In the past, B2B brands relied heavily on traditional media to promote their products and services. However, business continues to become increasingly digital and younger generations are aging into decision-​making roles. B2B brands need to recognize the benefits of social media marketing if they want to be relevant to consumers.

Have You Shared the Benefits of Social Media Marketing with Your B2B Clients?

Millennials are Decision-​Makers Now

Your client may still see millennials as a young generation, but the youngest members are now approaching their 30s. They’re in positions of power in the companies they work for now (and honestly have been for some time). Marketers and salespeople alike know that the best way to increase sales is to reach out to consumers the way they prefer to be contacted. For millennials, that’s digital media. The benefits of social media marketing when reaching these decision-​makers cannot be understated.

B2B Buyers Rely on Social Media

Of course, not all B2B buyers fall in the millennial demographic. However, according to research from the Winterberry Group, their reliance on online research and social media is the same. Winterberry points out a few important trends among B2B buying decisions:

• 58% of B2B customers spend more time researching the products and services they’re interested in online before making a purchasing decision
• 54% agree that social media has become an increasingly important source of information
• 46% are increasing their access of content via mobile devices
• 44% say that peer reviews and user-​generated content play a bigger role in their purchase decision-​making processes

What do all of those trends have in common? B2B businesses that practice them can reap the benefits of social media marketing. The B2B customer’s research will definitely include social media, social media is easy to access via mobile devices (especially since most consumers already have social media apps on their phones) and peer reviews and user-​generated content can be found all over social media.

What Sites Should Your Client Use?

If your client wants to reap the benefits of social media marketing, they need to first identify which platforms they should post their advertisements on. An easy way to look up that information is by searching for their target audience(s)’ profile(s) on AudienceSCAN on AdMall by SalesFuel. There, you can look up which social media platforms your client’s target audience is the most active on. You can also look up information on how well they respond to ads on social media, as well as what types of content inspire them. Then, you can get to work on creating content using social media best practices.

Getting Ahead of the Competition

Not only do B2B decision-​makers find social media incredibly useful, your competition doesn’t realize this fact yet. According to Winterberry, last year, offline media spend made up more than 68% of B2B media spend in the U.S. Even by 2026, not much is expected to change. Winterberry estimates that over 61% of B2B media spend will still be put toward offline media.

Now is your client’s chance to reap the benefits of social media marketing AND get a leg up on their competition while doing so! Your client can dominate their industry’s online and social media presence so that when B2B decision-​makers go looking for their next investment, they’ll find your client’s company easily. Not only that, with your client’s posts showing up more often in the customers’ searches, they’ll quickly be established as an authority in the industry.

Time to meet B2B decision-​makers where they’re searching for information and prefer to find it: social media.

Photo by Sara Kurfeß