United States

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) Guide

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is transforming how brands show up in AI-powered search. Explore insights, strategies, and best practices to help your content rank and resonate across conversational engines like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot.

Explore insights and strategies for Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) to help your brand stay visible and discoverable in AI-powered search.

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) Blog Collection | Meltwater

Media monitoring helps organizations stay informed about what’s being said across online news, print, broadcast, podcasts, and other media channels. Whether you're tracking brand mentions, measuring PR performance, monitoring competitors, or identifying emerging trends, our expert guides, best practices, and industry insights will help you build a smarter media monitoring strategy and make more informed communications decisions.

Discover expert media monitoring guides, best practices, and industry insights to track brand mentions, monitor competitors, and stay ahead of the news.

Media Monitoring: Guides, Best Practices & Industry Insights

Every day billions of conversations take place on social media: tweets, posts, comments, blogs, reviews, podcasts, and much more.

Learn how to use social listening to make sense of all of that data.

On our social listening category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around social listening and social media monitoring. Read more.

Social Listening Blogs | Category

Business Reputation Management: What does it take to add reputation management to your marketing strategy? More importantly, how do you keep your reputation sparkly and shiny? Here’s your all-access guide to online reputation management for the long term.

On our reputation management category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around business reputation management. Read more.

Reputation Management Blogs | Category

From your brand's logo to your website, your social media presence to your customer support—these elements combined are what constitutes a brand in the minds of customers. But, there are thousands of other businesses that have a logo, website, social media presence, and website. So, how can you position your business on the market and make it stand out from the competition?

The key to success is branding & brand management!

On our brand management category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around brand management. Build your strategy and reach your goals!

Brand Management Blogs | Category

Competitive intelligence and the act of collecting competitive data can be seen as growth drivers for a company. Our guide will help you understand the concept of competitive intelligence (CI) by answering questions such as: What is the definition of competitive intelligence? How is competitive intelligence useful to organizations? What is the goal of competitive intelligence? And more.

On our competitive intelligence category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around competitive intelligence. Learn how to stay ahead.

Competitive Intelligence Blogs | Category

Let’s dive into the customer journey framework and how to optimize the process by creating a customer journey map and using metrics that matter when analyzing the customer journey.

On our customer journey category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around mapping and understanding the customer journey.

Customer Journey Blogs | Category

How do customers interact with my newly launched product?

How do I increase the productivity of my employees?

How do I know if my marketing efforts are working?

We have just two words for you...Data analytics!

On our data analytics category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around AI and data analytics. Technical and still easy to understand.

AI & Data Analytics Blogs | Category

Public relations and media relations can add impact to any marketing strategy. It’s an opportunity for brands to grow their reach beyond traditional sales messages. PR helps to shape the image you want people to have of your brand.

So, what is PR and how do you use it? This guide shows you everything you need to know to build a strong public relations foundation.

On our public relations (PR) category page, you find all our blogs covering public relations and communications topics. Step up your PR game.

Public Relations (PR) Blogs | Category

We all know exactly what the roles of sales or accounting are in a company, right? We might even have a slight idea of what the IT guys are doing.

But there is another business discipline, that plays a crucial role in organizations, even more so during the pandemic – internal communications!

But what exactly do we mean by that, what purpose does it serve and what steps can you take to ensure you and your employees will communicate effectively?

On our internal communications category page, you find all our blogs about internal comms topics. Learn about the intranet, internal newsletters, and more.

Internal Communications Blogs | Category

As the internet has taken root in more areas of our lives — everything from entertainment to shopping to paying bills and more — traditional marketing is becoming less impactful. As any marketer knows, you need to focus on where your audience is if you want to reach them. Since the average person spends about seven hours a day online, it’s no surprise that content has maintained its hold on marketers.

Here's a closer look at what content marketing is and why it matters more than ever in our digital-first economy.

On our content marketing category page, you find blogs about content marketing topics. Learn about strategies, KPIs, tips, and more. Make your content king!

Content Marketing Blogs | Category

The rise of the influencer marketing space – today a $10 billion industry, growing 50% per year – is one of the clearest examples of how social media is transforming traditional marketing. These days having a business website, presence on social, PR coverage, and your own content isn’t enough to compete.

