Can you use Instagram Marketing for B2B?
Instagram is predominantly a B2C platform, but so you might be surprised if I told you that around 1/3 of our Instagram training sessions are with B2B Businesses.
Would you also be surprised as well that around 1 in 5 social media training sessions comes about from our marketing on Instagram.
To show you the variety of the businesses on Instagram, around 20 minutes ago we posted a photo on Instagram and the interaction on the post has been from a Solicitor, Personal Trainer, Coworking Office, Charity, Clothing Retailer, Tutoring Business and a number of personal accounts. Instagram is literally for everyone.
If you’re still not convinced, here are some stats on Instagram for B2B.
- “61% of B2B businesses use Instagram as part of their marketing strategy” Hootsuite
- “Instagram is the second most effective social media platform for B2B content marketing, after LinkedIn” Content Marketing Institute
- “71% of B2B companies use Instagram to share visual content, while 54% use it to share industry-related news and updates” SproutSocial
Here are 5 Ways You Use Can Use Instagram For B2B
Show Off The Company Culture On Instagram
Over 3/4s of job seekers will research a company on social media before applying for a job.
One easy way for companies to use Instagram is to show off the company culture and give a behind the scenes view of what it’s like to work for your business.
Whilst not every company will have a pool table, an office dog, free gym memberships … most companies will have team nights out, benefits to working with the business.
And every business can give an insight to the people working for the business and what they do each day.
If your business is in growth and recruitment mode then this type of content will help you achieve your business objectives of attracting the right candidates.
Hero Your Customers On Instagram
My business isn’t very visual.
It used to be before the pandemic when I travelled around the country to deliver social media training in person, but as 90% of our training is via zoom these days I only really leave the house for the gym, meals out and rock & roll gigs.
If your business is like mine, where by it’s very nature it isn’t visual, consider putting your customers on your instagram as the heroes of your story.
A lot of our customers are visual B2C businesses, so they can give us great content that we can use to shout about how good they are.
Visa UK and Small Business Saturday are 2 examples of accounts on Instagram that hero their customers.
Share Industry Updates on Instagram
Lawyers. Solicitors. IT Firms.
Yes. I’m looking at you specifically for this one.
This is your bread and butter content for social media, but there’s a big caveat.
You’ve got to make this content interesting and timely, because every other person in your industry is doing the samee.
There’s no point in posting the updates 2 weeks after everyone else has and making it dryer than a very very dry thing.
You can still give factual updates and make it entertaining – in fact Martin Lewis has made a career out of it!
Hints & Tips On Instagram
1 in 3 of our posts on Instagram are Hints and Tips style content
Whether it’s the A-Z Of Social Media series, 10 Ways To Make More Money or our one off quotes such as “Are You Guilty Of Throwing Spaghetti At The Wall?” or “Delay Is The Deadliest Form Of Denial”
We treat these Instagram posts as mini blogs. Snackable content that you can consume and take something from.
Instagram is a chance to show off your expertise.
Promote Events On Instagram
Do you have face 2 face events or webinars to promote?
Work your way back 6 weeks from the event date and plan your content in advance.
We run our hugely successful Alex & His Sisters networking events and the next one has 100 women in business booked on. Around a 3rd of them came about because people saw photos from the last event on instagram.
Similar our next webinar has over 30 business owners booked on with a large number being followers on Instagram.
Are events part of your business strategy?
What next?
The above suggestions are a range of what you can do.
The content you post needs to be aligned with your business strategy and objectives.
That is where we start with Instagram training before you get trigger happy on the posting.
NEED HELP WITH SOCIAL MEDIA TRAINING FOR YOUR BUSINESS
Chat to us about Social Media Marketing for YOUR organisation , so we can better understand YOU and what will grow your organisation
We can chat about whether online or Face 2 Face is better for you
We can only find out what is unique to your business by chatting with you
Look at our Social Media Training and Social Media Management services
We offer Social Media Training on
* LinkedIn
* Instagram
* Facebook
* Twitter
* TikTok
* Blogging
We can do this
* 121
* Corporate Workshops
* Group Workshops
* Face to Face or Via Zoom / Skype
Please call Alex on 07806774279 or email alex@altrinchamhq.co.uk