Today’s consumers want to connect with the brands they buy from. In B2B marketing, we sometimes forget that our buyers are just as influenced by brands, storytelling and emotions as they are when choosing products in their personal lives.
The way people want to engage with B2B brands on social media isn’t as different from B2C as you’d expect. Your audience is still looking for entertaining and engaging content that builds trust in the brand and sets expectations when they choose your products or services.
1. Treat your brand’s LinkedIn presence like you would your own
Insightful, knowledgeable, helpful. That’s what you want to shine through. Refrain from posting solely branded content, and start to talk and interact with your audience. They may be current customers, potential customers, or relate to your industry. Connect with them about their experiences with your products or within your industry. When people respond to your content, respond back to them. When they ask questions, answer with a personal, kind touch.
2. Rethink what you post
It’s important to have engaging content, content that you want your audience to interact with. B2B marketers tend to focus on products, customer testimonials, and forgetting about engaging with the audience. Shift the content mindset from product driven to educational and engaging. Build an authentic and inclusive feeling to build a credibility and likeness to your brand.
3. Experiment to understand your audience
One of the hardest things to nail down is truly understanding your audience and their behaviors. Social media is ever changing and with competing algorithms, it can become an experiment on the perfect time, content, topics, etc. that will get the most interaction from your audience. Finding the best time to post on LinkedIn can be a challenge in itself. Content type can also be something to experiment with. Does your audience like short form or long form posts? Do they like videos or images more? It can really become an experiment to see what your audience resonates with most. Testing out these different post types and comparing them is the best way to narrow down what works best with your audience.
Take some time to truly get to know your audience, their behavior, and how you’d like to portray your brand on LinkedIn and you will likely increase engagement on your B2B brand’s LinkedIn.