Social media marketing isn’t just one of the most important tools for modern businesses; it’s also one of the most multifaceted. Many channels are used for a singular purpose. However, a company’s presence on these channels impacts awareness, customer service, product promotion, website traffic and many more factors contributing to business growth.
Still, creating a perfect B2B social media strategy is easier said than done. We’ve all seen what ineffective social strategies look like — businesses that rarely engage with their audience, don’t offer any unique or visually captivating content or use social marketing for the sole purpose of promoting their products.
Fortunately, many amazing B2B brands get social media marketing right, and they show that you can build an engaging, trusted presence regardless of what your company does or what products you sell.
In today’s article, we’re diving into the world of standout B2B brands on social media. And we’ll dissect their social strategies so you can apply them to your own business, reaping the rewards of effective social marketing. Ready to get started?
Let’s dive into some of the best B2B social media examples and campaigns past and present!
1. Salesforce gets real
Salesforce is one of the most well-known and successful businesses in the B2B world, and they more than live up to that distinction with their brilliant use of social campaigns. Scroll through Salesforce’s X (formerly known as Twitter) profile and Facebook pages, and you’ll see precisely why they frequently top the list of companies to follow.
They consistently interact with their followers, sharing helpful information and GIF-fueled jokes in equal measure. In addition, they post relevant content, both via external links to long-form written content and eye-grabbing graphics.
But the most impressive element of Salesforce’s profiles is their focus on real people — specifically, their employees.
B2B companies often struggle to humanize their online presence, especially when their product offerings are technical and business-oriented. Salesforce doesn’t have this problem, in large part because they go to great lengths to feature their employees in the content they promote on social media. As an example of best social media practices, on their Facebook page and X feed, you’ll see many posts highlighting their company culture, celebrating their staff’s achievements, and illustrating how their employees participate in meaningful causes.
Other brands can learn a valuable lesson from Salesforce: social media is the best tool to show your audience that your company is made up of real human beings.
How to humanize your brand like Salesforce
Make your content people-focused: By showing the faces of the people behind your organization’s day-to-day operations – not just company leadership – you’re showing that you stand behind your team. That, in turn, demonstrates to your prospects that they will have a reliable team to support them should they choose to work with you.
2. IBM narrates the digital space
IBM is one of the largest technology companies in the world. Founded over 100 years ago, IBM has a rich history of innovation that has made them the company they are today. And their social media campaigns do an excellent job of explaining this history through storytelling.
It’s common for B2B businesses to embrace brand storytelling in long-form content like blog posts and videos. But IBM’s feed reminds us that a single X post can tell a meaningful story.
In addition to exploring their company history, IBM also uses storytelling to illustrate the remarkable feats their technology has helped people and businesses accomplish. Companies have leveraged IBM technology to make significant positive impacts on communities worldwide, and IBM does a fantastic job of highlighting these stories on their feeds.
How to tell a story like IBM:
Showcase your journey: Every company has a story. By showcasing your journey from a scrappy startup to the established organization you are today, you demonstrate that you can adapt to the times. As a result, you’ll build trust in your products and services among your audience and prospects.
3. Oracle turns techno-babble into techno-aha
Oracle is another excellent example of brand-building on social media. Oracle excels by sharing multimedia success stories that demonstrate the power of its technology.
When selling technical, multifunctional services like a cloud application solution, it can be difficult for B2B brands to present those products in a grounded, relatable context that their audience can understand. That’s why Oracle’s feeds place such a strong emphasis on the real-world application of their tools.
Scroll their X feed, and you’ll find a diverse array of curated stories— for example, a restaurant that used Oracle to improve their dining experience or a recent property tax conundrum that was solved with the help of Oracle’s infrastructure.
How to simplify a complex B2B brand like Oracle
Focus on the impact: Share stories of how your product, service or solution is making a difference in the lives of people in your community or service area are effective social media ideas. By focusing on the impact your brand’s solutions have on the real world, you’re making a complex – and often misunderstood – company more relatable and approachable.
