Just because you work in B2B, you’re still a person. And guess what, so are those that you’re selling to. And like pretty much all people, they’ll spend a good amount of their time on social media. Which is why B2B marketing on social media is an effective tool for brands, even if you think
Just because you work in B2B, you’re still a person. And guess what, so are those that you’re selling to.
And like pretty much all people, they’ll spend a good amount of their time on social media. Which is why B2B marketing on social media is an effective tool for brands, even if you think “doing socials” is more for B2C.
Social media is where you build credibility and trust, nurture leads and relationships with customers and prospects, and where you influence deals before anyone speaks to sales.
But let me know if this sounds familiar.
Bland company updates. “We’re excited to announce”, “We’re thrilled to announce,” “We’re proud to say”, or “As a leading…”.
This is what most B2B social media marketing amounts to. And then brands wonder why they’re not getting much reach, they’re having no influence on buyer journeys, and they’re not converting buyers.
It can be so much more than that, though.
And in this article, I’ll tell you how.
Social media isn’t just “brand awareness” or recruitment.
B2B buyers spend about 70% of their time researching products and services online before talking to sales, and a good amount of that is spent on social media.
Even when they’re scrolling at home, they still notice content and ads from businesses.
More than a quarter of B2B buyers research on social media.
If you’re not there, your customers are going to go to the brands that are. And those brands are also the ones that will shape the conversations about your industry and become the go-to source for information.
You can also use social media as a source for growing your B2B email marketing list.
One of the reasons social media tends to lean more towards B2C is because it’s easier to see how it impacts sales for products you can buy immediately or on a whim.
In B2B, buyers move more slowly, more people are involved, and the content you need is more varied and targeted at different audiences. B2B buyers want expertise and reassurance, not dance videos.
But being on social media can still influence buyers down the line.
So your content must be useful and problem-solving.
Don’t get me wrong, everyone loves a popular or trending meme, but what works in B2B social media is content like case studies and educational content.
Your brand needs to be on social media, but you don’t have to be everywhere (chances are you don’t have the time or people to make that happen).
The key is understanding where you’re buyers are, and putting your efforts there.
LinkedIn has about 44 million users in the UK, and around 97% of B2B marketers are active on the platform.
How LinkedIn works for B2B brands has changed recently, with the platform suppressing brand pages while favouring personal posts.
It means people are now seeing way more organic engagement than brand pages.
Success depends on blending LinkedIn SEO (optimising profiles, pages, and posts with relevant keywords) with employee-driven distribution.
LinkedIn’s algorithm is also changing towards pushing “suggested” posts to users based on what they’re interested in. It’s not just about who their connections are now.
For brands, this means engaging, educational posts from employee pages have the ability to reach much bigger audience than they did in the past.
YouTube is the second-largest search engine, used by 94% of UK online adults every month.
But competition is still pretty low in B2B terms. And there’s plenty of opportunity for creating explainers, demos and thought leadership content.
Being visible on YouTube means understanding YouTube SEO (optimised titles, descriptions, tags, thumbnails, and playlists).
With 23million users and 33million users respectively, TikTok and Instagram aren’t as big as other platforms, and skew towards a younger audience.
But these are the people entering the workforce and becoming more influential in buying decisions, so TikTok and Instagram are growing in importance.
They’re effective for employer branding, culture content, and early-stage awareness.
Sectors like recruitment, SaaS and professional services are experimenting successfully with these platforms. You can see how accounting software firm QuickBooks is making good use of TikTok with its business owner/ problem content.
Social media needs to be a part of your marketing strategy if it’s going to work. Just posting randomly on LinkedIn a few times a week isn’t going to do much.
So when putting your B2B social media strategy together, consider:
It’s a cliche (and true) that people trust other people more than brands.
And the way LinkedIn’s algorithm works now, it’s more likely your personal page, and those of your team, will outperform your company page.
Polished corporate updates will underperform against a less professional-looking personal post.
So, you’ll need to think about how you’ll distribute your content.
It’s not enough now to post updates on company pages.
Instead, your team is almost going to have to become thought leaders in their own right, posting industry updates and opinions on their own pages with links to your company.
The implication is clear. Brand visibility depends less on your company page and more on the collective voices of your people.
Structured employee advocacy programmes and executive thought leadership are no longer optional.
It’s not a case of one or another, as we’ve written in our blog organic vs paid social media, your brand needs to look at both.
Organic social is about creating credibility. It builds authority, nurtures trust, and shapes your voice.
Paid social is more of a pipeline contributor. It accelerates reach, enables precise targeting, and powers ABM campaigns.
The best B2B social media strategy uses both, with organic building authority over time, while paid creates short-term sales spikes from targeted ads, or boosting already successful organic content.
B2B social media shouldn’t be about “likes” and “impressions,”. It’s about how your content contributes to leads and sales.
You should be able to link activity directly to pipeline and revenue:
Tools like LinkedIn Campaign Manager, HubSpot, and Salesforce tie social activity to opportunity.
The nuance is time-lag attribution: social influences deal long before they close. Ignoring that underestimates its impact.
Reporting should shift from “we reached 50,000 people” to “we influenced £500,000 in pipeline.”
B2B marketers have a huge opportunity to influence buyer decisions on social media.
And with the amount of data available on social media about the people who engage with your content, you can use these platforms as a place to test messages and content types to see what proves popular.
If you want help with your B2B social media strategy, get in touch for a free strategy session.
We’ll audit your existing social media strategy and provide advice on where you can make improvements.
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