Social media is king when it comes to B2B brand awareness and audience reach, audience engagement, customer, and competitor research. According to Hubspot, consumers expect brands to be on about 3.5 different social platforms.
About 40% of B2B buyers use social media to help inform them of buying decisions. According to Gartner B2B decision makers spend an average of 12.2% of their marketing budgets on social media.
Facebook, owned by Meta, is the most popular social media platform with 1.96 billion daily active users (2022) (Statista). The joint number of Meta product users (Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp) is much higher.
The one downside to Facebook is that recent changes to its algorithm lessens focus on public posts and centres on sharing content from friends and family.
But Facebook offers B2B marketers targeting features such as lead capture forms, custom audiences, lookalike audiences and dynamic ads that can be used to reach and engage audiences.
Facebook gives business the potential to reach over 25% of people in the world. Hence business may be missing out if they ignore its large customer base.
YouTube
Since its launch in 2005 and its later acquisition by Google, YouTube has become the largest video platform in the world.
YouTube is an advertising powerhouse-its 2021 global advertising revenue amounted to $US28.84 billion. And, it also has the highest ROI of any video content platform.
There is a steeper learning curve for businesses using YouTube but it is well worth investing in making high-quality videos for their target market.
Twitter has over 180 million active users including leading business decision-makers giving B2B companies a productive avenue to connect with global audiences.
It requires a very compressed format with the maximum tweet character limit of 280 characters. This means that B2B marketers need to fit their entire message into three or four sentences. The tweet content can be a few sentences of advice, a blog quote, or a 15-second video clip.
Twitter is a valuable B2B platform for content that helps business to solve problems and supplies a go-to source for business advice. It helps to build business reputation and promotes lead generation.
At first, WhatsApp was mainly used to talk to family and friends. It stays a convenient way to communicate with people around the world regardless of their phone provider.
WhatsApp Business is a free app created with small businesses in mind. Business owners can create a catalogue of their products and services and respond to messages.
WhatsApp Business API is a better choice for medium to large businesses as it supplies customer support and send important notifications to customers.
64% of Instagram users are under the age of 34. (Statista). 98% of marketers say Instagram is the most influential platform for influencer marketing that is 44% higher than Facebook. (Sprout Social)
Instagram was bought by Facebook in 2012, but the two run as entirely different platforms but business can easily link their accounts.
Its targeting capabilities are based on user interests, demographics, behaviours, and specific keywords to help you zero in on potential buyers
It has become popular with small businesses because it is all about quick content, focusing on visual content such as photos, stories, reels, Instagram TV, and live videos.
Instagram’s estimated US ad revenue in 2021 was $25.05 billion. As a business you can connect with at least one social media profile.
Users can send calls and messages, shop online, transfer money, and more. Many WeChat users refer to it as the “app for everything” or “super app” due to its wide range of features.
But WeChat is a popular alternative. In fact, it’s the most popular social media app in China a good option for business that want to boost their brand awareness in China.
LinkedIn is the powerhouse for B2B social media marketing. Early LinkedIn users were mostly concerned with recruiting and professional networking, but it has become an excellent platform for creating customer engagement.
Business use LinkedIn to find potential vendors, customers, and business partners. It allowscB2B marketers to expand their professional and social networks. Unlike other platforms LinkedIn is an avenue for long blog posts and articles.
LinkedIn offers targeting prospects based on their job title, job function, company name, company size and location.
With more than 830 million members LinkedIn is an outstanding platform for B2B networking and lead generation.
More Information
Maria Charlton
maria@mapmarketing.com.au