written by
Dayana Mayfield

How to Utilize Social Media Trends in B2B

Social Media 8 min read

Is your social media feed getting stale and boring? Do you want your B2B content to be more human, lively, and engaging? Then you’re probably looking for some social media trends!

Now, we don't want to turn your feeds into BuzzFeed or PopSugar. We're not trying to transform your accounts into the best source for KUWTK gossip. But there is a whole lot that can be done to capitalize on trends as a B2B, and there are already plenty of brands that are doing this.

Social Media Trends in B2B cover image

In this post, we're covering tips and examples to help you make your B2B social media accounts more trendy.

Why keep up with social media trends as a B2B company

Here is a little mindset work and motivation for you. As Dave asks, "What things do you see that you like?"

If you like some of the ideas below, have fun and give them a spin.

Screenshot of Dave Gerhardt LinkedIn's post about social media trends

Utilizing trends in your social media posts as a B2B company can help you...

  • Increase your brand reach and visibility. You can also use branded links for your social media posts to increase brand awareness and track clicks.
  • Improve the perception of your brand as more human and likable
  • Increase your social media following, as more people are likely to follow you for your engaging content

Social media trends: examples and ideas

Let's take a look at some of the big B2B brands that are posting cool, trendy content on their social media feeds.

Here are several ideas to implement.

Salesforce: One-minute Audio Snippets

One of the coolest ways to maximize social media trends is to simply try a new content format.

We've all seen podcast snippets in our LinkedIn feeds. You know those little 45 or 60 second videos with an image background?

Salesforce is really letting their freak flag with these "meditative stories" which are sort of like poems that connect back to sales or marketing in some way. They are short, under one minute long, and totally self-contained.

Essentially, Salesforce is releasing fine art on their LinkedIn profile and tying it back to the ongoing social media trends of meditation and mindfulness.

LinkedIn: Spotify Playlists for Work

Here's another example from LinkedIn. Would you expect a B2B company to create a Spotify account and start making playlists? No, you would not. But LinkedIn is a platform for workers, and a lot of people listen to music while they're working, so it's not too far of a stretch. That’s exactly why you could see it as a great social media trend to try out.

LinkedIn social media trends 2020

Of course, once you make something as cool and off-the-wall as a Spotify playlist, you can promote it regularly on all your social media accounts and make lots of evergreen posts in different formats.

Oracle: 30-Second Cooking Tutorials

Don't you love those fast-speed cooking tutorials that your mom tags you in on Facebook? It's pretty awesome to see a casserole come to life in just 30 seconds.

Anyways, super speed mini cooking shows are all over the place. You might assume that...as a B2B brand...you couldn't possibly make a cooking tutorial to capture attention on social media and further your brand reach.

But you would be wrong. Oracle makes cooking tutorials featuring real developers using the hashtag #coderskitchen. Can you feature your employees or customers in a similar way? Then do it! It’s another great example of a fun social media trend.

Have fun on odd holidays

If making full-blown cooking tutorials sounds way too involved for your content team, not to worry. Let's take a peek at an idea that's much easier to pull off.

When there's a holiday of any sort, you might be able to turn it into a comical tweet, like this example from LinkedIn. They put a whole bunch of errors in this tweet on National Grammar Day.

LinkedIn screenshot

Here's another good example from LinkedIn's own LinkedIn profile. On Dr. Seuss's birthday, they wrote up a nice little post showcasing how users can gain connections, find opportunities, and get jobs on LinkedIn. Pretty smart!

LinkedIn screenshot of a post

While leap year isn't a holiday, it is an usual day. WeWork had a great idea for some trendy content. It's not like we really get an extra day, but this is a smart way to spark up a conversation with your audience and get them to remember your brand.

Put your pets in the spotlight

Of course, we couldn't skip the pets! Dogs and cats are social media stars, and this is one of the social media trends that is not going away any time soon.

The great thing is that it's fairly easy to do. It's much more manageable to have one of your coworkers bring their dog to work one day and snap some pics of the dog hanging out in the office than it is to implement some of these other ideas (which require a filming crew).

In this example from WeWork, the dog looks really confused as to why its being interrupted from some very important work.

WeWork example of social media trends

Here's another example...a dog with money! Who doesn't love dogs and money? This example is a cute way to get visibility for a product announcement.

If they had made your typical B2B product announcement with some boring text, it might not received as much engagement or visibility.

Respectfully make the most of bad news

Due to fear of the coronavirus, Zendesk unfortunately had to cancel their live event Zendesk Miami, which was slated to take place in Miami the first week of March 2020.

In lieu of the event, Zendesk is postings tons of high quality videos on their social media feeds and are even utilizing classic Miami style. I mean c'mon...the sunnies, the white jacket, and the flamingo pink background? So Miami.

Capitalize on the cool parts of your live events (or any live event you attend)

Back in May of 2019, Salesforce hosted their developer conference, TrailheaDX, also known as TDX. Of course, they had some amazing speakers. Some of these speakers were even astronauts. We're not sure that you can get much cooler than astronauts, so if you have astronauts at your live events, definitely talk about that on social media.

And for the major geeks...they included a super cool line in the Instagram caption: "everyone learned what blockchain *really* is." Since us geeks can't go around explaining this to everyone, it's nice to know that Salesforce is taking up the task.

You don't have to be a big company like Salesforce to capitalize on this idea, however. You can also post pictures from live events that you attend (not host). And you can simply retweet about current live events. Social media trends can be as easy as that!

Isabella Demetral twitter example as social media trend

When there's an event going on in your industry, figure out creative ways to make the most of it. Utilize the event hashtag a few times to gain visibility with relevant people, and add your own spin on the content being released.

Talk about trendy things

Another smart way to make your social media feeds more interesting and engaging is to talk about trendy things. Everyone over the age of 27 is currently trying to figure out what the heck TikTok is and if they should be on it. Every day, we see another headline about some famous celebrities using TikTok.

For Keap, talking about social media trends is relevant to their audience and their product, because they offer marketing software to small business owners.

Is there something trendy being spoken about widely right now that is relevant to your target audience? Go ahead and talk about it on social media.

Guess what else is pretty cool?

Virtual reality.

In this post, Salesforce is showcasing an upcoming talk featuring Paula Weinstein, Angela Bassett, and Robin Roberts. They're going to talk about virtual reality and other technology is changing our perspectives every day.

Salesforce example social media trend

Just like with the TikTok example, Salesforce is talking about something that is trendy and interesting, while still remaining on-brand and relevant to their target audience. If you have a software for enterprise procurement, it might not make sense to all the sudden start talking about the hottest social media platform.

Best practices for capitalizing on social media trends

Now that we've seen some great examples from smart B2B brands, let's review some of the overall best practices and tips that we have learned.

Do

  • Select trendy content ideas that can be tied back to your brand, your product, and/or your target audience in some way
  • Create your own trendy content, instead of just retweeting and reposting
  • Allow yourself to be more creative with your B2B social media accounts and try out content formats that your competitors aren't even considering
  • Select trends or content that is still high quality (quality images or videos when curating other content for example)
  • Intersperse trendy content ideas with more standard content like ebooks and webinars
  • Find simple, easy ways to make your social media feeds more interesting

Don't

  • Turn your social media feeds into randomness and chaos
  • Post content that can't be tied back to what your audience cares about
  • Allow trendy content to overtake some of your more important brand content like blog posts, downloadable assets, and announcements
  • Be insensitive when posting about news or current events, or attempt to tie your brand to a serious current event if it does not affect you directly (with the exception of offering support and condolences)

As you can see, plenty of B2B brands are already finding ways to utilize social media trends content in their social media.