Is social media relevant for b2b businesses?

Invest in strategic sales+marketing to drive profitable business

It has potential, IF your target market or ideal audience is there, you have the capacity to deliver consistent AND valuable content, and it’s informed by your strategy. Just looking at a few dozen b2b social media business pages clearly shows these conditions are too tall an order. But I’d ask you to think deeper about this question, because it has bigger implications than you might realise.

There are a few unintended consequences when b2b businesses use social media platforms just because (it’s low hanging fruit right, so why not?!): 

  1. businesses get into the habit of relying on vanity metrics to inform marketing decisions on where and how to allocate budget,
  2. businesses lose focus on the practical and effective things (that require more effort and more budget) that they can implement in the business to actually move the needle forward,
  3. decision makers formulate a completely inaccurate understanding of what marketing actually is, what it’s supposed to achieve, how much budget it requires, and how much work it is.

Compared to other b2b marketing tactics, you can get away with a lot less effort, but have something ‘tangible’ to show for it, like number of followers, likes and shares, which of course gets everyone super excited. The fact that these figures don’t translate to more sales or quality leads seem to be beside the point. Even its value as a brand marketing tactic is unclear due to the sheer amount of noise on these platforms. It also doesn’t help that the internet it filled with generic (read un-nuanced) articles encouraging b2b businesses to get on the social media bandwagon with promises like:

  • build loyalty and trust
  • brand awareness
  • customer rentention
  • connect with customers and partners
  • generate leads

Let’s take note here that this advice generally applies to specific parts of the world and very specific businesses, which might genuinely benefit from a presence on some social media platforms. However, the b2b world is considerably more complex and nuanced than what is implied with such advice. It doesn’t serve b2b businesses to focus on increasing traffic or ‘engagement’ that doesn’t drive revenue, never mind profit. So what would be the point? 

If you think social media should form part of your marketing strategy, keep the following in mind:

Social media is often talked about as one entity which overlooks the variety of platforms and their different audiences, rules and content preferences, like:

  • TikTok is video content mostly for younger demographics
  • Pinterest and Instagram are based on images, and is generally a duplication of what gets posted on Facebook, for a predominantly female demographic
  • X is for short-form sound bites, notifications, sharing of opinions and participating in debates
  • Facebook is a mix of video and images with a strong bent towards sharing of family photos or important life events, local notifications (like openings of gyms, hair salons, restaurants etc.), community groups and school/college reunions, for an older demographic 
  • LinkedIn is the only b2b focused platform and prefers business or commercial related content, ideas, inspiration, longer-form written content related to sales, marketing, human resources, professional skills, product development, academia and technology
  • YouTube is obviously video content (short- and long-form), for an extremely wide audience, but its pure size and algorithms makes it one of the most difficult to conquer

Another way to look at it is to consider the following questions:

  • When you are on social media in your personal capacity, after a long day of intense focus on work, are you in a headspace to engage with more business related content? Will you pause, and immerse yourself in a post about some or other technical aspect of your work? Is that your priority in that moment?

  • Does seeing business content on social media make you feel trust toward that business? What about loyalty? Will you keep on doing business with a company because of the social media posts you see from them? 

  • Social media platforms are increasingly saturated with mostly trite and meaningless content. As a business, do you understand that you will need to do a lot more than post ‘something’ regularly to get a seat at the proverbial newsfeed table, let alone compel people to view your page, like/follow/subscribe/comment, continuously, in the hope that someone will eventually reach out?

  • Social media is a pay-to-play tactic. People forget that because in our personal capacities, we are the product of these platforms, since it’s ‘free’. Are you aware, as a businesses, you need to pay to play, and that only guarantees a few seconds’ seat at the table, nothing more?

  • What is your digital marketing agency charging you to manage your social media pages, and how much value is there really in this spend? Have you measured your actual gains from it to date?

  • Would you reach out to a potential supplier or contractor on their Instagram or Facebook page, to start a conversation about the complex requirements of your team of 7 decision makers? Or would you typically do a search, look at industry directories or ask for referrals, go to the company’s website, read blog content, look at testimonials/reviews, subscribe to their newsletter, reach out to an actual person on the phone, or send an email to sales, or maybe look for a sales person on LinkedIn? In this scenario, where is your budget, time and resources best spent?

There are a few things to think about. And if it makes sense to you, as a business, to include social media into your marketing mix – whether to dabble in it because your competitors are there, or to be serious about it – then go for it. At least then you’re doing so with open eyes, and an accurate understanding that informs your expectations. Let’s not forget the marketing team’s relief that they can get on with the real work.

Subscribe to receive all future posts directly to your inbox:

Cheers till next week.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Posts

social media icons

Is social media relevant for b2b businesses?

It has potential, IF your target market or ideal audience is there, you have the capacity to deliver consistent AND valuable content, and it’s informed

Sales+Marketing is one team

Aligning sales and marketing isn’t a new concept – but crucial for results. Sales and marketing are two sides of the same coin – the

the basics blog | Introduction

The future of b2b sales+marketing is strategy, authenticity and investment in your client’s experience. What does this actually mean? The days of social media profiles

Search for anything

Search