4. Mailchimp flexes its brand values
If there’s one thing lacking on the typical B2B profile, it’s variety. Companies often share worthwhile posts but never bother to stray from one style, voice, content type, color scheme, etc. Those brands can learn a thing or two from MailChimp, the popular marketing automation and email service provider.
If you don’t know what we mean by variety, just take a look at Mailchimp’s Instagram feed. For one, they update the page consistently, whereas many B2B brands consider Instagram an afterthought.
More importantly, their feed is remarkably diverse. Mailchimp features about every type of content you could imagine, including slideshows, short video clips, fun animations, and employee spotlights. But if you look closely, you’ll notice that the common theme across all of this (seemingly unrelated) content is that it showcases Mailchimp’s values.
The result? Over 168,000 Instagram followers, impressive engagement numbers, and lasting connections with their customers and followers.
How to showcase your values like Mailchimp
- Show where you stand: Feature content related to causes, issues, and happenings that are important to you. While it can be scary to do this for fear of alienating prospects, it can help you grow and reduce churn by attracting customers aligned with your values.
- Go behind the scenes: Mailchimp often shares content related to managing their internal interactions and their interactions with their customer base. By giving your audience a peek behind the curtain, you show that you value transparency.
5. GE brings its message to life
Everyone recognizes the name General Electric, but most people would be hard-pressed to identify the actual projects the multinational conglomerate is responsible for.
Rather than push out overly complicated technical jargon, GE uses its pages to inject humanity and relatability into its complex projects.
The brand’s Instagram page features stunning images and videos of the machinery they help power and photographs and stories about the real people behind their groundbreaking innovations.
Your B2B brand might not have the reach and resources of GE, but you can learn from their approach and bring your complex products and solutions to life.
How to make your company more relatable like GE:
- Focus on storytelling: Create content centered around how your services and products benefit your customers on a day-to-day basis.
- Leverage the hero’s journey: Even if you’re not working on innovating the global power supply, your products and services are still helping businesses serve their customers in significant ways. Showcase the challenges your clients faced before your solution and how you’ve helped them win.
6. Slack interacts
Interaction is the most critical element of social media. A platform like X provides customers with direct access to companies, enabling them to ask questions, make suggestions and submit complaints.
Few B2B brands handle interaction better than Slack.
If you’re not familiar, Slack is a business collaboration tool that thousands of companies use for daily interaction between employees. Because of its popularity, Slack receives many X posts every day — ranging from minor questions about a specific feature to full-blown rants stemming from a technical issue.
Slack doesn’t just respond to their incoming posts promptly — they also respond with specific, helpful feedback that addresses each person’s problems to the best of their abilities. Contrast their interactions with the boilerplate responses we see from many other businesses (“We’re sorry you had an issue, we’ll be in touch”), and you’ll understand how Slack earned its reputation as a company that cares about its users.
How to interact with your followers like Slack
Don’t be afraid to address complaints: Negative feedback is a part of doing business, but it doesn’t have to hurt your reputation. Showcase your customer service skills by responding to complaints with compassion, and providing actionable, helpful resources.
7. Hootsuite maximizes its presence on X
Even if you’re familiar with their popular social media management platform, the size of Hootsuite’s audience on X might still shock you. To date, they have 7.2 million followers. Hootsuite has earned its massive following by consistently sharing valuable, engaging content.
Of course, it doesn’t hurt that they are one of the leading B2B content scheduling tools on the market.
From clever Instagram hacks to more in-depth strategy advice, Hootsuite’s posts are as entertaining as they are helpful. In addition to sharing content, Hootsuite promotes engagement by asking its audience questions and encouraging anyone on X to join in on the fun.
They also run a separate X account dedicated to customer support, which prevents their main feed from getting bogged down with troubleshooting interactions.
