Social Media is changing fast, but what are the current social media trends for B2B?

Social Media is changing fast. Yesterday we talked about Instagram Reels, today we find out that the medium age on TikTok is changing by the minute and that the audience on Tik Tok is older than expected. So let’s talk about the top 7 B2B Social Media Trends in 2021.

Here we go!

Facebook is among the best ad platforms for B2B

Even though Facebook is having a tough time getting boycotted from over 100 big businesses across the globe, Facebook has become one of the strongest ad platforms on the internet. But for B2B, you might think? Yes, for B2B.

73% of US millennials are involved in purchase decision-making at their companies. It’s a viable option for B2B ads even though many businesses still think that LinkedIn, Google, and maybe Bing are the only big players in the space.

Let me dig into that a little deeper: Facebook is not for kids anymore, for years! Facebook is where the older folks hang out now – yeah, the decision-makers your business is looking for might be hanging out on Facebook. We think that Facebook is underrated as a paid advertising platform for B2B.

[bctt tweet=”Facebook is underrated as a paid advertising platform for B2B.”]

Facebook has done a lot in recent years to gain the trust of business advertisers back and offers an interesting toolset every B2B Marketer should have ready to go. First of all Facebook Retargeting. Makes sense, right? Why wouldn’t you want to retarget the people that just visited your business website and promote that free webinar, the case study, or whitepaper to nurture your potential client?

An additional important reason to use Facebook within your mix of paid B2B marketing platforms is Instagram. It’s huge and it’s where people hang out! Instagram advertising is handled through the Facebook Ad Platform and offers a wide range of tools and ad formats to promote (or simply retarget) the businesses or better: the decision-makers you are targeting.

LinkedIn still has organic reach! Use it!

While organic reach has drastically decreased due to the constant algorithm changes LinkedIn implements, it’s still worth to publish content on LinkedIn. Sure, it’s not as easy to reach huge new (non-following) audiences like back in 2018 but there are still quite some opportunities to communicate with your audience on a regular basis and show up in their feeds. We are not the only ones discussing this – and if you are a B2B Marketer, Demand Gen Manager, or a VP of Marketing you probably already saw it yourself. LinkedIn is becoming a more relevant content platform. If good or bad – we have to adapt. The fact is that LinkedIn will continue to change the algorithm, push their advertising platform, premium services, and eLearning but we think that there’s still so much opportunity for businesses and organic content.

The content that is now published on LinkedIn is constantly becoming more and more diverse. It’s not just pure B2B content anymore. From stories of former employees that tell a story about their recent experience or a CEO sharing a video of his first business trip after the crisis – LinkedIn has become much more than a simple network of contacts and networking.

Take advantage of that! To be more successful on LinkedIn, your business needs a content strategy (organic and/or paid) and if you can throw videos in there, even better!

TikTok is not for “kids only” anymore!

Yes, that’s right – it’s time that B2B Marketers take Tik Tok serious and consider it as an additional potential channel to reach their audience. Not convinced yet? Hear me out! Even though you might not fully understand Tik Tok yet, I mean who in the B2B world does really, it’s here and it will not go away any time soon. (Or will it?)

[bctt tweet=”It’s time that B2B Marketers take Tik Tok serious and consider it as an additional potential channel to reach their audience.”]

Tik Tok is and will continue to become a content platform. Yes it’s funny, yes, it’s about dancing often, but if you use Tik Tok regularly you will see that it changes quickly.

There’s much more diverse content on there than a year ago and the growth rates of new accounts are insane. The algorithm works great, knows exactly what you like, and keeps proposing more and more content targeted towards your interests.

Big brands already jumped on and are running big campaigns on Tik Tok. Yes, they still have quite some B2C / eCommerce focus but watch out… you should think about leveraging Tik Tok for your business and not wait until it’s too late.

How?

Well, there are so many ways of creating content on Tik Tok… there are no limits. You can be a serious business team sharing everyday insights from the office, do fun stuff as a team, or even create tutorial type content. Just make sure it reflects your brand culture and voice as much as possible.

And please, don’t overthink it – stay calm and Tik Tok on!

LinkedIn Conversational Ads

Is your business using tools like Outreach.io? Well, LinkedIn is following up on its very successful LeadGen and Message Ads and released a beta recently that allows businesses to create campaigns with a new ad format called Conversational Ads. Why is this important? Well, there are many businesses out there that already use powerful tools like Outreach, Drip, or ChatBots to nurture potential prospects and keep them engaged if they are not yet ready to purchase (or get contacted by salesperson).

Conversational ads are exactly that – Similar to “Drip” they engage with the prospects (of course on LinkedIn) and allow B2B Marketers to nurture the potential customer before generating the lead.

Have you tried LinkedIn Polls?

LinkedIn Polls is a feature that has been introduced by LinkedIn back in May and if you are an avid LinkedIn user you probably have seen them showing in your LinkedIn feed already.

Collect insight from your network on what business software they think would be the best fit for you or simply gather some feedback on what topic you should cover on your next webinar.

You can create a poll in under 30 seconds (according to LinkedIn) and the tool is super easy to use. Also, engagement is high. People interact with your brand and are able to participate in some way, especially if they don‘t feel leaving a comment on your post. It’s fast and easy, exactly what users want in times when attention spans are becoming shorter and shorter.

Once the poll is over you can discuss the results with your audience and keep the conversation going.

LinkedIn polls are an easy way to gather some feedback or second opinion from the people in your network and they are super easy to create.

Professional but personal “on-mobile” videos

Now, what’s that? Well, you’ve probably already seen some of them in your feeds, especially on LinkedIn they tend to show up more and more now. Self-recorded videos, no fancy editing, straight forward comments, discussions, recommendations, webinar announcements… Why they are great? Well, they are natural, they are “real” and authentic and thus people watch, react, comment, and believe them.

If you haven’t done one yet, try them! They are easy to make, they only require a mobile, patience, some light from the front (take a window), and confidence. Don’t worry too much about what other people think and try to create one. It can be a simple tip, a recommendation, a tool you recently developed as part of your software suite, or simply saying thank you to a co-worker you appreciate. Authenticity is key here, and who knows, maybe your video is becoming the next viral thing on LinkedIn generating thousands of eyeballs on your brand.

Live Content (Webinars, Live Interviews, Shows, Product Presenations

I think this is the most underused and underestimated feature right now on LinkedIn or for B2B in general. Everyone is focusing on gated content, that Webinar, that whitepaper promotion to desperately generate that form fill. Hey, don’t get me wrong here that’s fine – but do you know how powerful live events are? They make your business stand out. + there’s no need to throw the content away after the live event is done… you can still use it afterward and make your beloved gated content landing page…

Why live? Why not gated? Well very easy – the exposure you get from live events is massive. Yes, every important social media network already has the functionality! Networks like Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn are pushing live content every time it comes up. This goes from showing up at the very top on the feeds of your network to pop-up mobile notifications that get sent out to every contact or follower.

I mean, is there any other cheaper and more engaging way to get in touch with your target audience or contacts in your network? The live discussion during these events is real and participant numbers are probably also very different compared to gated content or webinars.

Also, if you are a Demand Gen Manager, you are already used to creating a producing a webinar – give live events a try – I think you will be surprised how successful they can be. Leverage that knowledge and promote your Live Event before it takes place – let people sign up or let you know that they are interested (e.g. the Facebook event feature)

If you want to know more about how to create and promote live events on Social – contact us here!

So that’s it, these are our Top 7 B2B Social Media Trends right now. Do you agree?