In 2022 B2B marketers have continued to find creative new uses of social media marketing as the marketing world experienced another year exploring uncharted territory. We’ve been fortunate to feature many fine articles on our blog over the year that explore how B2B marketers are making the most of social media marketing to elevate and achieve new levels of success.
We’re also fortunate to have a wealth of talented B2B marketing professionals contributing to and reading the TopRank Marketing blog — which will celebrate its 20th year in 2023.
The expertise our team has acquired in helping some of the top brands in the world including Adobe, 3M, SAP, LinkedIn, and Oracle plan, implement and measure a wide range of marketing programs has often made it here to our marketing blog. To help our B2B blog community grow its social media marketing knowledge, we’re thrilled to once again offer up our annual list of the most popular social media marketing posts of the year.
The B2B social media marketing articles that were our most popular of the year are listed below, and we hope they will help you ask the right questions and continue to provide best-answer solutions to the challenges we’ll all face in 2023.
We give many thanks to you — our dedicated readers, for continuing to make the TopRank Marketing blog a go-to B2B marketing resource.
Our Most Popular Social Media Marketing Posts in 2022:
1. Virtual Vision: 5 New LinkedIn Features & How B2B Marketers Can Use Them To Succeed — Lane R. Ellis
LinkedIn* has released an impressive array of new features in 2022. From company page newsletters and the LinkedIn Podcast Network to the Future of Skills and many other new tools.
In the most popular social media marketing post of 2022 on our blog, I shared 5 new LinkedIn features B2B marketers need to know. We’ve continued to explore new LinkedIn features and insight throughout 2022, including in our CEO Lee Odden’s insightful “LinkedIn #B2Believe and The Playbook for Promise Making in B2B Marketing with Jim Habig,” and “How LinkedIn Marketing Solutions Uses Blogging to Power Its Growth Engine.”
You can check out all of my posts here, and follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn.
“Always seek the opportunity to acquire new ways to do marketing, because the ability to pivot & adapt to the unknown is the most valuable skill set.” — Som Puangladda @sompny Share on X2. B2B Marketing Education: 7 Free Social Media Training Programs From Top Platforms — Lane R. Ellis
B2B marketing is ever-changing, especially when it comes to social media, and in our second most popular social media marketing post of the year we took a look at seven free social media training programs from top platforms including:
- Meltwater
- Sprinklr
- LinkedIn Learning
- Brandwatch
- Agorapulse
- Digimind
- SproutSocial
With more than 70 percent of companies recognizing online learning as essential to long-term strategy (Digital Marketing Institute), it’s been a fantastic time to explore the vast array of online social media marketing courses available to B2B marketers from leading social platforms.
“B2B marketers who take the time to focus on making learning a perpetual and lifelong endeavor gain key advantages that help future-proof the work we’re doing today and inspire what is coming down the pike.” — Lane R. Ellis @lanerellis Share on X3. Survey Says: 2022 B2B Marketing Insight From Social Media Polls — Lane R. Ellis
What are the key areas in the B2B marketing industry where professionals see a need to adapt to meet new challenges?
One straightforward way to gauge the pulse of the industry is simply by asking, and social media polls can offer a uniquely helpful look into the concerns of B2B marketers.
In our third most popular B2B social media marketing article of the year, we took a look at what the latest poll data reveals about where B2B marketing is in 2022, from tactics and platforms to events, search and more, plus where it’s headed in 2023.
“Keeping on top of your audience’s outlook — whether it’s from poll results, questionnaires, surveys or other varieties of feedback — can make your B2B marketing efforts more grounded, data-backed, and authentic.” — @lanerellis Share on X4. Listen Up: How B2B Marketers Are Expanding Social Listening Offline & Beyond — Lane R. Ellis
How can B2B marketers amp up their social listening strategy and expand it into other areas?
Social listening is a vital aspect of modern B2B marketing, providing valuable insight into current and potential future customers, yet many marketers treat it almost as an afterthought.
From devoting greater bandwidth to purposeful listening to using observational skills that drive marketing change, in the fourth most popular social media marketing post of 2022 we shared 5 key ways to take your listening skills to the next level.
“'Listen' means much more than hearing with ears. It means to pay attention. Synonyms include observe, be attentive, give attention to, hang on words, and take notice.” — Meryl Evans @MerylkEvans Share on X5. Livestream Marketing: 5 B2B Brands Elevating With LinkedIn Live — Lane R. Ellis
How are B2B brands elevating using LinkedIn Live?
Throughout 2022 B2B brands have increasingly turned to LinkedIn’s live-streaming offering LinkedIn Live to elevate their messaging in creative new ways. Brands using LinkedIn Live are increasing engagement from virtually all public-facing sides of their organization, and pulling their professional communities closer than ever in real time using live-streaming.
