B2B Social Media Marketing: Your Go-to Guide

Gone are the days when B2B brands used social media just as a brand equity or customer outreach tool. Today, social media is a foundational element of B2B engagement.  

And no, this isn't just about LinkedIn. Today, B2B brands are keenly aware that other popular social platforms are also crucial in nurturing relationships, sparking conversations and propelling business growth.  

If you’re not convinced, here are a few stats to prove it: 

• As per a survey in 2023, 60% of US B2B marketers see social media as their top choice for driving revenue 
• 50% of B2B marketers say that social media is the most effective at accomplishing top-of-funnel goals more than other channels, like email (43%) or in-person events (34%) 
• About 46% of B2B marketers admit that social media has helped them the most in achieving bottom-of-the-funnel goals in contrast to paid search (30%) and email (40%) 

The numbers speak for themselves, and there’s no doubt that this strategy is the way to go for greater impact and conversions in the current day. As such, we’ve highlighted all the essentials of B2B social media marketing for you in this article so you can get started on your journey in no time. So, let’s get right to it.  

What is B2B social media marketing?

B2B social media marketing is when businesses use platforms like LinkedIn, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, Facebook and more to communicate with potential and existing business customers. This type of marketing aims to build and strengthen relationships, drive relevant leads and position organizations (and organizational leaders) as thought leaders within their niche.  

As of 2024, people spend an average of 2 hours and 23 minutes a day on social media. And people who make purchasing decisions for their business are certainly among them, spending a significant amount of time on social media. So, for businesses looking to sell to or build relationships with these decision-makers, social media is definitely the place to be.  

Gartner exemplifies this approach. Renowned for its research and consulting services, Gartner effectively utilizes LinkedIn to share industry insights, forecasts and practical advice. By doing so, it has solidified its position as an industry leader by directly engaging with other businesses through meaningful and relevant findings. So, the potential of social media in B2B contexts cannot be undermined. 

B2B social media marketing offers companies the opportunity to: 

• Connect directly with key decision-makers in the industry: A successful B2B social media strategy will boost your network and get you face-to-face (virtually) with key players in your domain.  
   
• Showcase knowledge: You can make your brand an authority among its peers, prospects and client base by creating and sharing useful social media content through posts and comments on social media platforms. 
   
• Generate quality leads: Because business decision-makers, just like the rest of the world, spend time on social media platforms, those who are looking for business solutions can be targeted, with relevant content and ads. This helps improve quality leads.  
   
• Build brand visibility: Consistent posting increases the recognition and recall of your brand among current and potential clients, thus building brand awareness and increasing conversion opportunities. 
   
• Cultivate relationships: Social media marketing offers companies the opportunity to engage with each other meaningfully, whether through comments, likes or shares. This allows B2B marketers to go beyond transactional sales-focused relationships and foster genuine connections.  

 Also Read: Social Media Management: 7 Steps Towards Success in 2024

B2B vs. B2C social media marketing: What's the difference? 

While the aim of both B2B and B2C social media marketing is to connect with your audience, the strategies, goals and interactions within each type differ significantly. 

Must Read: Social Media Engagement: What You Need to Know! 

Basics of B2B social media marketing

From the table above, it should be clear that B2B social media marketing hinges on gradually and persuasively building a close relationship of trust and establishing value and expertise with your audience.  

Now, let’s build on that knowledge by looking at a few key tips for scripting a successful B2B social media strategy:  

• Develop and share industry insights, case studies and thought leadership content: Build credibility with original and data-backed insights, in-depth case studies and expert opinions on the future state of your industry. Such content evidences your knowledge and establishes your brand as the one to refer to in the industry. 
   
• Use audience findings to improve conversions: Leverage audience targeting with precision to understand your customer base’s preferences and discover what clicks with your audience and makes them click for greater conversion rates.  
   
• Make the most of LinkedIn for your networking and lead generation: LinkedIn leads the pack in B2B customer engagement. Connect with industry leaders, sign up to relevant groups and reach your clients and partners through LinkedIn ads.  
   
• Engage in meaningful conversations with your audience: Go beyond sharing content. Make the effort to engage in genuine discussions and feedback. This creates trust and helps community growth. 
   
• Use a social listening tool to determine market needs and sentiments: Monitor online conversations about your brand and industry to stay ahead of trends and address customer pain points. This will help in better informing and adapting your strategy. 
   