We'll dive into the intricacies of influencer marketing to help ensure that you're equipped with the insights needed to be successful in this space.

On our influencer marketing category page, you find blogs about influencer marketing topics. Build your strategy, find influencers, and measure results.

Influencer Marketing Blogs | Category

Have you just launched a new product or service that you want to get the word out about? Maybe you want to share with consumers why it is awesome and how it is so much better than the one your competitors offer.

Well, then, there is one thing you can't do without...Marketing!

On our marketing category page, you find blogs about marketing topics. Learn about all the different angles and types of marketing and improve your results.

Marketing Blogs | Category

Building a following and using social media platforms to reach a wider audience requires a well-planned social media marketing strategy. In this guide, we’ll be looking at why social media marketing is so essential and how you can make it work for your business.

On our social media marketing category page, you find blogs about social media marketing topics. Learn how to get the highest paid social ROI!

Social Media Marketing Blogs | Category

In the fast-evolving realm of digital marketing and public relations, utilizing the right tools is crucial for success. Our interdisciplinary category showcases all the pertinent tools for digital marketing & PR. These tools help in enhancing your online presence and effectively reaching target groups, whether through reputation management, influencer marketing, or social media management.

On our digital marketing and PR tools category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around mapping and understanding the customer journey.

Digital Marketing & PR Tools Blogs | Category

Kim Cattrall takes the lead in a campaign celebrating the intelligence behind confident brand decisions.

Intelligence is always in style: Kim Cattrall stars in Meltwater’s new campaign

AI adoption is no longer the challenge—trusted context is. Most organizations have AI tools, but many still rely on disconnected, stale, or unverified data, limiting the quality and trustworthiness of AI-generated outputs. Meltwater MCP brings trusted, real-time intelligence into AI assistants.

Your Best Context is Already in the Room

See how one platform can power every decision across PR, communications, and marketing.

The Meltwater Blog

Blog Topics: Generative Engine Optimization, Media Intelligence, Media Relations, Social Listening, Consumer Intelligence, Influencer Marketing

Find out how you can leverage Facebook to boost your brand's online presence and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

Facebook Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage Instagram to boost your brand's visual appeal and gain a competitive edge. Explore our category page today!

Instagram Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage LinkedIn to grow your professional network and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

LinkedIn Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage TikTok to elevate your brand with creative content and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

TikTok Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage X / Twitter to engage your audience effectively and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

X / Twitter Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage YouTube to create engaging video content and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

YouTube Blog | Meltwater

2020 came with many changes and one thing that marketers have had to adjust to was the increase in online behaviour and social media usage among audiences. While the overall global social media consumption has increased this year, brands and marketers within the Middle East have had to take a more localised approach, given how different regions present different social networks, languages, cultural expectations and a number of other barriers that marketing teams to overcome.

For emerging markets, like the Middle East, creating a visible online presence and having a strong social media marketing strategy may seem tough for global brands because what consumers want from brands in these markets is different to what consumers want in a different region. So, what do brands need to know about social media marketing within the Middle East? Read on for a quick guide to help you.

Tip: Learn more about media in Saudi Arabia.

Understanding the culturally diverse audience

No social media marketing strategy is complete without a full understanding of one's target audience, and for brands and marketers in Dubai and the Middle East, you need to understand the cultural diversity of the region and listen carefully to the social conversations taking place in order to understand what your audience is talking about, what social media platforms they are using to talking about these topics, and the language and terminology used. This is going to be critical for you to better inform your social media marketing strategies and the way in which you choose to engage with your audience. 

Marketing professionals in the region may know that consumer preferences vary greatly within the Middle East, that online conversations and consumer behaviour differ between the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Qatar, and so on. However, they have very few tools to accurately measure the differences in online behaviour.

This is where having a consumer and audience insights tool will help brands and marketers with their social media marketing strategies. Once you have an understanding of the different audience groups that are talking about your brand within the Middle Eastern region, you are better equipped to use a social listening tool that can monitor the conversations they are having on social media platforms and give you insight into how to better use social media to market to them. 

