In What Ways Do B2C and B2B Social Media Marketing Strategies Differ?

Social media marketing is a great way to boost a brand’s online presence and build relationships with prospects and customers. But when it comes to building out a result-oriented social media marketing strategy, B2C and B2B strategies differ drastically.  

Social media marketing as a focus area can yield ROI to both B2C and B2B companies, if pursued with the right goals, strategy, content mix and more. While social media marketing is now seen as an important must-have for most B2C and B2B marketers today, when it comes to planning a social media strategy, knowing the key differences between both can be useful to keeping the basics right.

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The Social Platforms of Focus would Differ

There can be overlaps in platforms between B2C and B2B marketing teams, but when it comes to planning a strong social media strategy, a B2B brand might benefit more from a targeted social media approach on platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube with Facebook, Pinterest or Instagram, the last two being good-to-haves but not must-haves…on the other hand, B2C marketers can benefit more from a different priority list where Facebook and Instragram might feature on top of the list. 

Studies have suggested that B2C marketers are known to focus more on Facebook, while B2B marketers think of LinkedIn as a top priority. 

Platforms like YouTube and others can actually be used effectively to drive goals for both types of marketers if there is already a robust video or audio content marketing plan in place to drive content for channels such as these. 

Type of Content and Frequency is Different

B2C marketers can get away with, or rather, are expected to use social media channels creatively, to drive engagement and other vanity metrics like likes, shares and more. But B2B social media marketers have to take on a different approach when planning their social media content, keeping value-add material a top priority. B2B social media marketers have to eventually track their social media metrics with the aim of using the data to optimize plans that can actually allow them to use their social media channels to drive leads. 

The common B2B content marketing mix typically includes whitepapers, blogs, podcasts, webinars, ebooks, infographics, case studies and similar such items. These are then used to drive social media post content according to a content schedule. 

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A B2C content marketing mix might include some of these content elements but are usually more focused on instant content (not in-depth materials like whitepapers as often) and are built to drive daily activity on the social media channels. In B2B marketing, social media marketing plays a key role in driving lead generation initiatives but the number of posts might be far lesser than a B2C brand that has 100s of individual customers they need to engage with constantly. 

The content needs and content consumption habits of both these audiences are drastically different thereby requiring B2B marketers and B2C marketers to think, plan and act accordingly. 

More Targeted vs General

Website metrics matter to most marketers, today’s martech features allow marketers to easily track social media engagement while also evaluating how many customers made a purchase via social media or showed interest in buying a product/service. 

B2B marketers use this data to drive further marketing efforts with the aim of converting more users and visitors in future. B2C marketers who often need to use social media to keep up with their audience with posts on current events, social trends need to spend more time building out social media plans that drive engagement versus those meant to drive customer conversions. 

Social media marketing has to be a part of every marketer’s marketing mix today, what can differ is the priority a team gives it among other marketing channels. With the host of social media marketing platforms available today, marketing teams can easily find ways to build robust social media content plans while being able to schedule posts in advance for better operations management. 

Social media marketing can help reach B2B decision makers at top companies and make it easier for marketers to cut through the long marketing and sales cycles that are common in B2B.

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