Social Significance: Learn From Our Top 10 Social Media Marketing Posts

In 2021 B2B marketers have continued to find creative new uses of social media marketing as the marketing world has continued another year exploring uncharted territory. We've been fortunate to feature many excellent articles on our blog over the year that explore how B2B marketers are utilizing social media marketing to build new levels of success. We're fortunate to have a wealth of talented B2B marketing professionals contributing to the TopRank Marketing blog — which will celebrate its 19th year in 2022. 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 blog community grow its social media marketing knowledge, we're thrilled to offer our annual list of the most popular social media marketing posts of 2021. The 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 continue to face in 2022. 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 2021:

1. Traffic’s Black Hole: What B2B Marketers Need To Know About Dark Social — Lane R. Ellis

While dark social isn’t new, the measurement challenges it presents may be growing in scope, as marketers are facing a new black hole where attribution data was once available, in the form of disappearing web browser cookie data and an increase in the number of folks using ad-blocking technology. In the most popular social media marketing post of 2021 on our blog, I took a look at the current state of dark social and what B2B marketers need to know when it comes to managing and integrating unattributable site visitor traffic. You can check out all of my posts here, and follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn. [bctt tweet="“Word-of-mouth remains one of the most effective and natural marketing drivers. The person who shares a link to a loved one has already qualified that potential lead, and in doing so has become a champion of your brand.” — Sanjay Sarathy" username="toprank"]

2. 10 New Insights B2B Marketers Need To Know About LinkedIn In 2021 — Lane R. Ellis

In our second most popular social media marketing post of the year, I shared insight into the impressive assortment of new features that LinkedIn* has rolled out in 2021. From new company page options to LinkedIn Live and the traits of engaging B2B creative, this post takes a gaze at what B2B marketers need to know about the latest LinkedIn features. [bctt tweet="“Start thinking about who the audience truly is and as a result, who might be able to speak to them better than you can?” — Garnor Morantes of @LinkedIn" username="toprank"]

3. Marketer’s Toolkit: 10+ New Tools To Enhance Your B2B Marketing Stack — Lane R. Ellis

How can B2B marketers improve their content in refreshing new ways, and also add to their stack of marketing skills? These 10+ new and updated tools can enhance your B2B marketing stack, from digital imaging and video to data insights and more, and in our third most popular social media marketing article of the year I take a close look at each, including:

• MindMeister
• Google's Area 120
• CoSchedule
• Keyword Insights
• GoogleAI
• Fili Wiese
• Grammarly
• Ryte
• Loom
• Agorapulse

Take a look at some of these helpful tools for today’s busy marketers, to help refine and augment your B2B marketing strategy now and into our post-pandemic future. [bctt tweet="“B2B marketers can create great content by combining existing tools in new ways, building digital assets that sing a unique song that will help brands weave stories that truly stand out.” — Lane R. Ellis @lanerellis" username="toprank"]

4. 5 Fresh Features: What LinkedIn’s New Learning Hub, Ratings & Reviews, Live Events & Page Article Updates Mean for B2B Marketers — Lane R. Ellis

With its latest updates including full-length articles for pages, profile ratings and reviews, LinkedIn Live Events, a new LinkedIn Learning Hub skill-building platform, and new features for accessibility, LinkedIn has made it easier than ever for B2B marketers to create meaningful engagement on the world’s biggest professional business network. In the fourth most popular social media marketing post of 2021, I look at five key new LinkedIn features and how they’ll affect B2B marketers. [bctt tweet="“Creating a service page on LinkedIn helps users and businesses make the services they provide more discoverable both on the platform and through third-party search engines.” — Lane R. Ellis @lanerellis" username="toprank"]

5. How B2B Brands Can Boost Confidence in Livestream Video, Podcast and Clubhouse Marketing — Lee Odden

How can B2B brands boost confidence in live-stream video, podcast and Clubhouse marketing? In our fifth most popular social media marketing post of the year, our CEO Lee Odden explores effective universal social media truths and how partnering with influencers who understand innovative content formats creates more relevant, meaningful and effective B2B content marketing experiences. Check out all of Lee’s 2,600+ posts here, and follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn. [bctt tweet="“Working with external industry influencers not only validates the brand’s message on those innovative content platforms and formats. but it also helps build the trust that is so desperately needed between consumers and brands.” @LeeOdden" username="toprank"]

