B2B Social Media Marketing: How to Build Your Strategy

Marketing to other businesses isn’t the same as reaching everyday shoppers. Your audience makes careful choices and researches for months before buying.

This means B2B social media marketing needs a different plan. You can’t just post fun content and hope for the best.

You need a plan that speaks to decision-makers and builds trust over time. In this guide, we’ll show you how to create a B2B social media strategy that actually works.

What is B2B social media marketing?

B2B social media marketing means using platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook to reach other businesses. Instead of targeting individual shoppers, you’re talking to team leaders and decision-makers.

Your goal is to build relationships, share knowledge, and show how your product or service solves business problems. It’s about proving you understand their industry and can help them succeed.

Take Microsoft as a perfect example. The LinkedIn pages for their various products share useful insights that actually help their business audience, rather than just product promotions.

Here’s a great example of the type of content you can actually see across their pages:

They position themselves as a trusted advisor by offering valuable content for free on their social platforms. So when business decision makers start talking about their options, Microsoft will always be a contender.

How is B2B social media marketing different?

B2B social media works differently than B2C marketing in several key ways. Understanding these differences helps you avoid common mistakes that waste time and budget.

• Longer sales cycles: B2B buyers can take months to make decisions, so your social media content needs to nurture relationships over time rather than pushing for quick sales.
• Multiple decision-makers: One person rarely makes the final choice, which means you need to reach everyone from users to executives who influence the buying process.
• Focus on education: B2B buyers want to learn before they buy. They need detailed information, case studies, and proof that your solution actually works.
• Relationship-first approach: Building trust matters more than going viral. Your content should demonstrate expertise and reliability rather than just entertainment value.
• Professional tone: While personality helps, B2B content needs to stay professional and industry-focused. Your audience expects authoritative information they can trust.
• ROI focused: B2B buyers care about return on investment. Your content should show clear business value and measurable results that justify their purchase.

Top B2B social media marketing platforms

Not every social media platform works equally well for B2B marketing. Here are the ones that matter most for reaching business audiences effectively.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn dominates B2B social media marketing, with 86% of B2B marketers using the platform. It’s built specifically for business networking and offers advanced targeting options for ads.

The platform has over 1 billion professional users who actively engage with business content. Research shows LinkedIn delivers some of the strongest engagement rates among executives compared to other social platforms.

Dropbox demonstrates effective LinkedIn marketing through their employee advocacy approach. They encourage team members to use the hashtag #LifeInsideDropbox and regularly repost employee stories and behind-the-scenes content.

This strategy creates authentic stories about working at the company while showcasing their collaborative culture. You’ll also quickly notice that user posts tend to generate much more reach and engagement than their company post counterparts.

Facebook

Facebook remains valuable for B2B marketing despite its consumer focus. A number of B2B marketers plan to invest in Facebook for social media marketing, and 22% of B2B marketers say it offers the highest ROI of all social platforms.

Facebook works best for broad brand awareness campaigns and retargeting website visitors. The platform’s detailed targeting options help you reach decision-makers based on job titles, industries, and interests.

Mailchimp uses Facebook to highlight their partner community and showcase small business success stories. They share customer profiles from businesses across different industries, demonstrating the wide range of use cases their platform supports.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, they used Facebook to share how their team worked remotely while staying connected. This content strengthened their employer brand while providing valuable remote work insights to small businesses navigating similar challenges.

YouTube

Video content drives strong results for B2B brands, with 82% of businesses uploading videos to the platform. The platform works exceptionally well for educational content, product demonstrations, and thought leadership videos.

YouTube serves as the second-largest search engine globally, making it perfect for discovery. B2B buyers often search for solution comparisons and tutorials during their research process.

Cloudera uses YouTube to share expert conversations about data analytics and AI innovation. Their channel features series like “The AI Forecast” with data leaders discussing trends in cloud-era AI, product demos showcasing their platform capabilities, and partnership announcements like their collaboration with Galileo.ai on enterprise AI reliability.

