Social media has become the number one brand building channel for B2B businesses, with 80.8% of 300 respondents to Marketing Week's State of Brand in B2B survey investing in it. That figure puts social far ahead of events and experiential (63.8%) and PR, editorial and thought leadership (62.7%).

Some 62.4% of respondents rate social media as effective for brand building, second only to PR at 74.9%. Only 7.7% of the sample find it ineffective.

Allica Bank: community building that moved £250,000

Allica Bank takes a "community building" approach and has seen "accidental" success from social for advocacy and word of mouth. Interim head of marketing Georgie Burks says the tone the bank takes on social is "so different" to a B2C brand such as Monzo, and that social is one of the areas where there is "a really clean line of distinction" between B2B and B2C brands.

"With B2B, you should see it as an extension of community building and networking," she says, citing the importance of "high-touch engagement".

The approach delivers measurable results. When someone posted asking whether Allica was any good, the bank's social media manager replied in the comments with a case study and contact details. The original poster thanked the bank — a post that received 15,000 impressions and many shares — and then moved £250,000 of balances to Allica, explaining: "HSBC doesn't even know my name".

"There's a lot of love in the community for the brand and that's a virtuous circle to support the social activity that we do," Burks says.

LinkedIn works particularly well for Allica, which has nearly 300,000 followers on its company page. Instagram is harder. Burks admits the bank isn't "resourced effectively enough" to build a "platform-native approach" there yet, but says this will be a focus for next year.

"There's always a risk it'll be lame from a B2B brand, so you've just got to be really careful about that. I'll be honest, I don't think we've cracked it on Instagram yet," she adds.

Engagement is the bank's primary measure of success — "challenging" given algorithm changes and the rise of AI content. Social media is spread across teams for "shared ownership"; CEO Richard Davies is very active and responsive on LinkedIn, which adds credibility to the main page.

Toolstation and Bureau: brand over performance

Tool and building supplier Toolstation has a "relatively small amount of budget" for brand marketing, and an increasing share goes to social content to counteract the rising costs and lower reach of other channels. TikTok and Instagram are its primary platforms because that is where the tradespeople are.

"It's having trade credibility and then allowing the serious DIYer to understand, and get it," says marketing and ecommerce director Chris Other. "It is geared to drive brand, rather than drive performance. But some of that content can be used in paid social content."

Toolstation measures success through brand awareness and consideration, reach and ROAS. Looking ahead, Other sees social commerce entering the mix.

At workspace booth provider Bureau, social has become a "priority" channel. "We're really trying to shift to showing real people wherever we can and real points of view, so we're not just restating things everyone in the industry is talking about, but we're actually trying to take a stance on things and have an opinion," says vice-president of marketing Josh Harris.

Social media lead Simona Baccanti describes social as a "playful", "editorial platform" focused not on products but on how they help users face everyday challenges such as office distractions. Instagram drives the best engagement and most new followers for Bureau, while LinkedIn is where it wants to develop.

Founder content outperforms the company page. "If the founders post something on their pages the content is 'so much more effective' than if it came from the main company page," Harris says. Direct ROI remains hard to measure. "The main problem is that no one would buy a £10,000 product directly on Instagram," says Baccanti.

Pearson: one voice, 1.3 million followers

Education firm Pearson consolidated its social channels around 15 months ago, cutting 171 social handles down to one main Pearson account per platform to create "one clear brand voice". Vice-president of global brand Rachel Exton calls LinkedIn Pearson's "platinum" platform and a tool to start conversations at "boardroom level".

In 15 months, Pearson grew its LinkedIn page from 800,000 followers to 1.3 million, spotlighting executive voices and learner impact stories, while tapping into video. YouTube is the second priority as a destination for learning content; TikTok, Instagram and Facebook reach more of its student and teacher base, and the team is experimenting with Reddit given its popularity with LLMs.

"On LinkedIn, I really feel like we always keep innovating and keep pushing. We know the recipe now, we've been doing it for 15 months. So for me, it's just doing more of what we're doing," Exton says.

She warns against inconsistency across platforms. "With social channels, you can't be schizophrenic and be somebody completely different on LinkedIn to what you are on TikTok. You need to be true to who you are, but you can dial it up or dial it down."

Her core advice: "Everybody is on social these days. You shouldn't be on social just for the sake of it, you've got to make sure that you've got something to say."

Exton describes every platform as "pay-to-play" and believes social can be full-funnel, serving both brand building and conversion. Pearson measures success through engagement rather than "vanity metrics" such as followers, plus click-throughs to the website.

Looking ahead, Exton, like Harris and Burks, sees AI and LLMs reshaping the channel. "More and more now, we're talking about 'How do you build brand for humans and the machines?' That's going to start fighting with the likes of LinkedIn, Instagram, Reddit for marketing spend," she says. "They've been the top dog for quite some time. They won over TV, they've won over more programmatic digital advertising. But their top spot might be a bit wobbly now."