Remember, an effective B2B social media campaign relies on substance, not style. There’s nothing flashy or overly unique about Hootsuite’s X feed. They succeed because their posts provide their audience with relevant content and information every single day.
How to utilize X like Hootsuite
- Keep your users informed: Share exciting product or service updates with your following to keep existing customers informed and showcase your newest, most innovative updates to the world.
- Join the conversation: Seek out industry influencers who host or participate in periodic X chats and become a regular participant. Not only will you get in front of key decision-makers in your industry, but it can also earn your website some great, high-quality backlinks since many of these X chat transcripts are published on influencers’ websites.
8. HubSpot repurposes content like a boss
If you work in the B2B space, you’re familiar with HubSpot and its inbound marketing and sales software. But you’re missing out if you don’t already follow HubSpot on Instagram.
Like all platforms, Instagram constantly adds new features and capabilities, and HubSpot excels at adapting to these changes. For example, when Instagram added functionality that allowed users to highlight their Stories on their main page back in 2017, HubSpot reacted by grouping their Stories into several distinct categories. These include Community, Product, Tips, Sales, Marketing and more. As a result, followers can click on HubSpot’s profile and immediately find the most relevant content.
HubSpot’s Instagram is an excellent example of another critical element of social media: repurposed content. HubSpot posts repurposed elements of blogs, infographics, news articles and other content types on their Instagram feed, along with original videos and graphics.
And unlike some of the more buttoned-up (in other words, boring) B2B brands, HubSpot’s not afraid to make their followers laugh with a well-timed meme.
Because Instagram is such a visual platform, it’s often overlooked in the B2B space. But these days, Instagram is becoming a hub for B2B marketing. It’s no longer just pretty pictures and influencers. It’s time for holdout businesses to get on board.
How to repurpose content like HubSpot
- Increase blog engagement: Leverage the key points in your most popular blog posts to create micro-content, from which you can create Instagram carousel posts. Even though you can’t link directly to your blog from your Instagram posts, you can share your post to Stories and use the link sticker to help move your users over to your owned properties like your website. If Instagram isn’t the right platform for your business, carousel posts also perform well on LinkedIn.
- Leverage longer videos: Use a tool like Headliner to break up your longer videos into short, captioned, snack-sized videos. This is a great trick for creating engagement-boosting Instagram Reels or TikToks without learning the latest viral dance moves.
9. Shopify masters omnichannel marketing
Shopify is one of the most popular e-commerce platforms, and it’s no wonder why. Not only does Shopify make it easy to create and manage an online store, but it also offers a wide range of features and options to help businesses succeed. But one of the things that set Shopify apart from other e-commerce platforms in our eyes is their focus on social media.
And they’re not just using their platforms to sell their product. Instead, they’re using it to connect with their customers and build relationships across numerous social channels. Moreover, they’re not just leveraging traditional social channels like LinkedIn, Facebook, X and Instagram. They’re reaching their audience on YouTube, Snapchat, TikTok and Threads, to name a few.
Their expert omnichannel strategy has helped Shopify create a community of passionate online shopkeepers who are excited to engage and share their insights and tips.
How to leverage omnichannel marketing like Shopify
- Understand the buyer journey: An effective omnichannel strategy requires a deep understanding of your buyers, what social platforms they use, what type of content they’re likely to engage with on those channels and what insights and tips they’re looking for at each stage of their journey.
- Maintain a branded experience: Whether you’re creating LinkedIn carousels or TikTok videos, you’ll build brand recognition by incorporating brand colors and typography and consistent brand messaging.
- Master the art of channel-specific content: We all know that channel-specific content is key to great social media, but it’s a time-consuming undertaking that few of us master like Shopify has. By tailoring your posts to the unique characteristics and user behaviors of each platform, you increase your brand relevance and resonance.
10. Adobe is winning the UGC game
Adobe is a B2B software company known and loved by creative professionals worldwide, and they have been killing it on social media. They’re so good, in fact, that they’ve even been named one of the top 10 B2B companies to follow on social media by Forbes.
