Nothing defines business marketing today more than social media posts. With over 4.8 billion users worldwide, it’s no surprise that more than 80% of B2B companies rely on social platforms to research and engage with potential partners before making purchasing decisions.

So why is social media so effective for B2B brands?

It enhances online presence, drives growth, builds credibility, and fosters genuine relationships with clients and partners.

Here’s the challenge. Social media is only effective if you make it effective.

Viewers scroll through endless content every day. Repetitive posts get boring. Content variety is essential; it keeps your feed interesting, engages your audience, and keeps your brand relevant.  

While every brand may differ, certain posts often outperform others on platforms like LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook, which are considered the top platforms for B2B brands. Don’t be limited to one platform or content type, either. Switch things up. Here are 5 types of posts B2B companies must create. Each type is guaranteed to boost engagement, build authority, and target a diverse audience.

#1: Blog Post

First, blogs demonstrate your expertise and establish your brand’s authority, building trust. They provide information in a long-form style, allowing you to go deeper than a standard post. Sharing articles on social media makes your company a go-to resource, allowing your viewers to consistently rely on you for information.

Promote your articles, because companies should take pride in their posts. Blogs can be repurposed, so turn that information into short videos, infographics, Q&As, or quotes. Blogs are strategic and not limited to a single platform. Post them everywhere.

#2: Interactive Content

Next, interactive content is a guaranteed way to boost engagement and involve your audience. Social media isn’t one-sided, so don’t make it seem that way. Inviting interaction allows you to level with your audience and demonstrate that you value their opinion. Polls, quizzes, surveys, and Q&As help others feel heard and deepen relationships with clients and partners.

#3: Visual Content

Now, much of what you see online can be overwhelming. Switching to visuals makes content easier to digest, increases shareability, and clarifies complex information. Infographics, charts, diagrams, and illustrated lists capture attention with simplicity. Sometimes less is more.

Videos are a high-performing post tactic, and they capture viewers with sound and visuals. Videos require little effort to watch, making ideas simple yet effective. This is ideal for product demos, quick tips, and event recaps. Keep videos short and post them on multiple platforms to increase views.

When used effectively, Instagram posts can be highly effective. Visual storytelling is effective in conveying a brand’s personality and expertise, but it is essential to stay on top of posting regularly. Sharing quick tips, industry facts, and events from daily work, as well as employee highlights, humanizes your company and makes others want to work with you.

#4: Behind-the-Scenes Post

Behind-the-scenes content can often be overlooked, but it is one of the strongest ways to strengthen relationships and establish reliability. Whether you share this through videos, stories, or pictures, choosing to post your company at its most vulnerable lets users see the work you put into your business. Brands don’t just want to know what you do. They want to know the people behind the brand. Make your company relatable with spotlights, day-in-the-life posts, volunteering clips, partnerships, charity work, or celebrations. With all this hard work, you need people to see it.

#5: Industry Trends

Lastly, a similar approach to blogs, sharing knowledge on industry trends, establishes authority and attracts a professional audience. B2B buyers are seeking guidance to know what’s next and how to stay ahead. All companies must stay in tune with their industry, but some are more attuned to it than others. Being aware of emerging technologies, staying up-to-date with market shifts, and sharing regulatory updates and predictions for the future positions your company as well-prepared.

Post Now

In today’s fast-paced world, social media is a strategic place to build your company. It can be tough with all the content types, so rotate through these 5 high-performing posts. Your ideas will reach a wider audience, build trust and authority, and contribute your company growth. Experiment with these and watch your platform thrive.

I’ve told the “Books” story before, but I will tell it again quickly. As I was reading on the beach one summer, I was approached by my son’s friend who was like a son to me. And he knew me well. “Mrs. Porter are you reading Hemingway, Wilde, Austen, Shakespeare,” he asked. My response, “No, Jimmie. Thanks for that though. I am reading mindless trash.”

I mean no disrespect for the authors who are so incredibly talented. Books like Happy Wife, Broken Country, Atmosphere, OMG … just to name a few. Reading these books this summer on our annual family Gulf Shores, Alabama, trip definitely reduced my stress. But there were a lot of the other things I didn’t realize they did too.

Benefits of Reading

Happy Wife is set in Winter Park, Florida, which was my son’s — and by default my — home away from home for five years. Definitely an enjoyable read in familiar territory.

One book that kept me saying, “Yes. Oh, you go girl,” and a couple of other things because it coincidentally blurred into my work life was, Sunny Side Up by Katie Sturino.

As a start up that then turned into an extraordinarily successful brand quickly with an overly participatory investor, the main character, Sunny, pivoted. She realized her brand strategy and core customers were no longer at the core of her brand.

Finding Inspiration For Life and Work From Books

Thinking about this book lead me to write this blog. Successful start-ups and their business leaders always understand the following as they build and grow their companies:

1. Investment — Successful business owners and leaders understand they need to invest in their brand launch AND beyond. It is not just launch and be done. It is the continued investment over time that ensures success. So, make sure to run numbers before your launch. Do you have the capital to launch AND continue marketing? What is your true number to both launch and sustain this brand? Bootstrapping can cause a few negative effects, so be aware:
   • Slower growth which equals struggling to scale
   • Increased personal financial risk if the business stagnates or fails
   • Intense workload leading to burnout and sometimes health issues, which we have seen first-hand recently, of the entrepreneur. Hustle smarter not harder. Which leads to number two.
2. Team Members — How much time can you commit to this business? Some of our start-up leaders are working full-time jobs at other companies. But their hearts are somewhere else. Ask yourself this, start-up leader: If you are keeping your day job until this business takes off, do you have the support team in place to fill in the gaps?
3. Branding & On-going Marketing Support — We have waxed lyrical about these subjects before. The fact is that the fictional character Sunny got it. She built a brand based on a brand vision and ultimately stayed true to its mission and values. In addition, she consistently communicated with her best target after the product launch. Are you putting on-going support in place too?

