The ever-growing popularity of the social networking app Instagram makes it a popular channel for businesses to launch their services, advertising, and brand building strategies. B2B companies are, however, in two minds about the benefits of the site for them. Sure, the platform works great for B2C business, but how does a place that boosts client engagement with photos and videos as primary story-telling sources help out in the business-to-business vertical?
Rest assured that Instagram is a strong visual marketing platform for all brands and businesses. With a few strategic tips, you can grow your B2B business taking advantage of the same features other business types benefit from on this social platform. It all boils down to how much engagement you can generate on your Business account.
How Do You Begin Marketing Your B2B on Instagram?
To give your company a head-start in making the site’s algorithms work in your favor, consider investing in services that help you plan your initial marketing steps. You could for, instance, buy likes and saves to push up your visibility on the main feed of Instagram.
Think creatively and break out into innovative ways of providing an engaging and interactive digital experience for your target audience. A good strategy concentrates on growing the target audience organically. Further, it aims not just to build interaction on the social media platform but also to convert the audience into clients and partners who bring business.
What Should You Aim to Do on Instagram for Your B2B business?
Instagram is only a means to a larger end. What you choose as your marketing strategy will determine your account activities and upkeep.
Here are a few tips to get you going:
- keep your long-term goals in mind as you plan your activities and updates on your Insta Business Account;
- keep it casual, informative, and engaging;
- viewers like fresh perspectives even if what you offer is a staple product. What sets your products and services apart for businesses to invest in you? Reframe existing conversations to build audience interest;
- remember to use the platform’s features wisely to give yourself the ultimate advertising edge on a minimal budget.
In short, your approach to utilizing the platform can be nearly surmised as a two-step one:
- Plan your content marketing. With this in mind, organize campaigns and launch products using the platform. This works best when you use Instagram as part of a multi-platform marketing strategy as the website itself encourages linking accounts to active Facebook pages for a full experience of its features.
- Rebrand your online presence by using consistent and recognizable visual details. You can do this by creating post templates with inconsistent color schemes, adding your logo onto each post or video you upload or sticking to a particular font type for your lettering.
Once you have built your presence, you will realize the benefits of being on the platform have already begun to show for your company.
What are the Advantages of Being on Instagram for A B2B business?
If used smartly, Instagram can bring several benefits to your B2B business:
- You Can Advertise with a Minimum Budget. Given Instagram’s popularity, the platform is perfect for B2B businesses to find marketing opportunities for their products and services. No matter your niche, your target audience is already out there using Instagram, and you can reach them without spending a fortune on paid advertising.
Here are a few cost-effective yet impactful ways of successfully marketing yourself on Instagram as a B2B business:
- Use Instagram as a Window into your Company. Share snippets and details from an insider’s perspective. Show your potential customers what’s happening within the business. The transparency is sure to get your client’s approval.
- Share Insights from Thought Leaders. This is an effective way of creating brand awareness. Besides, thought leaders can answer consumer queries effectively, and this ups your company’s trust quotient.
- Humanize Your Corporate Culture. You are more likely to build a customer clientele organically if you can demonstrate that your organization’s employee-work life is sustainable and healthy. Work is not just about completing projects and deadlines. Let your target audience see the environment and work ethics too.
- Make Announcements. Instagram is a great platform to post announcements on sales, employment opportunities, and products or launches. Use Photos and Videos to your advantage to create attractive visuals to generate desired attention.
- Create Quality Captions. Even when your post is not an announcement, pay attention to creating your captions. Anyone looking to do business with you will concentrate on the fine print, which in this case is what you write alongside your visual post.
- Leverage Hashtags to your Advantage. Hashtags are essential for B2B businesses as they have the potential to take your business to a broader reach. Choosing the right hashtags is similar to choosing SEO keywords for a website. Create your hashtags for your brand or use ones that are trending.
- Tell Stories Using Instagram Stories and Instagram TV. Instagram Stories disappear after 24 hours but is a popular source of drawing attention to your feed. IGTV, however, can be replayed and is suited for longer video content. Use these to highlight products, provide insights, reviews, and tutorials. The right content can catapult your Insta presence and bring you organic growth in clients and partnerships.
- Your Business is Likely to Get Increased Exposure. Social media platforms like Instagram lets you interact with others in your industry. It also brings your company exposure to industry influencers with whom your paths might not have crossed outside the virtual world. Following key hashtags and accounts about your niche and using the same in your posts allows for this kind of cross-exposure. This, in effect, also translates to lead generation at a minimal cost. Amplify your outreach by joining conversations on relevant posts.