Another challenge that brands and marketers may encounter is speaking and engaging with their target audience in their own language. The top two languages most frequently used in the region are English and Arabic, with almost half of social media users in the Middle East using Arabic as their communication language. However, Arabic is the fastest-growing language on Twitter, with a majority of social media users in countries like Saudi Arabia using Arabic to communicate. What should this tell you? 

That whether you're searching Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn for conversations around your brand, or wanting to get a glimpse of the demographical information of your consumers talking about important conversations that you can get involved in on social media, you are going to need a monitoring tool that is capable of not just providing accurate data and insights, but can give you the story behind the numbers using Arabic Natural Language Processing and Sentiment Analysis within the monitoring tool. This way, you can easily monitor your social media branding success.

Did you know? Meltwater's interface is now available in Arabic!

Creating content that speaks to your audience

Given how Arabic is the primary language that social media users use to communicate online, it's important to then include the Arabic language when creating content for social media. By doing this, you will show your audience that your brand cares about their preferences and that you are willing to engage with them in the language that speaks to them.

Whether that is responding to customer questions on Twitter, tackling their concerns on Facebook or acknowledging their feedback on forums, show your audience that you are willing to be different and talk to them in their language. 

Outside of language, brands should also create content that speaks to audiences in the region during traditional and spiritual holidays, such as Ramadan, where social media users spend about 2 million more hours daily on Facebook during Ramadan while on YouTube, TV dramas see a viewership increase of 151% during Ramadan. When creating content for social media in the region, make sure that you include important local nuances in your strategy to continue showing your audience how much you care about what matters to them. 

These local nuances don't necessarily have to be exclusive to festivals and holidays but can also include trending topics within the Middle East. Take Ford, for example, who celebrated the lift on the ban of Saudi Arabian women driving. The news was well received and widely celebrated from Saudi Arabian women and supporters, and Ford created a striking ad to show their solidarity with the decision. 

This is an example of a brand creating content localised to what was happening in the region. You want to tailor your content to suit the market and build a relationship that is long standing and increases customer loyalty. Even though the Middle East is still experimenting with various marketing methods, the key to unlocking the potential that content marketing has in the region is to really pay attention to your audience and have the right toolkit to help you speak to them. 

According to a survey, 94% of in-house marketers in the UAE believe that social media influencer marketing plays an large role in the success of their brands. With a massive opportunity for international expansion and business growth in terms of UAE consumer spend, the region requires brands and marketers to use distinctly different digital strategies to those implemented in North America and Europe in order to stand out. This means shifting from traditional advertising approaches towards influencer marketing.

Research from YouGov Omnibus and BPG Cohn & Wolf states that 49% of brands in the region are currently working with influencers, and for brands still looking to operate in the region, one key consideration to make is ensuring that you work with the right influencers to bring your brand message across to local audiences.

Tip: Take a look at more UAE social media statistics.

The success of influencer marketing and campaigns lies in understanding that the key to seeing positive results from using this marketing strategy on social media lies in effectively combining inspiration with the right visual content and emotions that feel familiar to local audiences and customers.

Popular Middle Eastern influencers, such as Huda Kattan  and Joelle Mardinian do well with influencer marketing because they provide their followers with a global, yet local context through the way they visually share their content and position themselves to their audiences. From sharing modest photos to showcasing the latest beauty and fashion trends, what these influencers do is come across as culturally authentic – which will resonate best with social media users in the Middle East. 

Our MOST Stunning Palette Ever!!! MERCURY RETROGRADE | لوحة ظلال العيون الأروع من هدى بيوتي

For brands, this means ensuring that you pick the right influencers to work with your brand who have the same, or a similar, ability to provide your target audience and customers with content that is global, yet local in its context. Social media feeds have become saturated with content from a growing number of influencers yet according to Trust Insight, engagement rates for Instagram influencers declined in 2019. With consumer becoming more aware of the commercialized approach of influencer marketing, brands wanting to use this marketing method on social media need to ensure that they have the right influencers with them. 

There is great potential in the Middle East for brands who are looking to make their mark in the region. Social media provides a platform to not only learn more about your customers, but to speak to them in a way that can encourage engagement and foster customer loyalty. With the right social media strategy in place, as well as having the right monitoring tools, connecting with your audience online and seeing success with your social efforts are well within your reach.

