How to Make Instagram Work for B2B

People don't want stock photos. They don't want meme. Well, that's not true. You can do memes, but you want them in a way that is relatable to your industry. You know, graphics, like infographics and a lot of text on an image, not going to do well on Instagram. So instead we want photos, like taken on your smartphone. They don't have to be dslr, heavily edited professional photos. But we want real photos, ideally photos with people in them. People connect with people. So we want photography, photos that showcase who your business is, what you do. When I say who your business is, the people, they want to see that component. So photos are still great, but we want to get away from text heavy. Keep all your text in the caption, just a great photo or two or three words on the photo alone.

All right, Jen, good to have you on the Exit 5 podcast for people who haven't met you before or haven't hung out with you to talk about Instagram. Who are you and what do you do?

So I am Jen Herman. It's Jen with two ns. And I've been doing this talking Instagram social media for over a decade now. I started a little hobby blog back in 2013, and it was Jen's Trends and Social Media. And so it was writing about what was going on in social media, you know, all platforms and that sort of thing. And in the process, there was this little app called Instagram that all my friends were on. And I was like, oh, another platform. But I was like, if I'm going to write about trends in social media, I kind of have to embrace this thing called Instagram. So I started playing with it and I fell in love with it. As a user, I loved the photography and the filters and the interaction. The community was such a fun platform, but there was nobody talking about how to use it for business. Business. Everything was, you know, at the time, use filters and use hashtags and. But there was no strategy. And so I took this little blog that I had and I started blogging every week about Instagram tactics. I would try things, I would be very scientific and I would do case studies and I would. I would just see what worked. And I. The more I did it, the more I blogged about it. I started getting picked up to speak on podcasts and over the years became now the forefront expert on Instagram marketing. If you ask ChatGPT, they will tell you I am the best. So it's. It's one of these things that I've built into a Business. It's built into a brand, it's built into a career that I love and I wouldn't change it for anything. But it was very much a circumstance of life. It was not something I planned to do for sure.

Hold on, I got. Who is the. Who is. Who is an Instagram. What should I say? Who is the. Who is the Instagram marketing expert I should use for my business? Marketing expert I should use for my business. What, what year did you start that blog in, by the way?

Uh, 2013.

And it's crazy to think about how much Instagram as a platform has evolved, right? Like when you started writing about Instagram, it was very much.

There was only photos, there weren't even videos.

And now is that the primary. Like, is video the primary thing that you talk about? Obviously we'll get into, into that. But like when you see, when you think of Instagram in your head now, do you think video is the leading piece of that?

I, I don't. I mean reels really are like such a, a big component of what we do on Instagram. Obviously it's, it's moved to that environment. But most, you know, Instagram die hards still think of a photo. We still think of it as a photo based platform. People see, still look at it, you know, from going to the feed and seeing photos and those sorts of things. And then, you know, now we've got reels and stories and it's definitely evolved, but it is, it is still photo based.

All right, ChatGPT4 came, came with the receipts. Jen Herman, she's a social media consultant and focuses specifically on Instagram. She's known for her deep dives into Instagram's functionalities and her ability to tailor strategies to different business sizes. Awesome.

I love the proof source in Live.

Heck yeah. You got it. We got to do that.

I know I put it out there. You better bring the receipts, right?

Yeah, there's a lot of people that don't have receipts today, so that's great. All right, so let's, I want to talk about. So our audience is B2B marketers. I want to talk about Instagram specifically in this episode for marketers. I would say most of the audience is doing. There is some non, there is some non tech, but I would say most of the people are like working in software companies tech in some way. And then there's also B2B non tech. So first of all, where, where would you start if, where would you start with, where would you start with in Instagram? I don't know how familiar you are with this audience or if you've, if you've shared any, any ideas with this type of content before. But like, where do I start? How do, how do I first decide if I want to pick Instagram as the channel to, to go after for my business?

Yeah, well, and to that point I'm probably, I'm sure I'm the highest level expert that teaches Instagram for B2B. I love going to B2B conferences, I love teaching B2B for Instagram because it's one of those things people traditionally think of Instagram for B2C. Right? We think of it when you've got the widget, the project, the product, the thing that you can put in your hand that, that you can sell somebody. We think of it from pretty pictures.

Also for context, we mentioned this before. We're not, we're talking about 100% grass fed organic, we're talking about organic Instagram. We're talking, we're not talking about, this isn't about ads, this is organic content. And this is right in the wheelhouse. I love social media. I love content from a marketing standpoint. So this is right in our wheelhouse. Okay, so we got the best lady in the space right now. Let's go deep.