- Your Account Traffic Can Translate into Traffic to Your Home Page. If you are able to generate active and consistent levels of user engagement on your Instagram account, you are sure to pique curiosity as a brand. This will direct traffic to your company website and products too. To make this easy:
- Provide a link in your bio that takes your viewers to your official business website or shopping page;
- Drive traffic directly to your products and services using Shoppable tags. This feature is available if you have a connected Facebook page. However, not all countries currently offer this feature.
- You Can Scout Talent on Instagram. If your B2B brand is looking to hire new professionals, the platform is teaming with rising talent and impressive young minds. Find job-seekers using announcements and exploring portfolios of potential employees. Several recruiting companies like Betts Recruiting are also on Instagram, and you will be able to look into their talent-pool for suitable candidates as well. You can, in fact, do this with greater flexibility over the social platform.
- You Can Identify Your Market for Smart Advertising. Your customers use Instagram, and so should you. It is an excellent place to study your target audience for building better business connections. Use inbuilt features of the site to help you do your market research:
- With Instagram Insights, you can see when your followers are visiting each day. This will help you figure out your ideal posting time on the platform.
- Study the demography and engagement patterns of your viewers. Are your viewers spread across time zones? Is one kind of content-generating more engagement than another? What content gets more shares, saves, and reposts? Which type of content generates more comments and tags? You will be able to build future content for your account more effectively, which will expand your audience outreach. As you study the market, you will also explore other audience patterns like – What kind of content are they sharing? What other B2B businesses are they actively engaging with?
- A primary goal for B2B sellers is lead generation. With the data compiled, you can concentrate on integrated advertisements targeted to specific keywords, hashtags, and demographics. This is likely to convert into a successful lead generation strategy.
- You Will Be Able to Generate Genuine Trust. This is undoubtedly the most significant benefit that wilt, in turn, is driving business traffic to you. If you can strategize your posts well, you will build an organic and authentic follower base. How you build your brand up will determine how much of this benefit you can reap. Build trust by:
- Sending and responding DMs. Be prompt in responding to queries and feedback. Thank potential customers for liking your photo or post. People like being appreciated and being personally attended to. Your public relations skills can motivate casual stoppers to return for more serious engagements with your account and, by extension, your business.
- Providing customer support services and instant FAQs using DMs and comments. This will humanize your company and provide client satisfaction.
- Providing the history behind your business. Even if you are a new company, Instagram provides ample means for you to familiarize your potential customers with who you are, how you started, and what your business ethos is. If you are an established company, let your clients know your company’s rich history. If you have good reviews and recommendations, share that with your audience. People are likely to build business relationships with you when they know how much experience you have in the field and what quality services or products you offer. Authentic posts will likely draw your potential clients to sign you up for their money’s worth.
- Being available personally. For many B2B businesses, deals are handled and signed by middlemen like managers. That does not mean you cannot engage and interact with your potential partners. Ensure your approachability in a professional yet friendly manner to set a comfortable work environment for potential and existing business partners.
- You Will Be Able to Coordinate with Your Business Partners in More Versatile Ways. No business thrives without repeat orders and referrals. B2B businesses are especially aware of the importance of working in conjunction with other companies to obtain shared benefits and long-term sustainable goals. With all the features available, coordinating joint events, organizing campaigns, product launches, contenders and giveaways become easier if your company has an Instagram account. Whether you are partnering with big businesses, mega or micro-influencers, this is the perfect platform to engage and interact for professional growth for all parties involved. As interaction time also doubles as marketing time, the platform increases value efficiency and transactional time for B2B sellers and buyers equally.
- You Will Be Able to Understand Changing Consumer Trends Better. Because you are already in the field, you can simultaneously be observing and adapting your marketing strategies to your customer engagements. So, you are in a better position to harness the benefits that come from changing consumer trends. Although marketing strategies for B2B and B2C businesses are slightly different, it is always a good idea to notice and tap into the trends your target audience is catching on to. Whether this involves relationship building or communication strategies, your company will be on the front line to maximize the effects of changing consumer trends.
- Adopt More Terminology into Your Business Outreach. Traditionally B2B market relies on strictly business terminology. Buyers and sellers know what they want from a product or service, and they stick to technical jargon while conducting conversations and transactions. Instagram opens your business to speaking in the language of your target audience. This means adapting the in-trend lingo of young millennials interested in B2B markets. Given the casual and informal environment of Instagram, your company can reap the benefits of using language in a manner you would not think of using with your business otherwise.
Go Take the Plunge!
In conclusion, many B2B companies resist creating Instagram accounts believing their products are too drab for a site that relies on visuals. Several also make the mistake of not being consistent with their accounts’ operations and getting disheartened when they remain relatively unknown. Building up ROI and content requires a time investment. Fear not, no matter what your services are and how you put them out there, there is always an audience waiting to be tapped into on Instagram. All it needs on your part is the determination to plan your foray into the social platform. Instagram is sure to become one of the essential traffic-driving platforms for your company.