10 B2B social media post ideas to stand out in a crowded social landscape

Creating captivating B2B social media post ideas can be… challenging.

Let’s be honest. If you’re in B2B social, you know it has a bit of a reputation of being kind of dull. One survey even found 48% of B2B customers say the ads they receive are boring and lack the creativity found in B2C marketing.

Don’t let this misconception turn you off of B2B social. In fact, social is an integral component to successful B2B marketing. Seventy-nine percent of B2B marketers say social supports their goals of building thought leadership and strengthening customer relationships. And half of B2B decision makers use networks like LinkedIn to research information and consume information.

As social spaces become increasingly crowded, B2B brands will need to prioritize strong and engaging social content to stay ahead of the competition. For inspiration on how to level up your social strategy and ensure your content stands out from the crowd, we’ve rounded up a list of B2B social media post ideas for you to try.

1. When in doubt, be helpful

One of the biggest pitfalls of B2B social is the bad habit of pushing hard-selling messaging. But that kind of messaging overlooks one important thing: how does your product or service address your buyer’s pain points?

Write with your prospects top of mind and focus on their needs first. Social copy should demonstrate how the product or service can help make the prospect’s life easier. According to one report, 88% of the top B2B content marketers prioritize their audience’s needs over sales or promotional messages.

Being helpful also helps reinforce purchasing confidence, too. B2B marketers can boost buyer confidence by providing useful content and consistent messaging on all channels, including company websites.

2. Curate third-party thought leadership

It’s bad manners to talk about yourself all the time. B2B social media best practices include sharing owned content as well as third-party, industry-focused articles to establish trust and credibility.

Consider how 65% of B2B buyers consciously focus more on credible content from industry influencers. Sharing content from third-party sites like Gartner and Forbes can further build trust with your audience because you’re promoting a trusted source prospects likely already know and respect. And finally, curating third-party content reduces the burden on your creative teams to always create new content.

3. Embrace the hashtag

Regardless of how you feel about hashtags, they do make an impact on your social content. If you’re not using a few hashtags per post, you’re missing opportunities to amplify the post beyond your existing followers.

For B2B, it’s important to lean into niche hashtags that your audience is likely already using. Choosing something more niche allows you to tap into specific conversations with industry thought leaders, executives and employees. For example, if you work in the cybersecurity space, you may want to use targeted hashtags like #Cybersecurity, #CloudSecurity, #DataPrivacy or #DataSecurity over the more ambiguous #Cloud, #Data or #Security.

While branded hashtags are great, remember, you’re only talking to your current followers and they don’t support efforts to generate awareness among new customers. If you have to choose between a branded hashtag and a public hashtag for your awareness campaign, go public. Always.

4. Don’t skimp on your creative assets

Seventy-one percent of B2B marketers currently use video as part of their strategy and, thanks to tools like Canva and Adobe Spark, it no longer takes hours on end to produce a polished video. Even a video with simple animated text is more exciting and informative than a single static image or a long block of text in the caption.

What works for one campaign may not work for another, so it’s important to test how your audience reacts to specific content and adjust as needed. Consider A/B testing to determine which assets resonate with your audience the most, like testing photos against video content.

5. Be cohesive with your voice and tone

No matter what you post, your brand’s social feeds all need to have a cohesive look and feel. This makes it easier for your followers to recognize your content in-feed and a well-styled post attracts attention. Here are a few simple tricks we use at Idea Grove when crafting social content for our B2B clients:

• Use color overlays with reduced opacity to give all images a uniform element
• Create a family of consistent shapes and designs to use in your images and videos
• Edit all your photos with one filter treatment
• Develop an aesthetic to inform your visual content assets

GE, for example, uses the same visual treatment to indicate when certain videos belong to a specific series on LinkedIn.

6. Take people behind the scenes

Break up your social feed and differentiate yourself from the competition by showcasing the people who work behind the scenes of your brand. Regardless if you’re selling a product or a service, at the end of the day you’re selling to other people. And when customers feel like they can relate to your brand, they’re more likely to want to do business with you.

Humanizing your brand is also a great way to give potential employees an unfiltered look into your company. Does your team value diversity? Are you a suit-and-tie type of business or does your company culture embrace a hoodie-and-sweatpants kind of vibe? Salesforce, for example, posts regular videos showcasing their company’s employee resource groups all over the world.

7. Amplify your media wins—both big and small

Still searching for more B2B social media post ideas? If you work with a public relations team, sharing any media placements featuring your brand is a great way to build trust with your audience. Sharing media placements both lends credibility to your brand and gives you an opportunity to piggyback off of the name recognition that comes with a news outlet. Additionally, tools like social monitoring and listening can help you pick up on brand mentions that may have slipped your notice the first time around.

8. Highlight your success stories

People trust a customer testimonial more than any salesperson, so why not take that testimonial and share it on your social channels? Record short interviews with your clients or turn a brief quote into a shareable asset on Twitter or Instagram.

Testimonials showcase how your client used your product of service to solve real problems and gives prospects a better understanding of the value your brand brings to the table. While product demos are great, nothing beats a case study that shows how customers use your product or service to address a need. In addition to their product content, Slack creates content that demonstrates how customers like Stripe use Slack’s software to improve their customer support efforts.

9. Invite others into the conversation

Do you tag other B2B brands in your social copy? What about your customers or the authors of third-party content you’ve shared on social? If you’re not tagging, there’s a good chance you’re missing out on additional social impressions and reach. Tagging companies and individual people brings them into the conversation, boosts visibility of the shared content and invites others to engage with your community. For example: to promote their new partnership, SAP made sure to tag Siemens in their post accompanying their press release.

10. Boost visibility with paid social

Lastly, one of the best ways to stand out in B2B social is to take advantage of paid social ads. Research shows that among B2B marketers who used paid distribution channels in the last 12 months, 72% say they used paid social.

A paid social strategy enables you to cut through the social clutter by using carefully defined target audiences and messages to connect with your customer. Retargeting ads help you reach out to people already familiar with your brand (warm leads) and can be used. to drive conversion-focused content like webinars or white papers. And for untapped audiences (cold leads), paid ads are a great way to create brand awareness with informative, helpful and ungated content.

Conclusion

Implementing even a few of these tips will help you improve your B2B marketing efforts and break away from the sea of sameness on social. While B2B may not be the same animal as B2C, there are still opportunities to exercise your creativity and create an effective social strategy that isn’t boring.

Ready to take your B2B social strategy even further? Learn how market research can empower your social team to better understand your target buyer and develop content that will resonate at every stage of the customer journey.

This post 10 B2B social media post ideas to stand out in a crowded social landscape originally appeared on Sprout Social.