4 Social Media Marketing Best Practices for Technology Brands

Many B2B technology brands struggle with implementing social media marketing strategies as they face a different landscape than the “traditional” social media playing field of B2C. Many believe that B2C companies have it easier because they have a direct line to their consumers. Contrary to popular belief, B2B tech companies do, too – 58% of IT buyers use social media to make tech buying decisions.

The major difference when it comes to navigating social media marketing for B2B tech companies is implementing unique strategies to get in front of the right decision makers. The solution is to simply follow a series of social media best practices directed at finding, engaging, and motivating the right people, at the right time.

Segment Your Target Audience

People readily share massive amounts of information about who they are online, and if you’re using a Social Listening tool you can benefit from it. Location, age, gender, etc. All, some or most of this information is out there on most of your customers. This is crucial because it can help you refine your campaign material and messaging when you know even the most basic demographic information about your audience – their age, gender, languages. Using a Social Listening tool like Synthesio will help you uncover these insights, and also let you delve even further into more sophisticated analytics like interests and affinities.

As you can see in the example above, Marketo knows that it’s target audience are marketers, so they share content that is relevant and relatable to their audience. Part of their targeted content strategy is sharing humorous “Marketoonist” cartoons that are “inside jokes” marketers can relate to and will appreciate.

Establish A Voice

Creating a strong, friendly and consistent voice will bring you closer to your audience, and even help humanize your brand. Even in B2B, people want to buy from people they like, and can even relate to. Social media gives your brand the opportunity to develop a brand personality and connect with your audience in an engaging, personal way.

“You got this.” ? #TuesdayMotivation from @IBMCommerce UX Designer @oliviagdavis. #IBMDesign pic.twitter.com/iyT1K4oG2J

— IBM (@IBM) September 13, 2016

Share Helpful Content

Content marketing is king in the world of B2B tech social engagement. For every B2B product, there are users out there looking to expand their knowledge and optimize their product use. Many B2B customers use these products in their day-to-day jobs, so they are always on the hunt to find more efficient ways to do their work and maximize their experience with their products.

Give your posts a second life. See the latest data on when to repost social content: https://t.co/R3SGmRVttI pic.twitter.com/gImmJmqTuD

— Spredfast (@Spredfast) September 16, 2016

Promote Brand Advocacy

Wouldn’t you love an army of brand advocates tweeting your content and singing your praises about your products and services to all their social media connections? To develop advocacy around your brand, you need to begin by building real relationships on an individual basis. This could come in the form of exceptional customer service or by developing an engaging community around your brand. By listening to customer conversations and engaging and solving real problems in real-time, you can even do better than creating brand advocates – you can win over brand detractors.

Furthermore, using a Social Listening influencer identification tool like Synthesio’s enables you to easily locate influencers across the social web and then develop strategies to incentivize those users to share key information that will sway potential buyers. This approach, known as Influencer Marketing, relies on organic social sharing and referrals, rather than en masse messaging, to drive brand awareness and purchases.

Learn more about top marketing technology by checking out our eBook: Enterprise Social Marketing Tools: The 2016 Ultimate List. These great tools will help you reduce time in daily activities, increase ROI and make your day-to-day marketing efforts more efficient.

@seomid Congrats on your first Hootsuite tweet! You’re stepping into an exciting world of new opportunities :)

— Hootsuite (@hootsuite) September 16, 2016

Learn more about top marketing technology by checking out our ebook: Enterprise Social Marketing Tools: The 2016 Ultimate List. These great tools will help you reduce time in daily activities, increase return on investments and make your day-to-day marketing efforts more efficient.

See any technology B2B brands with great social media content? Let us know in the comments section below!