Common B2B Social Media Mistakes to Avoid

Building an effective, professional social media presence is important for B2B businesses. Billions of people log on to their social media accounts every day and, in addition to looking for entertainment and interacting with their friends, they are searching for products, researching companies, and trying to learn new information. In order to capture a piece of that potential market, your company needs to be on social media, post consistently, and share information that people care about.

To help you out, we’ve put together a list of common social media mistakes that B2B companies make and how you can avoid them.

Too much emphasis on the sale

The most common social media mistakes that businesses make is being too promotional. There is a place for sales on social media, but it’s important to not sell something in every single post. You’re trying to build up your online reputation, encourage engagement, and show people what kind of company you are. To accomplish those goals, you need a mix of different types of posts, including industry best practices, customer testimonials, updates on your team, and how your company interacts with the community. Today, people respond best to marketing that isn’t too obviously marketing. In most situations, through social media we prefer to be educated or entertained, or both, rather than be sold to, even when we are making a business purchase. It’s important to keep that guideline in mind when planning your B2B social media strategy.

Not going where your audience is

Trying to post on every single social media platform can be overwhelming and unnecessary. It’s critical that you understand your customers, know who they are, and recognize where they spend most of their time on social media. For the majority of B2B businesses, Facebook and LinkedIn are usually the most valuable platforms, because their users are a slightly older demographic than other platforms, and people use these platforms to find information, not just for entertainment. Focus your energy, time, and effort on the platforms that you see the most engagement on and the largest return from.

Responding too slowly

You might expect to wait a day to have a company respond to your email or return a phone call, but the expectations for social media are much faster. A slow response time on social media will erode confidence in your company and increase customer frustration with your brand. It’s important that your team is prepared to monitor and respond in a timely manner to any messages or comments you may receive through your B2B social media platforms.

Only looking at superficial metrics

The last of the common B2B social media mistakes that companies often make is not looking at the right metrics. Likes, shares, and comments are important indicators of how engaging your content is, but you also have to look a little deeper. You should analyze things like how much traffic your social media accounts are driving to your website, how many quality leads you are generating through them, and how many people end up becoming customers after interacting with your company on social media platforms. Ultimately, the effort you put into social media should be resulting in more sales, but you need to look at the right metrics to know whether those conversions are happening.

If you have any questions about common B2B social media mistakes or about building professional social media accounts in general, contact our team today.

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