A Quick Guide to Social Media Marketing in the Middle East

With a user base of over 700 million people in 200+ countries, LinkedIn isn’t a social media platform to be overlooked. This is a fact that B2B businesses have known for years, which is why so many companies have been investing time and effort into perfecting their LinkedIn marketing strategy. Now, B2C businesses are starting to pay more attention to the social networking platform as it begins to adopt features, like hashtags and stories, found on other platforms.

So, whether you’re a small business, working in B2C or working in B2B, LinkedIn has a place in all marketing strategies. Not only can brands reach highly targeted audiences when using LinkedIn for business but doing so also has a positive impact on recruitment, brand credibility and positioning. 

If you’re yet to create a LinkedIn marketing plan, or you’re wondering how to use LinkedIn for business, you’ve come to the right place. During this post, we’ll offer a step-by-step guide to getting an effective LinkedIn marketing strategy off the ground, plus a few tips to help with daily LinkedIn management!

Think about your LinkedIn marketing goals and objectives

Create a LinkedIn content marketing strategy

Consider the best time to post and optimum post frequency

A business profile establishes your public image on a global scale and helps your organization seem more reputable and trustworthy. The first step towards creating a LinkedIn marketing strategy is setting up a LinkedIn company page. When building a LinkedIn company page, page admins have access to a number of features including:

Having the option to list any open positions at your business 

Having the ability to create specific pages for products, services, and events known as ‘LinkedIn Showcase pages’

Being able to create a career page, which assists marketing teams with telling their company’s story and engaging with prospects, customers and talent

Having the option to run targeted LinkedIn ads that support wider sponsored content advertising campaigns from your business profile

Not sure how to go about setting up a LinkedIn company page? You can find out here. 

Once the marketing team has created the business page, next they need to optimize it by adding all the relevant company information and media. LinkedIn states that a company page with a complete profile gets 30% more weekly views, so it’s important not to overlook any fields if you want to increase the chances of getting in front of your prospects, customers and prospective employees. 

Take a look at this resource which offers tips to help you get the most out of your company page, including crafting a strong company description and how to use the right keywords to make your LinkedIn profile SEO friendly. We’ve also detailed the correct image sizes for media uploaded to the network below.

What are you setting out to achieve with your LinkedIn marketing strategy? If you, as a marketer, don’t have clear strategic goals in mind, it can be easy for you to focus on the wrong things. Typical LinkedIn marketing goals include brand awareness, website visits, job application infills, engagement and lead generation. Once you know what your strategic goals are, you can put the right objectives and tactics in place and ensure you stay on track. 

Following on from the above, your profile goals and objectives will also influence the messaging of your content marketing strategy. When the time comes to start to post on your profile, it’s important not to jump straight in without understanding the type of content that works on this specific channel. Like all social media networks, messages should be made relevant to that network’s user intent, LinkedIn’s algorithm, the platform’s image dimensions etc. With this in mind, consider the following when building your content marketing strategy and let this guide your status updates.

Unlike Instagram, LinkedIn isn’t the place for memes or sharing pictures of your freshly baked banana bread, it’s also not the place for giving a running commentary of your favorite Netflix show like most do on Twitter. Instead, user intent, regardless of whether it’s inside or outside of business hours, comes from a professional place and your messages need to reflect this. 

This channel is where most Fortune 500 decision-makers and c-level executives like to spend their spare time, which makes it a perfect channel for B2B marketing pros. It’s also where people develop (professional) social relationships, collaborate with like-minded people, represent their company, or seek new business opportunities. Taking this into consideration, content that tends to work well on the platform include:

Behind the scenes clips of a standard day in the life of your team

Original long-form content, like articles

Insights on the latest trends and predictions

Tips, tricks, how-to’s and lessons learned

Pages that post weekly see a 2x lift in engagement, but for the best results, LinkedIn advises posting daily to establish a connection with your audience.

When it comes to the best time to post, that really depends on when your audience is active, as such, the time varies from company to company. There are of course moments in the week that are hotspots for driving engagement, like lunch hours and while commuting to and from work. As HubSpot explains, even though there isn't a one-size-fits-all for the best time to post, marketers have found success on LinkedIn by posting Tuesday through Thursday, typically between the hours of 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Use this as your foundation and A/B test different times throughout the week. Make sure to document your engagement so you can identify the pockets throughout your audience’s day where they’re most active.