• Maintain a consistent posting schedule with a content calendar: Regular updates keep your brand top-of-mind with your audience. It also drives engagement and informs your followers about updates and exciting new developments.  

  Pro tip 💡: A social media content calendar helps plan your posts and ensures a stimulating mix of content types and themes. You can up your content planning game by using Sprinklr’s social media calendar platform that allows you to plan content for 6+ social channels with a single unified calendar view.

  

  BUILD A CONTENT CALENDAR FOR FREE
• Check your social media performance often: Track your level of engagement, reach and conversions through analytics. This informs strategy and leads to optimized campaigns. 

Also Read: Social Media Analytics: A Simple Guide for Every Marketer 

Top 10 strategies for effective B2B social media marketing in 2024

As B2B social media marketing grows more sophisticated, many social media platforms offer newer avenues to connect and engage with business audiences. However, there are a few non-negotiables to keep in mind as build your B2B social media strategy.  

Here are some effective strategies to ace B2B social media marketing in 2024.  

1. Define your social media B2B goals

Before starting with your B2B social media marketing journey, prioritize setting SMART goals. SMART expands to: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound. SMART goals help you ensure clarity, focus and trackability.  

For instance, a SMART goal for increasing brand awareness could be to increase LinkedIn followers by 20% in the next 6 months. It's SMART because it is specific (with clearly defined objectives and outcomes), measurable (increase followers by 20%), achievable (through targeted content and communication strategy), relevant (to increase B2B visibility on LinkedIn) and time-bound (within 6 months).  

This approach helps you strategically plan your B2B social media strategy and evaluate its effectiveness.  
 

2. Identify your B2B buyer personas and their pain points

Understanding your audience and their challenges is vital to B2B marketing. Dig deep to learn the needs, challenges and preferences that define your target businesses. 

Example: Imagine you're looking to sell human resource management software (HRMS) to small and mid-sized businesses. If you're targeting a small startup, it will likely need an HRMS solution that is cost-effective but also scalable for a growing workforce. This insight allows you to tailor messaging to highlight how cost-effective and scalable your solutions are and how you are best positioned to meet their needs. Knowing the pain points of your audience, thus, helps enhance both engagement and conversion. 
 

Pro tip 💡: Use a social media analytics tool to find your specific audience, understand their pain points and deliver tailored messages. With Sprinklr's Audience Insights, you can narrow in on audience affinities across multiple social media channels to create custom segments, uncover new business opportunities and maximize ROI. 

TRY SPRINKLR’S SMART AUDIENCE INSIGHTS TOOL FOR FREE

3. Choose the right social media channel for your B2B audience

Choosing the right social media platform should be based on where your target audience is most active and responsive. 

LinkedIn often becomes the platform of choice for many B2B companies by offering unmatched access to professionals and business decision-makers. The best way forward with this is to have a solid LinkedIn strategy that revolves around growing connections and sharing great content. 

4. Invest in targeted paid advertising for precision

With the help of targeted paid social media ads, you can reach key decision-makers. Platforms like LinkedIn offer advanced targeting options (job title, industry, company size and more) to ensure your ads are viewed by the most relevant viewers. 

Use these features to engage directly with potential leads and industry influencers.  

Try LinkedIn advertising or sponsored content and InMail for a more direct approach. Use these tools to establish highly personalized engagement and increase the odds of prospects who are noticing your message. 

Pro tip 💡: Use a social advertising platform to manage and centralize social media advertising campaigns. Sprinklr lets you perform such marketing efforts across 10+ social channels, allowing you to automate workflows and obtain cross-channel reports while maintaining enterprise-grade governance.  

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5. Host webinars on industry topics to establish authority

Businesses rise to the top of their industries when customers see them as trustworthy experts who add value. But this value doesn't just come through products or services; it's also in the knowledge you disseminate through thought leadership content. 

Webinars are a great way to showcase your industry expertise. They also provide an opportunity to connect and interact with your audience. You can use the two-way interaction of social media to promote your webinar and have people engage with you when it’s happening through comments or relevant hashtags. Use your webinars to share tips, trends, address challenges and offer solutions. You can invite relevant guest speakers on your webinar to build credibility and connections. 

