Instagram used to be a platform for personal photos, but now it’s a business tool for marketing, branding and lead generation. In a 2024 global survey, we found that about 17 percent of responding B2B marketers considered Instagram an important social media platform.
But today, posting product photos or company updates on Instagram won’t get you noticed. B2B brands must get creative and develop shareable content to provide value to their target audience. This content needs to be optimized for the Instagram feed to cut through the noise.
But how can B2B companies make Instagram content that people will notice, engage with, and share? Effective strategies and tips will be explored in this article.
Understanding the B2B Buyer’s Journey on Instagram
Before creating content, B2B brands need to understand how their target audience interacts with Instagram at various stages of the buyer’s journey.
Awareness Stage
In the early stages, when potential customers are still unaware of your brand, Instagram can help raise awareness and position your company as an industry leader. Useful content at this stage includes:
- Industry educational posts.
- Thought leadership content like statistics, trends and insights.
- Visually striking infographics.
- Expert interviews and panel discussions.
This content should aim to provide value and get onto people’s radar. It can generate shares, tags, and mentions for your brand. Additionally, some businesses may consider strategies like buy organic followers to create an initial foundation of credibility and attract more organic engagement.
Consideration Stage
As your audience begins researching solutions for their needs, Instagram content can influence purchase consideration. Helpful content includes:
- Customer testimonials.
- Behind-the-scenes company culture videos.
- Trade show and event coverage.
- Product demos.
The focus here is on social proof, building trust and showing how your offering can solve customer pain points.
Decision Stage
When leads are evaluating options and close to a purchase decision, Instagram content should convince them to choose your brand. Useful tactics involve:
- Case studies of customer results.
- Promotional offers and discounts.
- Free trials and demos.
- User-generated content featuring your product.
The goal is to showcase value and make it easy for warm leads to buy from you.
Understanding content that resonates at each stage helps craft an overall Instagram strategy for B2B brands. Now, let’s examine specific types of engaging and shareable content to publish.
Types of Shareable B2B Content on Instagram
Posting product catalogs and sales pitches does little to capture user interest on Instagram. Instead, B2B brands should develop creative content formats that provide value. Here are some highly shareable ideas.
Behind-the-Scenes
Give customers a peek behind the curtains of your brand with behind-the-scenes photos and videos. For example:
- Take a day in the life of a customer support rep or sales agent.
- Demonstrate how you design and develop your product.
- Host feature company offsites and team-building activities.
- Talk about community service and social responsibility efforts.
This humanizes your company and builds a connection with the audience.
Expert Tips and How-To’s
B2B followers want to learn from your experience. Create tutorials and expert advice explaining how to use your product or implement an industry best practice. Ideas include:
- Video series on using specific features.
- Step-by-step setup guides.
- Listicles like “10 Tips for X”.
- Instagram Live Q&As with experts.
- Polls and crowdsourcing challenges.
Position your employees and brand as trusted advisors in the space.
Events and Conferences
Attending relevant events? Give followers insider access by sharing photos, videos, Instagram Stories and Instagram Live broadcasts. Rather than formal posed photos, capture candid moments like:
- Networking and social gatherings.
- Speakers and presentations.
- Product demos at your booth.
- Customer interactions.
- Quotes and attendee reactions.
This makes those who couldn’t attend feel like they’re part of the action while promoting your participation and leadership.
Employee Takeovers
Employee takeovers: let your workers take over your Instagram Stories and feed for a day. They can share their roles, day-to-day responsibilities, advice and brand interactions from their unique perspective.
This gives customers a change of pace from their usual corporate account while humanizing your team.
User-Generated Content
Customer-generated content is more authentic and shareable than branded posts. Regram customer photos and videos showcasing real-world use cases of your product. Ensure you have their permission and give them credit.
To source quality user content, run campaigns and contests that invite submissions on themes like “How I Use [Your Product] to Be More Productive.”
Crafting Shareable Content Specifically for B2B Audiences
B2B buyers have different interests, motivations and content preferences than typical consumer audiences on Instagram. Here are tips for creating posts and campaigns tailored specifically to connect with B2B followers.
Showcase Thought Leadership
B2B buyers value learning from influential industry experts. Position your company as a thought leader by sharing original data, industry reports, and insights from executives. Infographics and listicles condensing research stats also tend to get high engagement.
Promote Your Brand Personality
While B2B interactions can be formal and professional, showing the human side of your brand builds rapport. Use humor, behind-the-scenes images, employee spotlights and lighthearted memes to give your company personality. This will make you more relatable while remaining tasteful.
Feature Powerful Customer Stories
B2B purchasing decisions are riskier and involve more people. A way to alleviate concerns is by telling inspiring customer success stories. You can share their business results pre- and post-work with you through testimonials, case studies, and video interviews.
Leverage Influencers
Partner with industry influencers, such as analysts, journalists, celebrities and key customers, to co-create and cross-promote content. This expands your reach to new audiences while improving your credibility.
Promote Content From Your Blog and Website
Re-promote your best-performing blog posts, ebooks, whitepapers and website content through Instagram carousels, Stories and Reels. Offer value and then link to your site for downloads or more detail to generate site traffic.
Optimizing Your Instagram Content Strategy for Maximum Shares
Creating compelling content is step one. You also need an optimization strategy to give each post the greatest visibility and shareability.
Captivating Captions. Write clear, benefit-driven captions that grab attention and convey what viewers will learn. Ask intriguing questions to spark curiosity, or fill in the caption with ellipses to leave suspense.
Strategic Tagging. Tag relevant Instagram handles in your captions, such as industry influencers, partners, media outlets and complementary brands. This will expand your reach to new audiences. You can also hyper-target by tagging the actual people featured.
Compelling Visuals. Eye-catching photos and videos are key to navigating the Instagram feed. Use high-quality images, custom graphics, logos and text overlays. When appropriate, leverage pop culture references and memes.
Key Hashtags. Include a mix of branded and community hashtags, so both your followers and broader audiences encounter your posts. Identify hashtags used by your target accounts and competitors to tap into larger conversations.
Geotags and Location Stickers. Tagging posts with a location or using Instagram Story stickers customized for local areas helps you appear in geo-targeted searches. This builds local awareness.
Instagram Ads. Run paid promotions to amplify the reach of your top-performing organic content beyond your current followers. Retarget ads at accounts that have previously engaged with your posts.
Share Across Other Channels. Post your Instagram content across your blog, email newsletters, website banners and other platforms. Repurpose visual assets into ads, landing pages, webinars and more.
Make Content Quickly Shareable. Reduce friction to sharing by enabling the “Add post to your story” feature under advanced settings. Integrate the Instagram sharing button on your website and emails.
Key Metrics to Track
Analyze these metrics to see what content resonates best with your B2B Instagram audience:
- Engagement rate on each post and follower growth rate over time.
- Website clicks, conversions and sales from Instagram.
- Leads generated from Instagram ads and posts.
- Most popular hashtags and types of content.
- Shares and reposts of your content.
- Mentions and tags from other accounts.
Continuously test and iterate on your content strategy based on performance data. Feature more of what drives results.
Conclusion
Instagram offers immense potential for B2B brands to engage buyers throughout the purchasing process with compelling, educational and shareable content. By crafting posts tailored to how B2B audiences consume Instagram at all stages and optimizing delivery, companies can cost-effectively boost awareness, consideration and conversions.
Be focused on providing true value, not direct selling. Play around with various visual formats and behind-the-scenes content that is relevant to your offering. Share your best content across channels and make it easy to share.
While any B2B organization can develop an engaged, vocal audience of brand advocates on Instagram, it’s all about the right mix of insightful and inspiring stories.