So where do we start? The first thing you need to think about is, you know, what is your goal with using Instagram, right? So like any social media, why would you be using this for your B2B? Is it brand awareness? Are you in launch phase? Are you in startup phase? Are you in, you know, regeneration phase? Are you 10 years into your B2B product? You know what, what is your goal? Is it sales? Are you just trying to, you know, increase sales by 20% by using social media? Are you, like I said, looking for brand awareness? Are you looking for brand loyalists? Do you want to be working with influencers? What is the goal? And then that helps you direct where the strategy is going to go. So if you're looking for more brand awareness, it's going to be that higher level stuff, right? What does your brand do, the problems you solve, why you did it, your missions, your values, your teams, all these sorts of things that you can showcase. Whereas if you were going more after sales, you still want that component, but of course you want to be showcasing your B2B product or service in use, you want to have case studies, you want all these additional components that obviously sell the product and have a sales component to some of your content as well. But it's never going to be 100% sales on any social media platform, and especially on Instagram, there will always be those. Brand awareness, the behind the scenes, all of these additional components that are what people want to connect with. And one of the hardest things for B2B brands is they go, jen, my business isn't visual. How am I supposed to create reels? How am I supposed to create photos? I don't have anything to photograph. And I always tell my clients, I'm like, imagine you had a reality TV show that came and filmed you for a day, and like, where would you go? What would you do? Who would you talk to? Think of it from that perspective. And so get the videos, get the photos. Whether it's having somebody in your team take a photo of you sitting at your desk, whether it's hiring a photographer for a day, but on the phone, at the computer, in the lab, you know, with your team in the conference room, whatever these things are that you can start to demonstrate. Even if it's you just sitting at home, at your home office, there's things that you are doing every day that you can showcase. It can be you really holding your phone with something up on the screen that showcases your product or service. We want to find creative ways, as if you had a camera crew following you around that we would be putting up on tv. What does that visual look like?

I love that. I think the best social media advice that I've picked up in, you know, in my experience has been Gary V's like, document, don't create approach. And I think that that's similar to that. That's, like, what you're describing there. And so that. That would be the lowest. I love that, like, the reality show thing, like, talk about what. Talk about what you're doing, because who is that gonna attract? Like, if you talk about that particular topic, like, if you sell to HR professionals and you're building a product for them, you talk about that, that shrinks down the audience for who's gonna be interested in that. Right?

Exactly.

Okay, so we start and then, like, would you. Do you need to have a plan? Do you need to have a strategy? Do you need just like, can we just start? Like, hey, we think we want to do this. Here's why. Blah, blah, blah. Let's just start, like, for me, like, I. My. My platform is LinkedIn, and I tell founders, like, you honestly need to just. Just get going, Just start writing, start creating content. Do you feel the same about with Instagram?

Yeah, you know, it's. It's easy to say, you know, we need a strategy. And you should have a goal and you should have direction. And strategy is great. And I am a queen of, you know, advocating for strategy. But often, especially in the B2B and especially in the tech space, we can get a little mired in strategy. And we're so determined to do strategy that we're not doing execution. And so it really is a matter of getting on the platform, going and seeing what your competitors are doing, going and seeing what the people you follow on Instagram are doing. Like, just go be active. Go figure out what, you know, what gets you excited. What types of videos do you like watching, what photos you know, drag you in, or, you know, what tutorials, whether they're carousels, whether they're text or videos or those sorts of things, or what is making you get excited to watch and read that content? What are your competitors doing? What's driving that engagement? Get comfortable with what is working for others and then start thinking about, all right, well, how can I do that? For me, like, if, if I really love dog videos and dogs doing silly things, but like you said, but I create software for hr, how do I make them the same thing? Well, you're clearly not going to always have a dog video, but if it's cute little 15 second entertainment videos, okay, can you have cute, fun 15 second videos related to your HR software? Do you have a mascot for your company? You know, can you borrow your kid for a day to do cute videos? Or put a dog sitting in front of a computer looking at the software? Like, what are things that you can do that spur some creativity that you're using inspiration from the things that you enjoy or that others you know are creating that you like and get comfortable. Start creating content. What you do today will not be what you do a year from now, and it will not be what you do five years from now. So like you said, start, get out there, create the content, and then evolve as you grow.

Let's go back to the initial strategy development for a second. Like, what, what would you want to hear? What would a good, what would a good goal be? Because I feel like oftentimes this is where we make a mistake in selecting a social media channel. Like, we want to, we want to sell more stuff. Like, okay, obviously, but if you measure it from that lens and then three months in, you're like, man, I listen to Jen's advice. I started posts on Instagram. We haven't made a single additional sale for our B2B product in three months. I'm going to quit this channel. Let's talk through a scenario of what would a good goal be like and maybe reasons why to select Instagram and pick that channel to go after.