Check out this video on how you can use it in the B2B buyer’s journey:

6. Prioritize audience-specific content creation for B2B engagement 

Creating B2B content that’s centered around your audience's challenges, objectives and industry trends creates meaningful dialogue. Showcasing solutions through case studies, customer testimonials and success stories establishes your credibility, builds trust and positions you as an industry expert. 

Here’s an example of how Spotify Advertising, a B2B brand within Spotify, tried to educate advertisers that an audience of active listeners makes for the best audience. Its claim was that Spotify's digital audio environment lets advertisers cut through the distractions of modern-day life and reach the most immersed audience. To substantiate this, it partnered with Neuro-Insight. And the results of this study were true to its assertion, as you can see: 

Source 

7. Add trending hashtags and mentions for visibility

Harness trending hashtags and tag industry influencers to tune into ongoing conversations to attract a wider audience interested in industry developments and increase visibility. 

Source 

Must Read: What is Social Listening: Importance, Benefits and Strategies 

8. Prioritize comment and interaction responses

Building a community is the cornerstone of B2B social media marketing. As we discussed, B2B sales cycles tend to be longer but their focus is typically narrower. This means strong, loyal communities are the way to grow your business on social media.  

Responding promptly to comments and interactions from the people who engage with you shows you are always listening and value their inputs. This cultivates trust and loyalty from your audience and encourages future interactions. Responsive actions can turn casual followers into purchasing customers and brand advocates. 
 

Learn More: Community Management on Social media: The Ultimate Guide 

9. Regular posting to maintain audience engagement

Posting frequently is not just for B2C brands. Staying at the forefront of your business audience's social feed ensures that your brand will always be top-of-mind. But to do so, you need a steady pipeline of high-value content.  

With increased recognition and recall through regular posts, your brand will gain an engaged, loyal community. Try to refine your content and create an effective social media posting schedule to a point where your audience anticipates and watches out for content from you.

10. Refine B2B social media strategies using analytics

Another activity you must do with regularity is analyzing your social media performance. Regular analysis of your social media performance helps you identify what content resonates with your audience. Test the metrics of the content that performs well and use the results to hone your B2B social media strategy accordingly. Continuous refinement based on data ensures that the work you put into social media stays aligned with changing audience preferences and current, which helps maximize impact and ROI. 

5 things you need to avoid in B2B social media strategy

In B2B social media marketing, it's important to run controlled experiments to see what works, but note that certain practices can hinder rather than help. Here are some important pitfalls to avoid to ensure your strategy stays on track: 

• Neglecting platform-specific content strategies: Each social media platform has its own content preferences and audience behavior. For instance, many B2B brands today use Instagram to build brand equity and even for talent acquisition. Modify your content and strategy to avoid missed opportunities.  
   
• Overlooking the importance of engagement: B2B engagement is all about building relationships and trust with your audience. Neglecting to respond to comments, messages or feedback will chip away at the trust you've built and damage your brand. 
   
• Focusing too much on promotional content: Promote where and when necessary. The world of B2B marketing thrives on deep, value-added engagement. So strike a balance between marketing, educational and entertaining content to keep your audience genuinely interested.  
   
• Ignoring the analytics and feedback: Failure to use analytics in measuring your social performance or ignoring feedback from your audience can hamper strategy refinement. Ignoring analytics prevents you from knowing what resonates and could lead to lost opportunities and a lifeless social media presence. 
   
• Underestimating visual content: Compelling visuals often trump text on social media. Compromising on the quality of visuals will reduce your brand recall and reduce engagement. In fact, 95% of B2B customers claim video plays an important role in purchase decisions, while 70% say video does a better job of highlighting business challenges compared to research reports, webinars, infographics, books and whitepapers. 

Also Read: Comprehensive Guide on Social Media Content Creation 

Final thoughts 

Mastering social media marketing for B2B brands requires a combination of strategy, patience and insight. Do your due diligence to strike the right note with your audience, select the perfect channels and create content that resonates and, ultimately, converts.  

Sprinklr Social can be your ally in this journey. Here’s what it offers at a glance: 

• Broad channel coverage of up to 30+ digital channels so you don’t miss any customer interaction 
• AI-powered automation for easy social media management  
• Top generative AI capabilities for quicker content creation 
• Advanced social listening for real-time industry, customer and competitor insights from millions of data sources 
• On-brand engagements with customer approval workflows and enterprise-grade governance  

With all this and more, you can use it to make every B2B social media engagement count. Want to see how it can make a difference to your strategy?