Social media has been one of the preferred research platforms among B2B buyers to know more about the vendors and analyse if they can deliver what they say.
B2B marketers are getting better at leveraging social platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter but are lagging behind when it comes to Instagram marketing.
So, if you are looking for ways to use Instagram for your B2B brand, this article is for you.
In this article, I will be sharing some effective Instagram marketing strategies that successful B2B brands are using and you can use it too.
But before going into that, let’s see if Instagram is a right marketing platform for B2B businesses.
Is Instagram effective for B2B marketing
Instagram is not just a platform for sharing videos and photos, but it is even more than that. Currently, the Millenials are hooked into social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram 24*7, and this has provided a great opportunity for marketers to boost their business sales.
As per Statista, Instagram has currently reached the milestone of reaching 116 million users in the US and 73 million users in India.
So, it is obvious that there’s a huge audience base on Instagram that brands can use and there’s a big possibility that your target audiences (business professionals) are also available on the platform.
But the questions you should ask is – Why do they use Instagram?
Get your answer and then build your Instagram marketing strategy. However, one thing should be clear to you that you cannot use Instagram the way you use LinkedIn for B2B marketing.
Instagram cannot be your primary B2B marketing platform.
But it can always be a platform where you can build your presence to reach young targets, create brand awareness, and stay connected with existing customers.
Here are few ways B2B brands can be benefited from Instagram marketing-
1. Building Trust With Your Audience
Instagram is a photo/video sharing platform which enables you to humanize your brand by sharing pictures and videos displaying the company culture and the talents behind the company.
Now, in the B2B space, people don’t invest in your product or services, but the people behind it. And presenting your company as an organization that cares and delivers to its customers helps you build trust and credibility with the audience.
2. Increase In Traffic To Your Site
If you are using Instagram for marketing your business and you are looking for direct traffic to your website, then with just a few tactics up in your sleeve, you can achieve this feat. First, you need to include a website link on your Instagram bio as this will help your followers to visit your company website if they come directly through your profile.
Also, you need to go for the regular posting of images or videos, where you can implement a call to action button or a URL link so that the visitors can get redirected to your website with just a single click.
Apart from this, Instagram Ad is useful in driving traffic to your website. If you are providing clickable links or URLs in your Instagram Ad, then you are letting your followers get involved in your digital campaigns directly.
3. Attracting potential talents to work
With a whopping 90% of users younger than 35, Instagram is one of the best social media platforms where you can connect with a young audience and attract the best talents to work with you.
In fact, 94% of professional recruiters are now networking on social media for talent acquisition and management, and 59% of employees say a company’s social media presence was part of the reason they chose their workplace.
So, if not for marketing purpose, you must have a Instagram presence for recruiting purpose.
Effective B2B Instagram Marketing Strategies
As I have already mentioned that Instagram may not be the best platform for B2B brands to generate leads and acquire customers, but it is definitely a killer platform when it comes to building relationships and digital PR.
That being said, let’s go through some of the effective B2B Instagram marketing strategies.
1. Use enticing feed
Having an alluring Instagram feed is extremely important for your users to stick to your page. All you need to do is to use a colourful and visually appealing image with a call to action button. This might compel the users to click on it and have a look at your website as well.
A professional team of designers can help you in creating the most eye-catching and daunting images for your Instagram feed. Here’s an example of how a brand like ‘Iconosquare’ is making use of eye-catching news feeds.
2. Bring out your brand story
Telling what your brand deals with is highly important for your Instagram marketing. However, pitching your products and services directly can be a bit irrelevant on the platform since users are not here to discover new companies but to see beautiful images and videos.
And that’s what you should use to tell about your brand.
Posting visually appealing images that talk a lot about your brand, people might get interested in having a peek into your profile where they can find the website, contact information and brand description.
Apart from putting your contact information and brand description, a profile feed with visual images and videos actually speak a lot about your brand. So, use feed content to convey your company story to the audience. People should know about your brand in order to use your products and services and become your loyal advocates.
3. Go for influencer marketing
Influencer marketing can help in accelerating your brand awareness and reach more audience. One right influencer or content creator can help you to bring in more engagement on your Instagram feeds than a paid promotion.
B2C brands have cracked their way through influencer marketing, and B2B marketers need to learn from that. Lots of B2B brands are using Instagram to bring their business to the forefront, but only 11% of B2B brands have started working on influencer marketing programs.
That being said, it is also true that B2B influencer marketing is not as easy as B2C counterparts. Your target audience is business professionals and to win their trust, you need someone with credibility and expertise to talk about your products and services.
Here are few ideas that you can use for your Instagram influencer marketing –
- Turn your top clients into influencers by hosting Instagram Live sessions.
- Publish case studies on your clients and ask them to share it on their feed.
- Co-create content with your partners, media publications and bloggers.
4. Bring forth your team
Talking more about the people behind your business is something that your users would love to see, and most of the B2B companies are now putting forward a human face on their Instagram feed.
Just look at how Ahrefs is using Instagram to promote the company culture and lifestyle of their employees.