Learn a Lesson From Fictional Characters and Real Business Leaders

Books can be blessings. Even mindless trash. Reading provides personal benefits like increased vocabulary, reduction of stress and enhanced cognitive functioning. But, as you can see, reading books can also translate into business learnings and idea generation at the same time. Happy end-of-summer reading, y’all!

Social media, in terms of business marketing, has completely skyrocketed in the past 25 years. Starting as a place to connect with friends, social media has now become a primary tool for over 96% of all businesses to promote their brands, share expertise, build trust and personality, and establish themselves as a reliable source that directly engages with their audience. With so many different platforms, which is best for your business?

Your answer can depend on many things. What is your approach or goals as a business? Who is your audience? What is the type of content you’re willing or able to create? All these components matter to create the best possible version of your company with a transformed marketing strategy. So, which are worth considering?

Platform #1: LinkedIn

With more than 67 million companies and over 1 billion members, LinkedIn is the largest professional networking platform. LinkedIn is known for business connections, professional brand building, enterprise growth, and more. This platform works great for B2B companies specifically, meaning it is great for sales pitches, strong for sharing blog posts, and allows space for many articles and paid ads that target based on your industry and profession.

LinkedIn is more than just sales pitches; it creates a space for sharing helpful tips and humane marketing strategies through those blogs and articles, which helps build trust and credibility for users.

Your company’s first post matters. Encourage all members of your team to contribute to the company by using their personal profiles as well, building even more trust. Commenting on others’ posts makes your company more visible and builds relationships with other companies, so stay on the grid.

Although LinkedIn provides a stable platform for networking, like any other social media platform, companies need to consistently post to stay noticed. Therefore, it is not ideal for casual brands, and engagement may be slower. Post to stay popular!

Platform #2: Instagram

If your company’s specialty is brand aesthetic and building culture, and you’re strong in visual appeal, Instagram is the way to go. This site allows users to experience a brand’s personality and culture, not just its products. Instagram lets followers ask, Do I like what I see? Knowing this, creating a solid brand presence is key. Your feed should reflect your brand; it will be the first thing someone sees, a first impression of your company. Making your feed reflect your brand’s aesthetic and values makes a visual appeal to your products like no other, shaping perspective! Instagram provides opportunities for reels, stories, collabs, and brand-building, which can highlight your company to connect emotionally with customers.

This platform is a go-to for all company sizes! Don’t be afraid to share behind-the-scenes, transformations, tips, and tap into trends. Instagram lets you make time-sensitive stories and promos as well, which makes people feel more inclined to interact when given limited time.

Each post must be eye-catching, which requires constant posting and creates competitiveness, so stay on top of it.

Platform #3: TikTok

TikTok is the most rapidly expanding social media platform today, gaining 1.5 billion monthly users who are generally a younger audience. This platform is best for digital marketing, being known for its short video clips, which keep the attention of viewers, making it extremely engaging. People rely on TikTok for entertainment, discovering products, and watching new creators, so don’t make your post boring. Interesting intros and visual hooks are ideal for a viral post.

TikTok gives brands high potential to introduce their products to a new audience, and with short videos, companies seem less professional and form a relatability that’s unique to other sites. TikTok lets you socialize and comment on others’ posts, and as a brand, it makes you more visible.

Don’t be afraid to participate in popular trends! That is what keeps your business well known, but make sure it fits what your brand wants to sell. Share tutorials, fun facts, transformations, influencer reviews, and more to make sure you’re sharing the back side of your company as well.

A last tip: make use of TikTok Shop. Creators can promote their products and provide direct links for users to buy efficiently and affordably, boosting sales.

Trends are not permanent. Small videos can keep users’ attention, but it is easy to scroll past, so make sure your company stands out and stays relevant.

Find The Perfect Match

Choosing the right platform comes down to knowing your audience, your brand’s strengths, and your content capabilities. Determining between a professional, visual, or trendy look, each social media platform provides a unique approach to connect, so know your business.

I used to think that hashtags were merely used for decoration. I thought that they were just there to make a post look pretty or act as a hook for users. To me, using them didn’t seem as important as the actual post, but then I realized how wrong I was. Throughout my internship at Front Porch Marketing, I have learned three important facts about hashtags and their proper uses in marketing:

Hashtags are more about discovery than decoration

While hashtags may add character to a post, they are meant for more than just decoration. They are there so that users like you and me can search for posts through specific categories and tags. It is important to make use of this when tagging posts so that you can market your content to the right audience.

Make a Cheat Sheet

There is no need to make things harder for yourself. Therefore, keep a list of the ones that have the most reach in relation to your company or brand. This will certainly help you keep track of the hashtags that work best in spreading out your content to the people you want to see it. When you write down your favorite ones, make sure to put the follower count or number of posts. Doing this helps you see what kind of reach each hashtag has before you add it to your post.

Be Smart About Which Hashtags You Use

Hashtags have a tendency to include a multitude of subcategories. So it is important to be mindful of which tags you include in your posts and how they relate to your company. It is also important to check the amount of posts a hashtag has, or the number of people that follow it. This way, you can make sure that your posts are reaching a widespread audience that is interested in what you are offering.

Final Thoughts About Hashtags

I used to not think hashtags were very important. But by working with Front Porch Marketing I realized their importance and how to properly use them to reach the right audience. This internship completely changed the way I look at hashtags. Overall it has taught me important lessons when it comes to using them for social media content.