X (formerly Twitter) is the platform for real-time news and unfiltered opinions. This human-driven, unpolished content is what makes X so popular, creating a sense of community and trust that can’t be replicated across any other social media platform.
There are now over 350,000 communities on X, with around 650,000 community posts created daily. B2B brands are also welcomed in these interest groups, giving them a new way to reach customers, create meaningful interactions, and stay relevant at a time when relevancy is more challenging than ever to maintain.
With X changing and evolving at lightning speed, there are many other functionalities and nuances that you may have missed but could be crucial to your social strategy. So, how can you go from good to X-cellent on this platform in 2024?
Why should you use X for B2B marketing?
When we think of social media for B2B, we instinctively think of LinkedIn. LinkedIn may be the platform of choice for B2B buyers, but we can’t forget that these buyers are primarily millennials active on many other social channels. When LinkedIn closes its shop at 5 p.m. on a Friday, it’s quickly replaced by channels like X and Instagram, which have users scrolling, liking, and commenting for over two hours per day.
So, in short, you should use X for B2B marketing because your target market is there, too. Even though the number has declined since Twitter became X, this platform still has a staggering 358.7 million users worldwide. Considering that 79% of these users follow brands, there’s a real opportunity to get in front of your audience on this platform.
Aside from improving brand visibility, X allows real-time, direct engagement with your customers and prospects. You can reply to their posts and vice versa, but you can also communicate via private messages (a capability exclusive to this platform).
Tools like Oktopost can help schedule posts in advance and manage a social calendar across channels. Because X users tend to share their raw, honest opinions, this is your chance to dive deep into customer behavior and understand your target market.
8 tips for success with B2B marketing on X
1. Invest in social governance
We can’t ignore Elon Musk’s acquisition of (former) Twitter in 2022, the mediatic transition to X, and all the turmoil that followed. Flexed content moderation policies and algorithm changes to reinforce “freedom of speech” led to a worrying rise in hate speech and misinformation on the platform.
The number of monthly X users dropped by 15% in the first year of Elon’s takeover, and the platform lost 71% of its value. The lack of oversight on content accuracy and source credibility (propelled even further by making the famous “blue tick” available to anyone) made many companies take a step back and focus on other channels.
While it is still worth being active on X as a B2B company, it’s crucial to establish some ground rules via a clear social media governance plan. This governance plan can include crisis management, content verification rules, and continuous monitoring.
2. Let your branding shine
Your company profile is the first interaction people will have with your brand, so you must make this first impression count. Ensure your X profile is as clean as possible, with a clear tagline and bio, an updated logo and branding, and an engaging visual for the header.
Microsoft is an excellent example of a strong brand identity that balances clean design and approachability. Leveraging its iconic four-colored squares, it uses different flower pots to represent the brand’s colors and design, making it warmer and more approachable to customers. Its tagline also centers around the customer, offering a vision of what life can look like with Microsoft rather than selling specific features.
3. Beware of your tone of voice
Make sure that your tone of voice is consistent. On platforms like X, it’s easy to adopt a more laid-back style and use more informal expressions, sometimes even incorporating puns, slang, or making funny remarks. If that is reflective of your branding, then go for it. However, not all brands need to be Ryanair-level informal.
If you are swayed into adopting “lower-case funny, sarcastic posting,” you risk not only having an identity crisis but also getting into serious trouble with customers or competitors, receiving backlash, or negative media attention.
4. Answer your target audience’s questions
If you want to stand out on X, you need to provide value to users and establish yourself as a thought leader in your space. Publishing a continuous flow of posts with industry insights, trends, news, or fun facts can help you gradually increase engagement and follower numbers.
If you want to go the extra mile, you can also monitor what X users say about a particular topic. Say you sell assortment planning solutions for e-commerce websites. You may think it’s a niche space. Still, by searching for topics like e-commerce, retail technology, or even online shopping, you will likely discover relevant conversations, common concerns, pain points, and goals your target audience shares.
You can address these customers individually on X to create new leads or use these insights to develop new sales materials and inform your marketing strategy.
5. Turn Sales Posts Into Insightful “Behind-the-Scenes”
Leave sales for your sales team and focus on creating awareness, buzz, and visibility for your brand and products. This overarching mission requires you to draft content about what your users or prospects want to know.
Do you have a particular feature that you would love to showcase? Instead of using the 280-character limit of X posts to describe your new feature’s nuts and bolts and why it is so much better than everything else on the market, you can just show it.
See how Adobe has shared its now Generative Shape Fill feature on Adobe Illustrator with none other than an illustration. Not every B2B brand has the same library of visuals as Adobe, but a short demo video can go a long way toward showing what your products can do and help you avoid boring product descriptions. You can use demo automation software to speed up video creation.
6. Leverage influencers
Approximately 49% of X users rely on influencer recommendations on X to inform their purchase decisions. If your brand doesn’t have the same following as giants like Cisco and Deloitte, leveraging influencers to get brand awareness may be the way to go, at least until you start building up an audience.
But worse than doing no influencer marketing at all is choosing the wrong person to represent your brand. Naturally, just because somebody is famous on LinkedIn or Instagram doesn’t mean they have the same loyal followers on X.
This means you need to start your search for X influencers from scratch. In addition to monitoring relevant keywords over time to identify the most popular users within your space, you can also use tools like Traackr and Onalytica to analyze influencers’ engagement levels, impact, and reach.
A great example of leveraging influencers to expand reach is the software company SAP. SAP partners with industry thought leaders and tech influencers to amplify their content through events, X chats, and webinars. One of SAP’s key influencers is Timo Elliot, an industry expert who frequently discusses SAP’s latest innovations.
7. Post and share often
Some B2B businesses’ X accounts are ghost towns—but they don’t start like that. A standard mistake companies make is adopting a reactive strategy because they think that’s the only way to “do” X—instant reactions and engagement.
If you plan on only doing reactive posts on X—whether commenting on a current trend, explaining breaking news, or posting something based on a competitor’s post—you risk running out of content to post and going quiet for weeks (if not months) in a row.
Treat X like any other platform and plan content at least 2-4 weeks in advance so you can consistently post relevant content and avoid last-minute rummaging through news feeds to find something worthwhile to share. You can also check out popular B2B marketing podcasts for content ideas or to see how other leaders approach content creation.
Plus, tools like Oktopost can help schedule posts in advance and manage a social calendar across channels. This automation and organization allow you to spot opportunities to repurpose content and ensure that you remain active across all the platforms that matter to you and your audience.
8. Leverage Communities
X communities are gated groups where members can discuss a specific shared interest. This interest can be anything from photography to tech or fitness. X communities enable direct member communication via likes and comments and offer higher and more focused engagement. Some of these communities are public (anybody can join), while others require a request to join or a member invite.
Users can join as many communities as they like, and the good news for companies is that they can, too! It’s crucial to find the right communities within your target industry and become an active member by participating in discussions or starting threads with polls, statistics, or infographics. This way, you build meaningful relationships with your target audience and fast-track lead nurturing.
Your Plan to X-Cel
X may have experienced a downward spiral, but its 300 million active users show that there is still some B2B marketing to be done on this platform. If you want to revamp your X presence, ensure you consistently deliver value and use the platform’s research features to understand your audience.
In addition to automated social media scheduling and management across channels, Oktopost offers features such as social listening and analytics. These enable you to track customer behavior, review your posts’ performance, and optimize your social media efforts accordingly. Book a demo to see how Oktopost can help you x-cel on X and beyond.