Their technical content, including videos like “Galileo.ai & Cloudera: Redefining Enterprise AI Reliability,” helps potential customers understand how Cloudera solutions address real-world data challenges while positioning the company as a leader in the data and AI space.

Instagram

Instagram surprises many as a B2B platform, but 76% of B2B marketers use Instagram for business marketing. The visual platform works when you focus on company culture, behind-the-scenes content, and showcasing your team.

Instagram excels at showing your workspace, company values, and the people behind your brand to potential customers. Instagram Stories and Reels provide opportunities for quick updates and authentic glimpses into your business.

Vista Social uses Instagram to showcase product innovation and the human side of social media management. Our recent “Featuremas” campaign launched one new feature every day for 12 days through daily Reels, matching the fast pace marketers work at during Q4.

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A post shared by Social Media Management Tool for Agencies (@vistasocialapp)

Beyond product launches, we share quick platform updates, tutorial-style Reels showing exactly how to use specific features, and memes that resonate with social media managers’ daily experiences.

X/Twitter

X/Twitter remains useful for B2B marketing despite recent platform changes. It’s still valuable for real-time industry conversations, customer service and support, and networking with industry leaders.

The platform works best for sharing quick insights and participating in industry discussions. Many thought leaders and executives still use Twitter for professional networking and staying current with industry trends.

Intercom maintains an active Twitter presence by sharing customer service insights and responding to user feedback. They participate in conversations about customer experience trends and product development.

Capacity planning has always been high-stakes in customer service. Get it wrong, and you’ll feel it fast in backlogs, missed SLAs, and strained teams.

But the dynamics have changed with AI. As it resolves more of your volume, it also shifts what’s left for humans and introduces… pic.twitter.com/97sAK3o1PF

— Intercom (@intercom) December 19, 2025

Their customer support team uses Twitter to resolve issues publicly and share helpful resources. This transparency builds trust while demonstrating their commitment to customer success.

Threads

Meta’s Threads platform offers a newer alternative to Twitter for professional conversations. While still growing, early B2B adopters are finding success with industry discussions and thought leadership in this less saturated environment.

The platform provides opportunities to connect with audiences who have migrated from Twitter, creating new networking possibilities. Many professionals appreciate the fresh start and more positive community atmosphere.

Shopify was an early Threads adopter, sharing ecommerce insights and engaging with business owners about entrepreneurship trends and small business challenges. 

View on Threads

Their conversational approach on Threads generates strong engagement from online store owners and entrepreneurs seeking practical advice.

How to create a B2B social media marketing strategy

Building an effective B2B social media strategy requires careful planning. Here’s how to create one that delivers results for your business.

Pinpoint your goals

Start by defining what you want to achieve with specific, measurable objectives. Common B2B social media goals include brand awareness and thought leadership, lead generation and nurturing, customer education and support, and community building.

Give your goals parameters to make them more realistic. Instead of something vague like, “increase awareness,” aim for, “grow LinkedIn followers by 25% in six months.” Or try, “generate 50 qualified leads per month from social media.”

Vista Social’s analytics features help you track these goals with detailed reporting. You can measure follower growth, engagement rates, and lead generation across all your social platforms in one dashboard.

Understand your audience

B2B audiences have unique characteristics that require deep understanding. Research their demographics, pain points, content preferences, and platform behavior to create targeted content that resonates.

Create detailed buyer personas for each target audience segment, including their social media habits. This helps you choose the right platforms and create content that connects with their specific needs.

Consider factors like industry, company size, job titles, and decision-making authority. Understanding these details helps you craft messages that speak directly to their business challenges.

Analyze the competition

Study what your competitors do on social media to identify opportunities and gaps. Look at which platforms they prioritize, what content performs best, and their engagement levels with followers.

Don’t copy their approach, but learn from their successes and mistakes. Find areas where you can differentiate your brand or serve your audience better than competitors do.