In our fifth most popular social media marketing post of the year, we take the lens-cap off and look at five B2B brands that are elevating customer experiences by live-streaming with LinkedIn Live, including:
- Salesforce
- Mitel
- Maersk
- Demandbase
- Mercer
6. 5 Timely Ways B2B Brands Can Conquer Metaverse Marketing — Lane R. Ellis
What do B2B brands need to know about the metaverse?
The metaverse is currently a disconnected hodgepodge of holographic hopes and digital dreams that may or may not eventually reach the sustainable velocity to capture the hearts, minds, and wallets of the public and private sectors.
Whether you’re just testing the metaverse waters as a B2B brand, making the decision to go all-in, or taking a wait-and-see approach, in our sixth most popular social media marketing post of the year we took a deep dive into the current state of the metaverse, and shared top 5 insights B2B marketers can use today and in 2023.
“People ask about virtual reality, and if the metaverse is going to be the whole future, and the answer is that it’s going to be part of the future.” — Sir Tim Berners-Lee @timberners_lee Share on X7. Instagram’s Enhanced Creator Tags: Implications for B2B Influencer Marketing — Lane R. Ellis
How can B2B marketers benefit from Instagram’s enhanced tagging features?
Instagram’s addition of enhanced tagging — which is also available for use in video Reels — offers significant exposure opportunities for B2B content that has been created by multiple professionals, often precisely the type of content that is either made or co-created by B2B industry influencers.
In our seventh most popular social media marketing post of the year, we looked at how enhanced Instagram tagging can help give a voice to industry experts, help elevate underrepresented talent, and boost brand visibility.
“In a world where online visibility directly leads to brand sponsorships and other types of monetary opportunities, crediting is more important than ever.” — Alexandra Zaoui @ZaouiAlexandra Share on X8. How B2B Brands Can Embrace The Metaverse, BeReal, & Other Developing Social Channels — Lane R. Ellis
Should B2B brands embrace the metaverse, BeReal, and other developing social communication channels, and if so, when is the right time to start becoming involved?
While we haven’t quite gone from B2B to B-to-BeReal just yet, emerging social channels such as BeReal and in a broader sense the metaverse do offer B2B marketers and brands plenty of opportunities, as we explored in our eighth most popular social media marketing article of the year.
The web graveyard is littered with the digital skeletons of so many formerly promising social platforms, including some that were once seemingly poised to rise to the echelon of the most-used forms of online communication.
This social media platform churn is also what helps keep the web interesting and alive, yet there’s no doubt the turnover has made it harder for B2B marketers to invest in new and developing social channels, a challenge that will continue into 2023.
“People make purchasing decisions based on recommendations and perceptions of people (not brands) they respect and trust. Influencers will be essential for humanizing B2B brands in 2022.” — Tamara McCleary @TamaraMcCleary Share on X9. Copious Content: 5 Creative Ways B2B Marketers Can Benefit From Twitter’s New Long-Form Publishing — Lane R. Ellis
How can B2B marketers rev up their social media engines using some of the new long-form social media content publishing features?
In our ninth most-popular B2B social media marketing post of the year, we examined how community-building, executive influence, and episodic or unexpected content can help B2B long-form content thrive on social platforms.
“It takes great storytelling to attract, engage, and convert in B2B marketing, and having a bigger slate to work with lets more powerful brand, customer, and employee stories gain a new audience.” — Lane R. Ellis @lanerellis Share on X10. Cannes Creative B2B Lions: What Award-Winning B2B Marketing Looks Like In 2022 — Lane R. Ellis
What does award-winning B2B marketing look like?
For the first time since the prestigious Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity began in the 1950s, the 2022 event saw dedicated B2B-specific marketing award categories, offering a new opportunity for B2B marketers to have their efforts shine on the global stage.
Now that the inaugural Cannes Creative B2B Lions awards event has taken place, in the tenth most popular social media marketing article of the year, we took a look at just what award-winning B2B campaign efforts look like in 2022, and where they are likely to be headed in 2023.
“The next twenty years will be about the ‘Creatification’ of a new generation of tech businesses.” — Ryan Roslansky, @LinkedIn CEO Share on XThanks TopRank Marketing Readers
That’s a wrap on our a varied and insightful selection of the 10 most popular social media marketing posts from the TopRank Marketing blog in 2022.
We published many other posts this year specifically about elevating B2B social media marketing, a tradition we’ll continue in 2023, so stay tuned.
Please let us know which social media marketing topics and ideas you’d like to see us focus on for 2023 — we’d be thrilled to hear your suggestions.
Many thanks to each of you who read our blog regularly, and to all of you who comment on and share our posts on the TopRank Marketing social media channels at Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.
*LinkedIn is a TopRank Marketing client.
