When you think of Instagram, you usually think of lots of pretty shots of people’s dinner, exotic holidays and the occasional cute pet. Plenty of brands utilise Instagram to get coverage for their products, but most of those companies fall squarely in the B2C sector, aiming their marketing at a retail audience. It’s easy to understand how customer-focused companies can leverage Instagram as part of their marketing strategy, but that doesn’t mean that business-centric companies should be left out in the cold. Here are five ways that B2B businesses can use Instagram to their advantage:
Share Case Studies
If you’ve done something great to help another business, tell people about it. Not only is it good publicity for your services, it’s also good exposure for your client and showing how the relationship between your business and theirs could encourage others to use your service. They may also reciprocate by sharing your company on their own social media, giving you free advertising.
Go Behind the Scenes
People like to see what goes on behind the scenes in any business, especially one where they’re planning to spend their money. Showing snippets of your employees, what happens on a typical day for your business or even how your products are created allows people to connect with what you’re doing and may inspire them to engage your services. When you share a positive, behind-the-scenes look into your business, you are showing customers that you are not just getting work done, but enjoying the work environment.
Employee Advocacy
Have your employees done something great recently? Completed a charity run? Earned a new qualification? Done something awesome as a team? If so, then shout about it! Showing the achievements of your workers will help to humanise your brand and championing the people who keep it running is a good look for any B2B organisation.
Thought Leadership
Create content based on insights from somebody who is viewed as a thought leader for your B2B business. This type of content creates brand awareness and builds trust among consumers looking to you for answers. Thought leadership is also great for starting a conversation with your followers and growing your engagement.
Staying Up to Date
Instagram is a great platform for B2B companies to share updates. If you’ve gained a new client, hired a new employee or had some other change in your business infrastructure, Instagram the event, even if it’s a text-based image rather than a picture. Clients like to feel that your business is going from strength to strength and Instagram is the ideal place to put that information out there.
Bonus Tip – Don’t forget to use hashtags to the maximum potential. Instagram gives you space for 30, regardless of the length of your captions, and you should try to fill every space available. Hashtags add information and also make your captions searchable, in a similar way to optimising SEO on your website and optimum hashtag usage could be the difference between your Insta business account being noticed or not.
If you need help with your Instagram strategy or hashtags, sign up for our Instagram Audit and Personalised Hashtag Directory.