7 B2B Social Media Strategies for Marketing Boring, but Necessary, Products

Putting your B2B social media content out there and expecting it to boom in a flash is 'unreal'. It doesn't even happen in industries where products have an intrinsic allure.

It's demanding to sell boring but necessary products and services, precisely if you are still naive as a startup or business. Yet, thousands of startups in ‘unsexy’ industries spearhead their presence. What do you think is their secret?

The secret lies in the marketing and sales team, who are dumping their traditional practices to match the conventional social media tactics.

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“Your writing doesn’t have to be boring just because it’s for other businesses. Businesses have people who read stuff.” — Valeria Maltoni

And if you thought your audience is off social media? You must know that 75% of B2B buyers use social media to make purchasing decisions.

If your brand in a non-trendy vertical needs the eyeballs, now is the time to leverage social media and make your products/services seem as intriguing as possible. So, get ready to explore remarkable results, as this post will help you spice up your social media strategy with ways that work.

How B2B Uses Social Media?

Before we march forward, we should have a quick checklist on how B2B uses social media. It is almost similar to the B2C sphere, but one should know the whys.

• [ ]Social media is a commendable platform for lead attraction, nurturing, and warming audiences for sales.
• [ ]Use social media for brand awareness and to reach your audience where they are.
• [ ]Deliver interesting, engaging content to stay in the stark memory of your audience.
• [ ]Social listening tops the chart to know what your audience thinks about your product/service.
• [ ]Establish social media as the ultimate customer service channel to answer customer queries.
• [ ]Drive traffic to your blog, website, landing page, and ultimately position your business as an authority amidst the noise.

Social media Vs. Other Forms Of Marketing

Why social media marketing when it's already so saturated?

Good question.

Any channel is excellent if you can unlock its full potential, stay consistent and use it well. With B2B social media marketing, it is no different because: You can make genuine relationships with your audience. Show the human side of your business (that is so regulated). Strengthen your brand as an authority.

In the coming section, you will find some of the compelling social media strategies to accelerate your brand:

7 Unexpected Ways Social Media Adding Value To B2B Industries

1. Humanise Your Business’s Personality Through Offbeat Content

Why show up with formal messaging when your brand can be so much more? How much debatable it could be, deviating from traditional marketing enhances your personality digitally. You can count on your team to deliver offbeat content that aligns with your brand's value.

Brands like Salesforce shine in displaying a brand personality that resonates with real people — the employees. They go to great lengths to feature their employees in their social media content. When the product offerings are business oriented and technical, simplify it with people who can show your business's personality.

2. Leaders Coming Forward

A B2B brand is more than logos, whitepapers, and tech products. To make it intriguing, bring the leaders forward who can showcase their personalities and be authentic through videos and podcasts. Everyone is interested to know the brains behind a brilliant startup and learning the history from a scrappy startup to an established organization.

There are means to draw people to your story, and who better than leaders to drive the force? Don't be intimidated by dispersing your views and commenting on pop culture. It is your duty as a leader to bridge the gap among industries.

In a study by BRANDfog, a conundrum is presented:

"The most effective leaders throughout history have been great communicators, yet the vast majority of modern day CEOs and C-Suite executives are conspicuously absent from social media channels."

Aaron Levie is the CEO of Box, a cloud content management and file-sharing platform. With 2.4 million followers on Twitter, he stays chill and tweets many good, worthy takes about politics and social justice.

3. Show The ‘Interesting’ Side of Your Business

B2B social media strategy can be much more than leaning towards products and features. Every industry has something unique to offer. Share cool infographics and user-generated content (Adobe utilizes it ‘full-fledgedly’) or persuade employees to share what they love to do. Show the exciting side of your culture and slightly pitch in the actual value of your products or services.

Square offers plenty of appealing features, like competitive rates, but rather than touting its products and services, Square highlights the content of its customers - positioning Square to deliver positive brand sentiment on Instagram.

4. Partner With Famous Brands and Leverage Their Reach

Gaming is not only for "cool kids," but it has attained a mass following. Many unpopular giants have successfully collaborated with the gaming industry and garnered social engagement and community heads-up.

Businesses can get into this space in 3 ways:

1. Sponsoring an esports event
2. Place ads into the video games
3. Harbor an in-depth partnership with the video game developer

Tech company Lenovo sponsors an often-overlooked demographic of senior citizens. Silver Snipers are the first professional Counter-Strike: Global Offensive team composed of senior citizens.

5. Gather people around a common POV

It's precious to knit a community that trusts your brand and has faith in your values. You can work with your team and brainstorm topics your customer community is challenged by. You are the stage host; frankly, your voice and views matter. Stay consistent, implement ideas, call out for feedback, and you can witness a stark difference in your social media success as a B2B brand.

IBM's usage of social media is applaudable. The tech giant shares photos and videos on Instagram of past products from the last hundred years. Driving common conversation with the audience to build trust and credibility has been its core mission on social media.

6. Cut Corporate Jargon To Simplify Messaging

Undoubtedly, if leveraged rightly, social media benefits every business. Albeit, it needs a targeted approach to cut through the noise. It requires an in-depth analysis of data that strengthens a workable strategy for all social media channels. Achieve that by simplifying messaging sans corporate speak and jargon. To be heard, you need to get into your customer's shoes.

Micro Focus is one of the largest enterprise software companies. The brand is phenomenally serving its customer base through social media, connecting its products and services to real people who benefit from them.

7. Make You Audience Laugh

Humor in marketing sounds like no man's land. And the fact is both companies and audiences aren't receptive to the comical side of human connections. A business that engages the joy of laughter in its campaigns unlocks an engaging community.

Consider entertainment as a content pillar and turn your ordinary, bland branding into a fun, witty feed. Remember sharing is the holy grail of social media and if laughter is shouldering your simple yet innovative campaigns, make it your best bet.

"Users Happen" was Lenovo's campaign, and it worked fantastically because it portrayed frustrating IT experiences in a funny way, using their deep understanding of their audience.

In Summary: B2B Social Media Marketing

B2B audiences can be tough to connect with. After all, they are cynical in their take and do not usually fall for marketing ploys. But they are human, and human psychology is the same whether they are in B2B or B2C.

To get bounty out of your social media marketing strategy for B2B, dip your toes into knowing your audience and experiment with content.

Your audience is on social media. All you need to do is shine up as a business! If supplemented with the tips mentioned earlier, your creative thinking can be a turning point to go from ordinary to extraordinary B2B business.

Are you ready to move forward in today’s social world? Connect to reshape your content and social strategy with refined approaches.