So, what makes Adobe’s social media campaigns so effective? It all comes down to their audience.
As the leading name in software for creatives, it’s no surprise that Adobe’s channels are full of eye-catching, scroll-stopping visuals. But the real magic is in their community, which feeds Adobe’s content machine with the most coveted type of content there is – user-generated content (UGC).
UGC is the ideal way to showcase what your product or solution can do. Sharing content created by your customers provides the necessary social proof that your prospects need to move them further down the marketing funnel. It also fosters goodwill among your existing users and boosts loyalty.
In short, Adobe is winning at the UGC game, and it’s a win-win for both the company and the businesses that rely on it.
How to encourage UGC like Adobe:
- Use social media marketing to build relationships:Engage with your B2B audience on social media, connecting and building relationships with professionals worldwide. Share the content those professionals create with your product to foster goodwill and loyalty.
- Make it easy for users to share their content: Consider using a hashtag representing your brand and include it in your social posts and print materials. Encourage your audience to share their experiences doing business with you, and use the hashtag to track and re-share content.
Mastering the mix: A few extra tips for elevating your B2B social game
Now that we’ve explored just a few of the ways B2B brands are crushing it on social, let’s briefly discuss the best practices that will propel your social media marketing efforts:
- Follow the three pillars of successful social marketing. Organic social, paid social and engagement are the cornerstones. Striking a balance between these elements can ensure a well-rounded approach.
- Follow the 4-1-1 rule. Share four pieces of curated content from external sources, one piece of original content that you produce and one piece of promotional content. This ratio maintains a balanced content mix and ensures you don’t lose your audience with overly salesy messages.
- Vary your organic content. Diversity is crucial to effective social marketing. Blend educational content like infographics, inspirational content (e.g., UCG or success stories), interactive content (e.g., polls or quizzes) and human content (e.g., behind-the-scenes videos) with newsworthy industry updates. Depending on your audience, you might toss in some humorous content and entertainment (e.g., industry jokes, memes and puzzles). Lastly, level up your promotional content with promotional offers (e.g., discounts and free webinars).
- Be reliably active. A social presence means more than creating a brand profile on a platform. Showing up means dependability in posting and interacting with your audience. Constructing a social calendar can help you cultivate a steady flow of relevant content. To develop relationships with your audience, you must be present, actively engaging and responding to comments, inquiries and messages.
- Elevate your creative. To capture attention in a sea of endless scrolling, your social media creatives need to stand out. Thumb-stopping visuals are fundamental, as are consistency and quality. This means making sure your visual elements adhere to your brand’s signature style, colors and imagery. Also, always opt for right-sized high-quality graphics to give your posts a professional edge. Given that most people browse social media on their phones, a mobile-first design is essential to ensure your creatives load correctly. And don’t underestimate the power of dynamic elements like animations and videos—they’re proven scroller-stoppers that can engage your audience more effectively.
- Measure, optimize, repeat. Key to successful social media is understanding how your efforts are performing, nixing what isn’t working and doing more of what is. This means you must know what KPIs to track and how to analyze them for insights that guide adjustments. And it means setting the time aside to rinse and repeat regularly.
Level up your B2B social marketing strategy
Forget the misconception that B2B companies can’t have an engaging and fruitful social media presence. As proven by the ten B2B social media examples we’ve shared, your brand can thrive online. But executing a successful social media strategy is no small feat.
It requires meticulous planning, a constant presence and active participation across all platforms. Understanding your buyers—their journey, preferences and where they spend their time—is crucial. It’s equally vital to understand the nuances of the different channels. And it doesn’t end there. To maximize the ROI of your social strategy, you must also know how to gauge your success and make continual improvements.
Balancing all these factors can be complex and time-consuming. If you’re looking for ways to maximize your social marketing efforts, partnering with a seasoned B2B marketing agency like Elevation is a smart move. Contact us today to learn how our Social Media Experts can revitalize your social media efforts.
