I read a LinkedIn post last week asking if social media has a place in a B2B marketing strategy. Very interesting question, I thought to myself.

 

Having worked with many B2B clients over the years I can safely say that social media has been heavily utilised across all of the marketing activity.

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I have never thought that social media doesn't have a place in any industry, if anything I try and find a place for it because it's still brand exposure at the end of the day and also allows us to attract an audience we hadn't thought of targeting previously. That said there are some social channels that won't work in certain B2B industries however I can guarantee that there is at least one that will work.

​Here's my top 5 reasons on why/how social media works in a B2B world:

1. It allows my client’s clients to see the human side of the business i.e. behind the scenes, celebrations, the team behind the brand.

2. Social media is a major source of inspiration for many and with the right #'s you're reaching out to more than just your core audience. Having worked in the interior design industry for a B2B wholesaler I found that a lot of the interior designers we worked with used Instagram and Pinterest primarily as a source of inspiration and we could see this lead to sales through Google Analytics.

3. One of the key traits of a marketeer is creativity; social media allows us to creatively market the brand and deliver the brand message to your audience. 

4. Today we barely read paragraphs and paragraphs of text. We have 5-10 seconds to capture our audience with a visual; this needs to be striking, attractive and sexy. Our audience needs to think wow with that one image. Taking advantage of mindless scrolling on social media allows us to seduce our audience with one image. How many of you purchased something because of a story or image you’ve seen on social media?

5. Be organised! I put together a monthly social media calendar for my clients and each day they focus on a different topic to post on. This keeps the social activity ticking over but more importantly keeps the brand out there. Topics include case studies, behind the scenes, inspirational quotes/memes relevant to the industry, blog posts, news, live events etc.

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No industry is boring, you just need to be clever with how you use social :)