How To Use Instagram For B2B Lead Generation

Does Instagram make the best sense with B2B marketing? The answer may surprise you. Instagram is one of the best traffic and lead generation taps for your B2B business.

Let’s see how.

A. Use Instagram Lead Generation Ads

To start using Instagram, and lead generation ads, have these two things handy. The first? A Facebook page and second an Instagram business profile. Connect these, and voila⁠— the next time you go to your Facebook ads manager, you’ll see an option that lets you build out your ad for Instagram.

Here’s the step-by-step process:

1. Define your audience.
2. Select your placement (the recommended placement format is automatic placements)
3. Set your bid type (here, you can either optimize for leads or link clicks)
4. Choose the ad format, and finally, create your lead form

Once you set these up, ads require testing and tweaking to generate leads consistently.

B. Share User-Generated Content

User-generated content is free content that followers of your brand create for you. It’s a massive symbol of social proof. People trust what others say about a brand, even if these other people are total strangers. That gives UGC considerable potential to generate trust and drive sales.

Unfortunately, the traditional mix of UGC content is photos or videos of products. This typically results in great engagement for B2C companies. It’s easy⁠— they have products to sell, resulting in a steady chime of content from regular users posting these photos in contextual settings. For instance, let’s look at the hotel marketing industry. Hotel brands have many features to show off inside and outside, from the amenities to the room to the local landmarks and culture. And they make full use of this visual richness on their social media feed.

On the flip side, email content and blog posts⁠—typically long-form content form the staple of B2B marketing which is in stark contrast to the byte-sized bits with B2C.

This doesn’t feel like a natural fit.

Social media is a fast way to connect with customers and share quick tips, motivational thoughts, and things of that nature. These are easy to consume. And that should be the focus of your strategy to drive leads with social media. This applies to B2B marketing as well.

So how do you bridge the gap for B2B?

Ask people what they’d like to hear about. Ask them about their frustrations, problems, and questions. Use that to inform User Generated Content by answering all your readers’ questions. You could create small video clips as Mint does. In their 2-minute clips, Mint shares financial advice. This helped them grow their presence on YouTube and Facebook.

Here’s an example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43cAECEwxNE

Share highlights and important takeaways. Such tips can be on several topics– say, if you’re a CRM, why a particular CRM is better than the other. Or advice regarding CRM selection.

That’s one way. Another is to share client success stories.

Here’s another example:

This is Shopify’s Instagram page. The page contains short video clips of real users sharing experiences about how Shopify helped them launch their businesses.

This manner of UGC is trustworthy and genuine.

The testimonial videos bear testament to the fact that Shopify works.

C. Give A Peek At The Company Culture

The internal culture of your business can be a huge factor in creating a positive brand image.

‘Great company culture can be pretty instrumental to making your brand successful. Positive work environments boost employee productivity. They directly influence the bottom line. If you already have that, you’re in luck.

That’s not all. The brand’s story can be used as a marketing tool.

Here’s how.

Today’s customers are buying into product identities. Hence, if a company tells the story of its great internal culture, that’s a sign of being happy and proud about doing business with them, especially for millennials who love a good story. The company instantly becomes relatable to them. Such levels boost customer experience. The brand becomes trustworthy. As you highlight a brand’s business culture, you get a pedestal to perch your brand.

So how to highlight this brand culture?

Create content that revolves around employee experiences. Share what’s happening behind the scenes.

With your employees getting a platform where they can be themselves and contribute content on the blog or the company’s social media pages, you’re allowing them to stand out from the crowd.

This is where you showcase the community inside your company. With this, you display the company’s personality, diversity, and culture. This builds up reviews for your brand too.

D. Establish A Visual Identity

Colors, visuals, and videos rule social media. You can’t build a great brand leveraging social media without indulging in colors.

Visual branding is essential for building recognition with your audience.

Think of any company you regularly buy groceries with. Is it Walmart? I see you picturing a greyish logo. You see the different font. The simplicity of its styling. This visual representation that makes your brand instantly recognizable is what you can build on Instagram for yourselves.

You can be creative with visual branding. This lets you build out your visual styling on Instagram in a way that people easily recognize and can connect with. Experiment with different strategies.

Irrespective of the content types you post, you can create a uniform identity baked in the visual branding you want people to associate your brand with. And it’s not just about the logo alone. It’s about the visual palette too. Dropbox, for instance, has a vivid array of images and videos that follow a color palette all over its social media pages.

Using a consistent brand voice or sticking to a consistent color scheme and aesthetic feel can help to create a uniform appearance that establishes brand recognition.

You can communicate your brand identity by being funny and silly, all with a distinct touch of professionalism.

The artwork and layouts highlight what the platform is for.

E. Use Instagram Stories Partnering With An influencer

Partnering with an influencer for Instagram stories is a fantastic way to generate enough traction to fan the word about your brand. One of the best ways to do this is with influencer takeovers. An influencer “take over” is when an influencer takes over the control of your Instagram account. They then post content according to their preferences in the spirit of the overarching theme of their site. You should be fine if the content is relevant to the brand‘s general nature.

The influencer can post anything they want related to the brand.

With an influencer on board, there’s a good chance that his loyal followers will be excited and interested in your brand. You get quality leads.

Concluding thoughts

Finally, track and Measure Your Instagram campaigns

Instagram marketing to drive leads isn’t easy. But once you get started, the steady tips make it worthwhile. Calculate your ROI to ensure you’re getting a proper return for all the effort you’re putting in.