According to Content Marketing Institute, over 95% of B2B marketers use social media as part of their marketing strategy. B2B brands need to be strategic and methodical about their social media approach to thrive in a crowded space. The following are four recommendations for social media strategies for B2B services.

1. Use Buyer Personas To Personalize Whom You’re Talking To

For a successful social media presence, you must know your audience. Marketers often use buyer personas, or semi-fictional representations of their ideal customers, to tailor their marketing.

Understand your specific ideal buyer(s). For example, your buyer persona could be a CTO tired of onboarding new cybersecurity tools that convolute their tech stacks. Describe their likes and dislikes, pain points, and what they need to excel in their position.

You’ll also have to know where to find your target audience. According to HootSuite, 96% of B2B content marketers use LinkedIn for their social media efforts. It is the top-performing organic and paid social platform for B2B. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are other popular B2B platforms.

2. Create and Share Content That Engages Your Specific Audience

Discover the content that interests your buyer and deliver it in different formats. For example, a data manager might consume content from a data education site. If your B2B service is corporate motivational speakers, you should focus on an audience that is looking to increase morale or reduce turnover. If your B2B service is embroidered scrubs, you should try to engage with those in the healthcare industry or others who use scrubs as their uniforms.

3. Make Sure Your Social Media Has Its Tone and Personality

Though people think B2B brands are more serious than B2C, B2B content and social media don’t have to be dry and didactic. A conversational brand voice humanizes your company and compels people to engage.

Avoid one-sided conversations. Ask your audience questions, create polls, or do Twitter chats. Give shoutouts to other brands and share their content. On sites like Facebook or Instagram, show pictures of your organization’s offices or spotlight your employees.

One B2B brand with a dynamic social media presence is Cloudera, a cloud software and data platform. Cloudera uses LinkedIn Live for virtual live chats about data management and AI from internal and external subject matter experts. It also shares photos and blog posts from its employees about life at Cloudera.

4. Measure and Track Your Social Media

Measurement is the best way to understand what is and isn’t working and optimize your marketing. Decide on the most impactful metrics for your brand. Two metrics are clicks and interactions. 

Clicks include the number of clicks and the subsequent behavior after clicking. Interactions include measuring likes and dislikes and social media conversations with your brand. Evaluate if the conversations are positive or negative, how they engage with your content, and their conversations about your brand versus your competitors.

Social media is now a necessity for B2B brands. With a thoughtful approach, small changes to your social media can yield significant results. Harnessing the power of social media can help B2B brands build stronger relationships with their audience, enhance brand visibility, and drive meaningful engagement that translates into business growth.