Vista Social’s social listening features make competitor research easier. You can monitor their mentions, track their performance, and identify opportunities for your brand to stand out.

Tie your content to funnel stages

Create different content for each stage of the buyer’s journey to guide prospects toward purchase. This approach ensures you provide value at every touchpoint in the customer journey.

• Awareness stage: Share educational content that addresses industry challenges like blog posts, infographics, and industry insights. Focus on helping rather than selling.
• Consideration stage: Provide comparison guides, case studies, and detailed product information that helps buyers evaluate options. Show how you solve specific problems.
• Decision stage: Offer customer testimonials, free trials, and demos that encourage final purchase decisions. Build confidence in your solution.
• Post-purchase: Create implementation guides, best practices, and community content that helps customers succeed. This builds loyalty and encourages referrals.

Partner with LinkedIn influencers

B2B influencer marketing delivers strong results, with 93% of B2B companies now using influencers to boost their online presence. Look for industry experts who share your target audience and create quality content regularly.

Start small with micro-influencers who have 5,000-50,000 followers in your industry. They often have better engagement rates and cost less than macro-influencers while maintaining authentic connections with their audience.

Focus on long-term partnerships rather than one-off posts. Ongoing relationships with influencers build more authentic endorsements and deliver better results for your brand.

Create an employee advocacy plan

Your employees are your best advocates on social media. Employee advocacy programs can significantly amplify your reach without requiring big increases in advertising costs.

Train your team to share company content on their personal profiles and encourage them to write thought leadership posts about your industry. Employees’ networks trust their recommendations more than corporate accounts, making this an effective way to expand your influence.

Vista Social’s employee advocacy tools make this process simple and easy to measure. Team members can easily access approved content to share, and you can track the program’s impact on reach and engagement.

Track your performance

Measure what matters for your business goals rather than vanity metrics. Key B2B social media metrics include lead generation, website traffic, brand awareness, and sales impact.

Track how many qualified leads come from each social platform and content type. Keep an eye on referral traffic from social media to your website and monitor key landing pages to understand conversion paths.

Vista Social’s reporting features provide detailed analytics across all platforms. You can create custom reports that show exactly how social media contributes to your business goals and revenue.

Examples of B2B social media marketing

These brands demonstrate how to excel at B2B social media marketing through strategic content and authentic engagement.

HubSpot

HubSpot sets the gold standard for B2B social media with their educational approach. They create content that genuinely helps marketers improve their results rather than just promoting products.

Their LinkedIn strategy focuses on actionable marketing tips, conversion rate studies, and automation best practices. Posts like “60% of Google searches now end without a click!!” provide immediate value to their audience.

Some of their most viral content connects useful tips with memes. An example of this is their announcement that users can now integrate Canva with their HubSpot dashboards.

This approach proves they understand their audience beyond just traditional B2B marketing and work topics.

HubSpot also shares detailed case studies showing real customer results. Their series featuring small business transformations demonstrates product value without feeling like sales pitches.

Salesforce

Salesforce excels at storytelling that makes enterprise software feel human and relatable. They focus on customer success stories and real business transformations rather than technical product features.

Their partnership with the McLaren Formula 1 team showed how Salesforce products help the team with their business front, from responding to business needs in double the time, preloading their content and assets on Salesforce, and being able to manage and automate their entire campaign.

On LinkedIn, they share detailed case studies like how a measurement and automation technology company is expecting a 212% ROI using Salesforce AI tools. These stories show measurable business impact and inspire potential customers.

Microsoft

Microsoft positions themselves as thought leaders in digital transformation and workplace innovation. Their content educates audiences about industry trends rather than pushing specific products.

Their LinkedIn series “The Monthly Tech In” takes followers behind the scenes of AI innovation and infrastructure. For example, their October edition explored how a small Norwegian town is becoming Europe’s AI hub and featured breakthroughs in cooling AI chips, connecting innovation with sustainability.

They also share customer success stories and partnerships across different industries, from healthcare digital transformation to manufacturing automation. Each story shows how Microsoft technologies solve real business problems.

