Say you’ve been working on your business for a while now. As a B2B business owner, you need to create a certain level of trust between your brand and who you’re communicating with – which in this case is other businesses – but how do you do that as a business without your communication being seen as a hollow attempt to sell your services?
You use social media. Not as a selling tool, but to build your reputation.
Social media is a communication tool at its heart. By creating and posting content regularly, it can turn a brand into a trustworthy reference point and a thought leader in its industry rather than yet another service provider.
But it’s not just about posting.
You also need to look into what you’re posting.
Content Matters
It’s not just about posting as often as you can. Your content is the key to building trust between your brand and your audience: the more high quality the content is, the greater the value you’re giving your consumers, and the better the relationship will become. It’s true for B2C communication, where the customer might not necessarily need to get to know the brand on a deep level. And it’s especially true for B2B communication where your audience is going to be significantly more wary about trusting their company to your services.
Posting great content helps with that. Great content shows that your brand is an authority in its field, and that you’re not really just in it for the bottom line. That you’re providing the valuable content for free also sets the tone for the kind of customer relationship and brand you want to have – and it’s often the very first step to take in every kind of industry if you’re going to leverage your social media to build relationships with your audience.
And at the end of the day, even if you don’t have frequent social media posts, having strong content can make up for the shortfall. Establishing yourself as a thought leader in your industry will be essential: your brand will then become an authority, someone that other brands look at to see how things are done.
All of that happens from social media and social media posting.
How to Be Social on Social Media
Here are some quick tips for building trust at scale using social media:
- When you post, don’t just push your product: talk to your followers in ways that offer a lot of value for free. Share insider knowledge.
- Interact with others on your social media. Like, engage, and respond to questions: talk! The more you interact successfully, the more the algorithm of your selected social media will push your content.
- If you’re personally on LinkedIn, post frequently as an individual. Any positive light you shed on yourself will reflect on your company
- React to news and content within your industry, and provide your 2c based on your own experience. Be genuine.
- Be patient. Just because you don’t see business leads rolling in after a few weeks or months of posting, it doesn’t mean you’re not having an effect. It takes time to build a reputation. Keep at it.
The bottom line is this: your social media is an invaluable asset. Use it like one, and it can serve you well.