Check out our blog about when to post on social media for more detailed insights.

You can spend months crafting a well-structured strategy, but as soon as you post an image that isn’t optimized for the network’s image sizing, you’ll look like an amateur. To help save you any embarrassment, we’ve curated key LinkedIn image dimensions to use when posting. If you’re interested in sizing for other channels, check out our Full Guide to Social Media Image Sizes for 2021 blog.

This image will appear right next to your company or brand name on your LinkedIn homepage. This image also appears in the “Companies you may want to follow” section, so the more enticing and high quality this image is, the better to attract your target audience to your company page.

Personal image types are limited to JPG, GIF or PNG

Cover photos take up the entire top space of the company page. The cover, or header image, will appear larger than the personal dimensions, which gives companies a bit more space to showcase themselves.

Cover photo image types are limited to JPG, PNG or GIF

This photo is where you can provide a more in-depth look at the day-to-day experiences of your company’s staff. The hero photo also sits as a banner at the top of your company page and is usually larger than other LinkedIn photos.

Image file types are limited to PNG, JPG or GIF.

This is the company or brand image that appears when you are being searched, and because it is a smaller size, you want to make sure that the photo you use is still recognizable and eye-catching to your target audience or potential job candidates.

Image file types are limited to PNG, JPG or GIF

This image resolution works for LinkedIn posts that share a photo or contain a link to a blog post or news article that has a photo.

Shared image or link phototypes are limited to PNG, JPG or GIF

These types of images are more prominent to use because they appear whenever a user visits your company page. With this image located on your homepage, it is a great way to engage with your user, who has most likely been actively searching for you. 

Usually set to a landscape layout. Image file types are limited to PNG, JPG or GIF

Tip: Remind your marketing team that creating great content is a journey and not the destination. You should constantly be striving to improve and become more relevant while increasing engagement. Looking at your LinkedIn company page analytics and adjusting content based on insights will significantly help here.

Large and cool brands tend to have the luxury of a big following, but if you’re a small business, you’ll likely need to work harder to build your follower base – here are our tips to do just that!

Like most social networks, LinkedIn has an algorithm in place that sifts through hundreds of thousands of posts shared on the network each day with the idea of serving users with content that’s more relevant to them. While you can’t ‘hack’ the algorithm as such (it updates on a regular basis, just like Google), the social media giant has nodded to actions that are favored by the algorithm. In particular, they live by the mantra “people you know talking about things you care about.”

‘People you know, talking about things you care about’
 Engaging with your connection’s content is vital for boosting your profile’s visibility via the ‘people you know’ priority. In addition to this, the more people you engage with from the same company, the better, as this signifies a genuine relationship. 

For the ‘talking about things you care about’ part, LinkedIn explains, “there’s a lot of sophistication that goes into understanding a good conversation. As a rule of thumb, better conversations are authentic and have a constructive back and forth.” Taking this on board, we’d recommend you avoid generic comments like “great idea,” “nice,” etc., and instead asking questions or sharing an opinion when you engage with your community’s post. 

Any successful marketer will tell you the more you mix it up with still images, video, links etc – the better! Videos in particular tend to stand out better in the feed, helping your brand get noticed. In fact, video content is 5 times more likely to start a conversation than any other content type, and posts with images get twice as many comments as text posts. To help ensure a healthy mix of media types, use a content calendar. Most social media management tools come with built-in content calendars, but if you’d prefer to create one from scratch, you can learn how to create a social media content calendar in 7 steps here!

It goes without saying, if someone takes the time to comment on your company page, it’s only polite that the brand replies. Obviously, this can be difficult for large brands with high engagement, and not every comment warrants a reply, but your marketing team should aim to reply to every thoughtful question, contribution, and complaint. Not only does this help drive higher feed visibility, but members are also more likely to follow a company page that actively engages its community. If you keep ignoring your audience, eventually, they’ll start ignoring you back.

The algorithm rewards engagement — especially posts that inspire conversations. And the faster your post starts raking in the interactions, the more likely LinkedIn is to include it in the feeds of others. So ask questions, tag companies/ prospects/ customers, use keywords strategically, and include relevant hashtags!