To gain goodwill towards the brand, companies are now making use of the IGTV channel and are introducing their employees to their followers, who are the main reason behind the company’s success. Apart from IGTV videos, companies are also posting pictures of behind the scene people which have garnered them massive followers.
Similarly, you can make use of the Instagram story section and show your team’s day-to-day hard work, challenges and growth. Almost 500 million daily Instagram users are engaging themselves in Instagram stories, and this is one of the greatest opportunities for B2B marketers to promote their business or bring more followers to their business page.
5. Show your business expertise to your audience
Another strategy of B2B marketing is letting your customers know more about your skills and expertise. This can be done with the help of educational content which will focus more on your products and services.
One of my favourite B2B brands that are killing at this strategy is SEMrush. Just look at their Instagram feed – it’s full of tips, strategies, tactics related to SEO.
Apart from this, you can also use bite-sized content or quotes by Industry leaders who are related to your products and services. And while sharing the posts ensure that you are using the right hashtags to gain more reach among your target audience.
- Read: Brilliant ways to pick right Instagram hashtags for your business
6. Explain your product or service usage
As a B2B enterprise, you need to simplify your purchasing process. Make use of Instagram to explain how one can utilize your products and services in a simplified manner.
For instance, If your company sells SaaS products, you can simply create short explainer videos highlighting it’s important features, benefits and pricing structure.
Similarly, service-based companies can create a series of videos in which you can explain the services you offer, your process, customer reviews, etc.
Basically, the objective behind this strategy is to let your followers know what your company offers and what’s in it for them.
7. Share customer success stories
If a potential customer is interested in your products and services, the first thing he or she would look for is your customer testimonials and project success stories. It would be time-consuming for them to visit your website and then check out the testimonials section or the case study section. Therefore, it will be best if you can share the success stories of your recent projects on your Instagram page. This will attract the attention of not only your followers but also your customers.
People who earlier purchased a product or service from you might be interested in making another purchase, and they might become your returning customer.
If you are sharing an image or video of your customer review or client testimonial, then this can even encourage your fan following to jot down their thoughts about your company in the comments section.
In this way, you can also find out if people are actually interested in your products and services. You can directly publish your product reviews and video testimonials to the IGTV section where you can also add a link to the landing page in the description.
This will ensure that you are not only gaining more followers but getting potential leads to your site as well. Check out how WebEngage is making use of customer testimonials –
8. Talk more about discounts and offers
Focus more on deals, offers, and discounts to bring in more follower engagement into your Instagram business page. With exclusive deals and offers, you can generate leads for your business because people are always looking for a cost-effective purchase.
You can also run a contest on Instagram where you can also provide a Freemium version of your product or services or just a freebie on first purchase.
As per reports from TailwindApp, Instagram posts currently consist of 91% contests, and that is the reason why business pages are gaining more followers. Millennials today are always in the lookout for exciting opportunities and contests are one of the best ways of garnering more followers to your B2B Instagram page and thus converting into business leads.
9. Run Instagram Ad campaigns
You can run Ad campaigns on your Instagram business page to reach out to a wider audience who might be interested in your offering. Smart marketers always know when to use paid campaign and why. As per the research conducted by Social Media Examiner, 38% of B2B marketers make use of Instagram Ad campaigns for better promotion of their products and services.
As I said earlier, Instagram may not be the ideal platform for lead generation, but it is surely a great platform to create brand awareness and stay on top of the prospects’ minds till they make their purchasing decision.
Here are some of the best ways to use Instagram Ads-
- Retargeting website visitors
- Nurture leads and prospects at different deal stages
- Promote new features to existing customers for upselling
- Promote success stories of your customers.
10. Add appointment booking button
You can now include the appointments or booking section directly on your Instagram handles. Instagram, now has a ‘Book Now’ action button which has been proved to be the best CTA button for the business pages.
Once the follower clicks on the ‘Book’ button, they will be taken to an external landing page of the website. The entire booking process is completed with third-party booking services like Booksky, Appointy, Acuity Scheduling, etc.
As per Facebook, the booking or appointment scheduling process in social media is changing and with this new feature, Instagram users can now make a booking or appointment directly without leaving the app.
This added convenience for users can be useful for service-based businesses to allow users to book appointments or consultation. Very few businesses are leveraging this and you should be among them.
Wrapping Up
LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter are the 3 major social media marketing platforms for B2B brands. And Instagram with over a billion users isn’t one of them.
And that’s obvious because people on Instagram are not looking for being pitched. It is a personal space for them and a good marketer understands this and leverages the platform accordingly.
In terms of B2B, Instagram cannot be a primary marketing platform but it shouldn’t be ignored as well. You just have to use it differently as discussed above. And to find some inspiration to get started, you should check out my article on the best B2B brands on Instagram.
Let’s wrap up the article by going through the Instagram marketing ideas once again –
- Create attention-grabbing feed
- Bring out your brand story
- Go for influencer marketing
- Bring forth your team
- Show expertise in your space
- Explain your product or services
- Share customer success stories
- Talk more about discounts and free trial
- Run Instagram paid campaigns
- Add appointment booking CTA