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Nontraditional Social Media for B2B Marketers

How To Implement Social Media Into Your B2B Marketing Campaign

As a B2B (business to business) marketer, you may be hesitant when it comes to social media. After all, can you really create B2B social content that is as engaging as a B2C (business to consumer) marketing campaign?

The answer is yes! And you can do it by using nontraditional social media.

Social media is ever evolving, and it’s up to you to remain relevant and educated—even as a B2B marketer. In this blog, we discuss the weird, nontraditional ways you can use social media in your B2B marketing campaign. It is our hope that we are able to shed light on the different ways you can take advantage of social media and inspire you to implement social media into your next B2B campaign!

What is nontraditional social media?

Nontraditional social media refers to the group of social channels that are highly visual, highly engaging, and mostly appeal to niche audiences. Key examples of nontraditional social media would be platforms such as Instagram and Pinterest. These niche channels present exciting opportunities for B2B marketers.

Of course, we have “traditional” social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. However, just because these platforms are more traditional doesn’t mean you can’t use them in nontraditional ways!

For example, videos are becoming more important than ever in marketing. Sharing authentic content such as videos on traditional social media channels is a creative and nontraditional way to use those platforms. Plus, channels like Facebook and Instagram have made it easier than ever to produce video. Facebook Live and IGTV are great ways to engage with other businesses and share live videos. These could be educational, behind the scenes, or whatever works best with your campaign! 

Take a look at some of our most recent videos for inspiration!

However, using traditional social media in a nontraditional way has some implications. Meeting other marketers in the middle is becoming more difficult as social media continues to evolve. To be effective, you have to understand who’s using these channels, how they’re using them, and what they want to gain from them.

This post dives deep into these implications and gives you some examples of how you can leverage nontraditional social media in your B2B marketing strategy.

4 Implications of Nontraditional Social Media for B2B Marketers

Implication #1: Now, more than ever, you must have a keen understanding of who you want to reach with your marketing.

The majority of nontraditional social media channels have niche audiences. To get the most out of them, you must be able to align who you want to reach (think buyer personas) with the key demographics of the particular social channel you want to use.

Typically, the people that use these channels are younger. But as more of the younger generation (dare I say, millennials) move into management and decision-making roles, you’ll want to find ways to connect with them that won’t come across so traditional—or worse yet, overdone.

For instance, most Facebook users are between the ages of 25 and 34, while Instagram users are mainly between the ages of 18 and 24. Understanding your target audience is crucial to creating a successful, nontraditional marketing campaign for social. However it’s not just about knowing the age of your target audience. You also need to know when your target audience is most likely to see your content. Take a look at our blog to learn the best times for posting on social media

Implication #2: You must optimize your online presence for mobile.

A 2019 Hootsuite report shows that 3.26 billion people use their mobile devices to access social media. And to further that statistic, most nontraditional social channels are optimized to only be used on a mobile device, such as Snapchat, Twitter and Instagram.

Having a mobile-friendly marketing strategy is imperative if you want to use these channels to ultimately drive conversions, leads and customer retention. This could include investing in responsive design for your website, improving page speed, or making links easier to click on mobile devices.

Implication #3: You have to be smart about nontraditional social media placement in your overall marketing strategy.

Ultimately, how these nontraditional channels are used is going to be different from business to business. Some companies will have nontraditional social tactics as a major part of their strategies, while others may use these tactics as supportive brand awareness techniques.

What makes the most sense for a majority of B2B marketers is to use these tactics as a part of a larger strategy. Use these nontraditional social channels to serve a very specific purpose such as product demos, live webinars, brand awareness and more.

However you decide to incorporate nontraditional social into your strategy, be sure that it makes sense and sends the right message to the right people at the right time. 

Implication #4: Nontraditional social media is about relationship nurturing. You need to create or update your marketing and sales strategy to reflect this.

Relationship nurturing is a key factor in marketing and sales, especially in the B2B realm. If you don’t have a strategy that aims to generate leads and build a relationship with them in an interesting and authentic way, you’re missing out on great potential.

Nontraditional social media is all about relationship nurturing. The nature of these channels allows you to engage with your buyer personas in a highly personable way that also adds value.

By doing partial product demos or webinars via nontraditional social, you’re able to educate your buyer personas in a non-confrontational way. This gives them just enough information to want to contact you for their needs. And if you’re successful, you’ll be able to build and nurture relationships with them that will eventually lead to lifelong customers.

Knowing and acting on these four implications will allow you to leverage nontraditional social media in creative and successful ways. Just because you’re a B2B company doesn’t mean you can’t take advantage of social media!

Here at Pinckney, we know the value of a successful social media campaign. We’re experienced in using social media in nontraditional ways that generates leads and sales for our clients. If you’re ready to improve your B2B social media marketing strategy, download our resource linked below. In our Social Media Handbook, you’ll learn concrete ways to generate leads through social media. Interested? Click the button below to access your free guide!

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Content was originally published on June 14, 2016. Content was refreshed on July 15, 2019 by Kailey Dixon.