LinkedIn advertising helps businesses of any size achieve their goals. Whether your goal is lead generation, brand awareness, or event registrations, LinkedIn ads can help. 

LinkedIn advertising is extremely useful for B2B MarCom pros running account-based marketing campaigns since the network holds a vast amount of information about audience’s working lives. For example, you can target LinkedIn ads based on job title, function, industry and more to ensure you reach the people who matter most to your business. Not only this, but 4 out of 5 members drive business decisions, which makes LinkedIn ads even more attractive to those working in the B2B space compared to, say, Facebook ads that are more geared towards B2C than B2B.

Below we’ve listed some of the different types of LinkedIn ads you can run to help meet your LinkedIn marketing strategy goals more quickly. 

The platform’s sponsored content feature allows you to run native LinkedIn ads in the feed across desktop and mobile. Sponsored content ads come in different formats including single image sponsored content ads, video ads and carousel ads. Before choosing your ad type, take a look at this sponsored content best practice tip sheet. 

This particular ad format allows you to deliver direct, one-on-one-native ads to your target audience's direct message inbox. Lots of marketing pros prefer to use this format due to interactive features like lead gen forms and automated calls-to-actions. Sponsored messaging LinkedIn ads come in two different formats, conversation ads, which let you start quality conversations with your audience through a choose-your-own-path experience, and message ads, which allow you to send direct messages to your audience to spark immediate action.

Text ads take an easy, self-service, pay-per-click (PPC) ad format and take minutes to set up. Once your text ads are live, read this useful guide to optimizing text ads so you can improve your results and expand your marketing and ad campaigns to attract more of the right customers.

How to Build A Successful LinkedIn Marketing Strategy

While it seems that every company understands the importance of social media in today’s world, few B2B companies use their social media accounts on a regular basis. In fact, while 95% of B2B marketers have created corporate social media accounts, half of them aren’t active on social media. 

Social media isn’t just a powerful outreach and engagement tool — it is also at the forefront of product research, peer recommendations, and brand discovery for B2B decision-makers. As such, it is imperative that B2B marketers get cracking on their social media strategies. However, that too can seem like a daunting task.

In this post, we break down the essentials of B2B social media marketing, showing you how you can utilize your social media accounts to their fullest potential.

Getting on the right social media platforms for your business

Optimizing your advertising budget for social media

1. Choosing the right platforms for your brand

If you’re not already on social media, the first step that you should take is to decide which platforms to use. There are loads of social media platforms for you to choose from.

Top tip: Find the balance between being present on several social media networks without spreading yourself too thin.

As a starting point, get yourself on LinkedIn and Twitter. 

LinkedIn is the most popular network among B2B marketers and is a great way to generate leads. LinkedIn B2B marketing helps you to target professionals within your industry as well as potential prospects and customers outside your industry. However, social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook are also beneficial because they help build brand awareness and allow you to direct traffic to your website. Most B2B companies are on 4 or 5 different networks.

Top social media platforms used by B2B marketers

One way to decide which social networks to use is to have a look at the social pages of the competitors in your industry. Never assume that a certain platform won’t work for you just because your competitors may not be on it. Have a look at your target audience and decide if your content can be reworked to reach out to new bases on these platforms.

IBM uses its Twitter page to highlight its research efforts and product offerings, while its Instagram page highlights its stance on social issues and focuses on more visual content

Tip: Learn how to use Instagram for Business and take a look at the best B2B Instagram profiles.

Make sure that your social media profiles are consistent with your brand. This involves using the same profile image (preferably your logo), a straightforward username, and strong bio copy. This means defining your brand’s values and mission in a way that portrays the right message for your target audience! 

Content, the key to a successful marketing strategy

Two common misconceptions held by B2B businesses include: 

The idea that social networks are just an opportunity to generate more leads

The idea that B2B sectors are too boring for social media

However, a company that only posts promotional publications with a call-to-action (CTA) may soon find itself talking in a vacuum. As for being “too boring” for social media, check out our last post, where we dispel this myth for good.

Just like B2C marketing, great content lies at the heart of B2B social media marketing. Great social accounts rely on quality content that is of interest to their target audience. This content can include relevant graphics that provide audiences with top tips or articles that help them address common pain points.

