BEST DIGITAL MARKETING INSTITUTE IN BANGALORE. 
                     WHAT’S WORKING IN B2B SOCIAL MEDIA
MARKETING.?
Those crafting B2B social media marketing programs should 
consider employee branding, showcasing C-Suite executives and 
connecting social media and Account-Based Marketing (ABM) 
efforts. Those are some of the hot-ticket trends in the business of 
business-to-business social media marketing, according to Carter 
Hostelley, founder and CEO of Leadtail, a B2B social media 
consultancy.
“When I think about B2B social today, companies are very active on
social,” Hostelley said. “And the thing I always used to say, and I 
think it still holds true, is the B2B social side tends to follow by a 
couple years the B2C side. … Social is discovery driven. It’s really 
about moving folks from discovering a brand to having interest in 
brand and then finally having intent around the brand.”
Crunching B2B Social Media Numbers
It’s not like we need convincing today B2B buyers are on social 
media. But here are numbers reported by HubSpot last year. 76% of
buyers are ready to have sales conversations on social media, and 
81% of buyers are more likely to engage with brands that have a 
“strong, cohesive, professional social media presence."
 Twitter saw 2.01% follower growth
 LinkedIn saw 7.79% follower growth
 Twitter saw a 1.06% engagement rate
 LinkedIn saw a 3.53% engagement rate
*Total engagements/impressions = engagement rate
.
Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter: Where to 
Land?
Charles Cunningham, group account supervisor at digital 
agency Sparkloft Media, said B2B companies should focus on a 
two-pronged approach: Facebook/Instagram and Linkedin. The 
Facebook/Instagram advertising ecosystem provides a flexible and 
cost-effective platform to target consumers based on industry, job 
title and seniority, along with traditional demographics. Linkedin 
provides the most in-depth targeting for B2B with seniority, 
specific company, job title and organization size.
Dave Nilsson, founder and director of SEO 
consultancy ConvertedClick, said Twitter has been a source of 
leads, and one major reason is relevancy to clients. “We share 
content that is exclusively wired to digital marketing and it 
immediately catches the attention of our clients,” he said. “... 
Contrary to popular belief that social media marketing is better 
suited for B2C companies, I think it works great for B2B 
businesses, too.”
LinkedIn: the Clear Winner for B2B
Getting down to brass tracks in B2B social media marketing, 
LinkedIn is a clear winner, according to Nora Leary, growth director
at Ironpaper, a B2B marketing agency. Where many B2B companies
go wrong is posting content that is irrelevant to their target 
audience, she added.
“For example, you may see overly technical posts or posts that 
promote the company's ‘20 years of experience,’” Leary said. “We 
see this in LinkedIn ads as well. B2B companies have the most 
success when they target buyers at the correct stage in the sales 
funnel.”
B2B brands in the awareness phase shouldn't promote an FAQ 
about the company. The ad should go to an ebook that addresses 
the buyer's pain points. “Social media can be an excellent lead 
generation tool if companies take a deep dive into their buyer and 
understand what content will resonate with them,” Leary said.
B2B company CallRail is also seeing continued success on 
LinkedIn, while reach on Facebook dropped significantly in 2020, 
according to Suchi Sajja, social media manager for CallRail. To 
remedy this, the social team began automatically boosting top-
performing Facebook posts, which led to improved results in 
December and January. Prior to boosting, reach consistently came 
in at under 100 people per post. After boosting, teams experienced 
an increase in reach to 5,000 to 7,0000 people per post.
Defining Personas Can Help Determine 
Right Platform
The bigger question regarding platforms for B2B social media 
marketers is what do your customers tell you. Abhi Jadhav, co-
founder and managing partner at Bay Leaf Digital, a B2B marketing 
agency, said the social media platform they use for B2B paid 
marketing is decided by doing a persona definition exercise. This 
exercise reveals the preferences of the audience and allows them 
to focus efforts on the platform where the target persona is most 
likely to frequent.
“For example, if we are marketing an enterprise SaaS solution, and 
the decision maker is a C-level executive, then our go-to platform is
LinkedIn,” he said. “For a SaaS that has a lower cost of ownership, 
and the decision maker is a small business owner, we might prefer 
to market on Quora or Facebook.”
Impact of C-Suite, Societal Issues
Of course, if B2B were as easy as picking a platform. According to 
Hostelley, this also comes down to creating the right content and 
being more human as a brand by bringing faces and personality to 
C-Suite executives, for starters.
“One of the things I would say that's really emerged in the last 18 
months on the B2B social side is executive social,” Hostelley said. 
“Companies now are really starting to understand that going out 
there and talking about how disruptive their technologies are but 
then having that company’s C-Suite literally be nowhere to be 
found on social, not even having their photo on LinkedIn. It just 
really sends a different signal to the sophisticated tech buyers 
now.
Why Showcasing Employees Matters
Certainly a less risky endeavor is showcasing employees on social,
according to Hostelley. Employee branding helps B2B companies 
see the people behind the brand.
“It’s not just the employee of the month crap,” Hostelley said. “But 
let's highlight what employees are doing in the community, let's 
highlight an employee's first shot of them on their first Zoom call 
with their brand new company. Let's highlight the fifth-year 
anniversary. Let's highlight every Friday an employee with their 
pets.”
B2B companies really struggle with this tactic sometimes because 
they hide behind the corporate style guide. But Hostelley 
encourages B2B brands to be more human and authentic
Invest Energies into Video
Cisco predicts that by next year 82% of all internet consumer 
traffic will be through video. Videos are the perfect combination of 
visual and auditory stimulation that will grab people's attention and
keep it, according to Phil Strazzulla, founder and CEO 
of SelectSoftware Reviews. “It puts a face to the company so that 
people know you are a person, not just a company,” Strazzulla 
said. “The best marketing strategy on social media is to try to make
business-to-business more like person-to-person
Seeing Success Through ABM
Costa said an integrated multichannel strategy is crucial for a 
successful B2B buyer journey that drives both brand awareness 
and meets demand KPIs. Her teams have seen success leveraging 
social media networks both for earned and paid placements. PROS’
ABM (Account-Based Marketing) program generated 46% of lifted 
target accounts (target accounts with higher website engagement) 
in 2020 through this multichannel approach.
“Using a good mix of content that serves different communication 
objectives and KPIs is key to success in using social media,” she 
said. “For example, we work to make sure that our editorial content 
has a balance of thought leadership, educational, and culture-
related content, that is offered in a variety of formats (videos, 
images, polls, etc.). Videos playing within the social networks tend 
to drive high post engagement, but it’s very likely that if your 
organization also has social media KPIs related to driving website 
traffic, and also needs prioritizing social content that directly takes 
visitors to the website.”