow us?
- Why would they follow us?
Following our rebrand in 2021, the Waltz team followed this process to be sure our efforts on social media were aligned with our business goals and our core values. Discussions around the three questions above revealed our social media mission statement to us:
We create, curate, and engage on LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook, with marketers and creatives. Through these channels, we provide branding expertise and showcase creative solutions that will resonate with our audience and provide a more intimate look at the people and culture that empower our agency. As a result, we will deepen our most valuable relationships to further solidify that Waltz Creative is an agency that provides creative solutions to elevate brands to their fullest potential.
From this mission statement, we were able to solidify our content pillars, content ratio, post cadence and metrics for success.
LET’S SEE IT IN ACTION
Once you have your strategy in hand, social media can be a very powerful tool. Part of leveraging this tool is having effective, eye-catching graphics and relevant content. Let’s look at some examples of how the Waltz team has supported clients with their social media efforts.
Flourish Ventures invests in Fintech startups around the world. The firm is a relative newcomer to the space, and with a broad audience in a crowded market, social is a critical tool for growing brand awareness and promoting Flourish’s investment team. Waltz creates branded graphics to promote events spotlighting the investment team and portfolio companies, celebrate new hires and promotions, and distribute insights and research.
Waltz manages every aspect of social media for long-time client Syngenta Flowers, from the monthly post table, to graphics and post copy, to scheduling and managing posts in Hootsuite. Each month we create and curate content to deepen relationships with existing customers, showcase company culture and values, increase product awareness, demonstrate innovation, grow brand awareness and anchor Syngenta’s identity as a technical leader in the industry.
Always trying to practice what we preach, our own Waltz rebrand was a fun way for our team to get creative with social media campaigns. We designed a series of teaser posts to generate interest and excitement about the announcement and drive attendance for our virtual open houses. Once the announcement was made, a follow-up campaign allowed us to share the story and process behind the rebrand and continue to build brand awareness.
No matter how you personally feel about or use social media, if you are a B2B marketer, don’t ignore this powerful marketing tool for your company. If you don’t know where to start or simply don’t have the time to dedicate to an intentional social media strategy, we can help! Whether you have zero followers or hundreds of thousands, we can partner with you to optimize your social presence and make sure every post helps move the needle on your business objectives.