Here are some great content ideas for your social posts:

Video clips and live quotes from your own or industry events

Brand announcements (partnerships, acquisitions, new releases …)

Behind the scenes of your company: photos of your employees, life in the office

Many brands strike a chord with their audiences by being funny online. This can help to humanize your brand and help your audience move away from the idea that B2B social media accounts are way too serious.

Be sure to establish clear guidelines for the use of humor on social media. There is a fine line between the humor that will please your audience and that which may offend.

The time that you choose to post on social media can affect how successful your content is. There are numerous studies on when users should publish their content. 

Don’t assume that these timings will work for your brand. The key to success is to test your posts during various time periods and observe where you obtain the most engagement.

When we spoke to Twitter expert Samantha Kelly, her advice was to use your social accounts when your audience is most active, which is often outside of the usual work hours (9 p.m.-11 p.m.).

We have published a very specific blog about when to post on social media. Read it to get more useful information on this topic!

One of the common social media mistakes that B2B marketers make is to post too much content, too often. You’ve probably experienced this frustration yourself — everyone has that one friend on Facebook who posts photos of his dog five times a day. 

Brands that post too often or include too many promotional messages and irrelevant content find themselves the culprits of bad B2B social media etiquette. In fact, those are the top three reasons why users unfollow a brand.

Beware! The reverse may also be dangerous — brands that almost never post on social media tire their audiences out. 

The golden rule for posting on social media: 

Read our blog about how often to post on social media for more insights.

In order to gain followers, B2B social media accounts should aim to increase post engagement, retain their following, and ensure that they're part of the conversation around your brand:

Reply to all comments and messages you receive, regardless of whether they are positive or negative

Use a Social Listening Tool to Monitor posts about the products and services you offer to identify opportunities for further discussion. Look out for posts asking for recommendations or complaints about your competitors via competitor monitoring.

Often, dissatisfied customers will take to social media to complain. Since your social media accounts are public, complaints can often damage your reputation if they are not handled correctly.  

Here are three things you should always strive to do:

Acknowledge their dissatisfaction and find a solution

Publicly accuse the client of lying or being wrong

Chances are, you’ll want to grow your audience. Whilst having a high audience reach is important, you should aim to reach the right people, not lots of people.

One approach that B2B marketers can take is by identifying relevant influencers in your industry. These are users with a large, engaged community of followers. You can build relationships with influencers and interact with their community to help grow your base, and further position yourself as an expert in your field. In addition, follow users who follow these influencers as well as your competitors. Chances are, these people will be the right target audience for your brand.

Be careful not to get yourself into a “follow-unfollow” strategy — i.e. following users to have them follow you back, only to unfollow them the next day. This will come across as spam and simply annoy your audience.

Every B2B marketer should be equipped with the right tools to support their strategy. These tools include:

Social Media Marketing

A Quick Guide to Social Media Marketing in the Middle East

How to Build A Successful LinkedIn Marketing Strategy

A Beginner's Guide to Social Media for B2B

10 Facebook Messenger Marketing Ideas

How to Target Your Social Media Promotion

Social Media Experiments: What You Can Learn by Testing

3 Things Your Business is (Still) Getting Wrong About Social Media

Big Instagram Changes Ahead for Indian Marketers and Users?

3 Tips for Scaling Social Media Processes

How Social Media Went from Exciting to Ingrained in Our Lives

Instagram for Business: What Changed with the API?

4 Facebook Metrics Every Company Should be Measuring

Social Media Marketing

A Quick Guide to Social Media Marketing in the Middle East

How to Build A Successful LinkedIn Marketing Strategy

A Beginner's Guide to Social Media for B2B

10 Facebook Messenger Marketing Ideas

How to Target Your Social Media Promotion

Social Media Experiments: What You Can Learn by Testing

3 Things Your Business is (Still) Getting Wrong About Social Media

Big Instagram Changes Ahead for Indian Marketers and Users?

3 Tips for Scaling Social Media Processes

How Social Media Went from Exciting to Ingrained in Our Lives

Instagram for Business: What Changed with the API?

4 Facebook Metrics Every Company Should be Measuring

Interested in learning how Meltwater can help you? Fill out the form to learn more.