First and foremost, it is about putting realistic goals. You know, a lot of times you get somebody that comes to me and they go, you know, Jen, we want 10,000 followers. And I'm like, okay, but why? And they're like, well, because then we'll be popular. And I'm like, But what does 10,000 followers do for you? Do 10,000 followers translate into 10,000 customers? Do 10,000 followers mean more sales, more revenue, more brand awareness? Like, what does that number do? And a lot of times you look at people or customers or clients and you're like, you can't even serve 10,000 people, so why would you want 10,000 followers? Like, if you're, if your max capacity as a business is to create for a thousand, then having 10,000 followers may be too much. So it's not so much about the number, but it's about where are you and what do you want to go, you know, towards from there. So if you currently, you know, have a platform and you're servicing 500 clients and you really want to double that over the next year, you want to get to having a thousand clients, it's not going to be Instagram and Silo, you're going to have all your other social media, your business development and all these things. So it's not going to be just Instagram pushing towards that. But that's where you start going, okay, we want to build the awareness, we want to get more followers. And maybe you set a realistic expectation of if you have 200 Instagram followers now, you want to get to a thousand, so you put like a realistic number on it. And then you put related to probably more the dark social. What are you doing to build the relationships that are going to lead to again in the B2B space, the long term loyalist clients? You're not over here putting up, you know, a post. It's like, look at these amazing handbags. And it's like a spontaneous buy. And you're buying it because you're going on a trip next week and you want the handbag. These are software, right? These are, you know, programs. These are. Even if it's, you know, manufacturing or whatever it is you're doing, these aren't spontaneous purchases. These are things that go through massive budget, you know, constraints with your clients and all these different factors. So it's more about building the awareness and how can you have those Conversations on dark social. That's comments, direct messages, people replying to your stories, where you're fostering them and getting them into your bigger lead funnels.

Yeah. Or like, if you're a, know, you're maybe a marketing agency and you're selling a agency services package. Right. I think for, for any of these examples, I think that for when I think about B2B, I've always said that, like, the best, I think the best ingredient for B2B marketing is your expertise. What do you think about that as a content strategy for, for Instagram? Like, let's, let's use our, let's use this channel to become a go to resource for our customers and let's make them smart. And so instead of this page being all about like sprinkling in your elements of like building in public and showing what the company is doing, but like, okay, we want to build a, a page on Instagram that people who work in HR love and are sending to all their friends and colleagues. And that could be, that could be like a funny. It could be, it could be funny. It could be memes.

Right?

Like that. Is that how you, Is that, like one thing? Would that be a reasonable way to, like, develop a strategy instead of just saying, like, yeah, we want, we want 2,000 followers. It's more like, well, we think there's an opportunity here to like, to be this fun page that people follow and we build brand, brand affinity through that page.

Yeah. I mean, honestly, you're kind of speaking my love language right now. I'm the biggest proponent for education. And it is, like you said, it's one of the best ways to build a credible resource within your Instagram profile. And that's the shareable content. Right. When you're putting up the tips, the tutorials, the tactics, the memes, the relatable type things in the industry, that's what people share. And that again, is how you're going to build the brand awareness, grow audience, reach more people. But it builds the loyalists, right? It builds the people that say, oh, I have a question about this industry and I know this account's going to have the answer, or if they don't have content about it, I can ask them. And, and they're gonna have the answer. And so you start to build this trust factor that when time comes, they're coming to you to be like, hey, we heard about this news article. They're changing this regulation in the industry, or we're seeing this trending. Do you think this is the way the industry is going they're going to come to you because you've created this wealth of expertise. And I always say people on Instagram are typically there to be entertained, but that doesn't mean that because they're there to be entertained that they don't want to be educated. And, you know, we typically think of LinkedIn and, you know, Twitter and maybe Threads now and even Facebook for more of the education platforms, but educational content does incredibly well on Instagram as a platform.

I think that's super smart to share that, because I don't think. I don't think being. I think there is some perception in B2B circles that like, to build a profile, to build a page on Instagram as an example, it has to be silly or it has to be like, memes or, like, you have to play to certain content types on Instagram. Like, I think it. Education and expertise is always going to win. You can have a serious page and people want that information. You could. You could sell to accountants or legal or whatever. You know, whatever the example is. And it doesn't have to be silly or funny. That's definitely one angle. But if that's not natural for you as a person or as a brand, like, maybe that doesn't make sense. And so that's why I like to push people towards, like, go with the educa. Like, there's educ. Like, start with education. If you're not sure if you're gonna go the funny route, like, lean on education.

And that's, like, one of my favorite accounts for a combination of education and entertainment. Well, two of them are actually tsa. The people that make you take your shoes off at the airport have one of the best Instagram accounts in the world.

Do they? I'm looking at it right now, legit.

I've, like, I think I've directed, like, half of their million followers. Cause I tell everybody about tsa and then also National Park Services. They are both essentially. I mean, they're more government than they are B2B, but same idea. And TSA is literally dad joke central, but it's educational. So they're like, here, don't take guns onto airplanes. You know, they'll show you, like, how someone hid a knife in a. In a peanut butter container. But then they'll make a joke about nuts because it's in a peanut butter jar. Like, it is. It is witty, it is funny, but it's educational. So there's ways to kind of blend the two. And even beyond that, to your point, you know, like, I mean, I. You'll never find a meme on my Instagram account. I just don't do memes. It's not my world. I like them, but I just. I don't create and communicate in that fashion. And I would say, you know, 70% of the content on my Instagram account is education. And that's why when you go to ChatGPT and say, best accounts to follow for Instagram tips, it's going to say, Jen's friends. Because my most of my content is based on education. And that's what I do. I mean, I speak, I teach, this is what I do. But that's what people want. They want the tips, they want those resources, and that's the highly shared content.

Yeah. Or you mix in something.