6. Inside B2B Influence: Sarita Rao of AT&T on Growing B2B Executive Influence with Social Media — Lee Odden

How can senior executives use social channels to effectively bring their teams and customers together to enhance business? In our sixth most popular social media marketing post of the year, Lee spoke with Sarita Rao, president of integrated and partner solutions of AT&T, in a fascinating episode for the second season of our Inside B2B Influence show, available to watch, or to learn from in convenient podcast format. Highlights of this episode of Inside B2B Influence with Sarita include:

• What prepared Sarita best for her current leadership role
• How social media engagement has impacted her career
• Advice for B2B executives on becoming more social online
• Advice for women who aspire to senior business leadership roles
• Insights into collaboration tools and technology for interacting with current and prospective customers
• Tips on making connections with employees more human
• How Sarita is helping to redefine customer experience at AT&T
• An example of what real human conversation and interaction looks like in today’s business world
• The importance for today’s modern sales or marketing leaders to be active on social channels

[bctt tweet="“Social media is a great way to amplify the work that your team is doing and frankly, our next generation of leaders.” — Sarita Rao @saritasayso" username="toprank"]

7. 5 More Handy Tools For 2021’s Busy B2B Marketers — Lane R. Ellis

Have you tried all 5 of these handy marketing tools and platforms to help streamline your busy 2021 B2B marketing efforts? In our seventh most popular social media marketing post of the year, I take a look at more tools for busy marketers and several new social media platforms poised to rise during the year ahead, all to help refine and augment your B2B marketing strategy, including:

• Awario
• Descript
• DataTAB
• Telegram
• Clubhouse

Sorting through lists of the seemingly endless number of available marketing tools and platforms can be frustrating, and we put this collection together so that you can skip the search and get right into the tools you can use to help you create unforgettable B2B marketing stories.

8. 5 Tips for Promoting B2B Content Co-Created with Influencers — Debbie Friez

In our eighth most popular social media marketing article of the year, our influencer marketing manager Debbie Friez shows how working with influencers creates an amazing opportunity to co-create and co-promote content for B2B brands. To help you get the most out of your investment in content collaborations with influencers, Debbie shares five handy tips to spice up your social media posts, and shows how the valuable content your influencers have helped you create will better reach, engage, and inspire your customers. Check out all of Debbie's posts here, and follow her on Twitter and LinkedIn. [bctt tweet="“When working with influencers, you want them to understand you value their content and want to share it with your brand’s community.” — Debbie Friez @dfriez" username="toprank"]

9. Live Now: 5 B2B Brands Winning With Live-Stream Content — Lane R. Ellis

How are top B2B brands harnessing the power of live-streaming content to build social media audience engagement? In our ninth most-popular B2B social media marketing post of the year, I share helpful real-world examples from SAP*, Vimeo, Eaton, Oracle*, and SAS Software — along with how B2B marketers can get the most from live-streaming. Over the course of the pandemic, live-streaming events have catapulted onto our screens and into many new areas of our business lives, and as 2022 looms, there’s no sign that live-stream content usage will dissipate. There's no better time to learn live-streaming best practices from the top brands examined in this article.

10. Social Significance: Why B2B Brands Value Social CX & Are Spending More — Lane R. Ellis

Why are B2B brands placing greater value on social media and spending more on social customer experience (CX)? B2B brands are doubling down on the value of social media marketing and reaping the accompanying benefits of social CX. In the tenth most popular social media marketing article of the year, I look at why, with fresh insight from several data-backed marketing reports. New digital marketing research reveals why B2B brands are finding a renewed passion for the expanding benefits of social media, and why they are becoming more willing than ever to spend more for the competitive advantages that social CX offers. [bctt tweet="Social engagement with prospects along with publishing credible thought leadership content warms prospects for conversations that lead to conversion.” — Lee Odden @LeeOdden" username="toprank"]

Thanks TopRank Marketing Readers

There you have it — a varied and insightful selection of our 10 most popular social media marketing posts from  2021. We published many other posts this year specifically about social media marketing, a tradition we'll continue in 2022, so stay tuned. Please let us know which social media marketing topics and ideas you'd like to see us focus on for 2022 — we'd love 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, SAP, and Oracle are TopRank Marketing clients.

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