Take their partnership with Ralph Lauren for example.

In this post, Ralph Lauren talks about how the company partnered with Microsoft “to pioneer one of fashion’s first e-commerce platforms”. Now, it has continued partnering with the tech giant in launching their AI-powered conversational shopping tech “Ask Ralph”.

Furthermore, their YouTube channel features tons of content such as interviews with industry experts and customers. Take their Microsoft Sidebar series, where the team invites up-and-coming professionals and industry experts on coffee chats to talk about the impact of technology and how it can affect people’s lives. 

In the video above, Matthew Duncan, Head of Future of Work Marketing, talked about how AI is here and how it’s rapidly changing the workplace. He also touched upon how a person simply has to be a user and not an expert.

Adobe

Adobe transforms B2B Instagram into a creative showcase that inspires their professional audience. They turn their feed into a gallery that demonstrates product capabilities while building community.

Their strategy centers on paid partnerships with creators and professional designers who showcase Adobe tools in action. They feature creators like KARO (@karocrafts) on Instagram, as shown in the reel below.

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A post shared by KARO (@karocrafts)

They also share behind-the-scenes content from creative conferences, industry events, and even within the day-to-day-lives of their employees and interns.

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A post shared by Adobe Life (@adobelife)

In the Reel above, Adobe showcased some of their newest interns and had them give some tips on how they landed their intern positions with the company. These kinds of content cleverly position Adobe as connected to the community beyond just selling software.

Slack

Slack focuses on solving real workplace communication problems through practical content and authentic customer stories. They maintain a helpful, approachable personality while staying professional.

Their “Slack School” YouTube series helps users master the platform with educational tutorials and best practices.

The first video is a fun introduction to this series and the host, Mike Reynolds, does a wonderful job of walking the audience through what to expect and who it’s for.

Over on LinkedIn, their content is a mix of feature announcements, customer success stories, partnerships, and the occasional relatable meme.

In this short but sweet customer story video, the team over at Wolf & Badger were asked about their favorite coffee and what Slack feature they can’t live without. Of course, the whole article about them is linked in the caption.

Create your B2B social media marketing strategy today

B2B social media marketing requires patience, strategic thinking, and focus on relationship building. Start with LinkedIn as your primary platform, then expand based on where your audience is most active.

Enterprise social media management creates educational content that helps your prospects solve problems and make better decisions. Remember that B2B buyers take time to make choices, so your strategy should nurture relationships throughout their entire buying journey.

Focus on proving your expertise and building trust rather than pushing for immediate sales. The brands that succeed on B2B social media provide value first and sell second.

Ready to put your B2B social media strategy into action? Vista Social’s complete platform makes it easy to publish content, track performance, and manage your entire social media presence from one dashboard.

B2B social media marketing FAQs

What strategies are effective for B2B social media marketing?

The most effective B2B social media strategies focus on education and relationship building rather than direct sales. Share industry insights, customer success stories, and thought leadership content that helps your audience solve business problems.

Use LinkedIn for professional networking and lead generation, YouTube for educational videos and demos, and other platforms to reach different audience segments. Employee advocacy programs and influencer partnerships also drive strong results for B2B brands.

What is an example of B2B social media marketing?

HubSpot’s LinkedIn strategy demonstrates excellent B2B social media marketing. They share practical marketing tips, conversion studies, and automation best practices without constantly promoting products.

Their viral Barbie movie post connected trending culture with marketing insights, generating thousands of engagements. This approach builds trust by providing immediate value while positioning HubSpot as marketing experts.

How do you measure the success of B2B social media marketing?

Track metrics that align with your business goals rather than vanity metrics like follower count. Monitor lead generation from social media, website traffic from social platforms, and engagement rates on your content.

Measure brand awareness through reach, mentions, and share of voice in your industry. Most importantly, connect social media activity to actual sales and revenue to prove ROI. Vista Social’s analytics help you track all these metrics in one comprehensive dashboard.