There’s a reason your social media page is dying, and there’s no ROI from it. Your social media branding is almost non-existent, directionless, or a combination of the two.
Most brands confuse consistently posting and constant self-promotion as branding, missing the point entirely. And the ones that do it properly outshine the others, but what is the difference between these two approaches?
It isn’t just a matter of strategy but that of intent and a clear understanding of what their business does- they know what they want to say and how they say it. The other organizations are usually following a model using inauthenticity as a base and thus cannot use social media properly- they have nothing to show.
What will you show or connect on if you don’t solve a problem people are dealing with? And even if you do, if you have founders who want you to sell on social media, then that’s good luck to you because the battle has ended before it started.
And that’s where most brands find themselves, in a battle to appease everyone and no one at the same time. Branding for most teams is a performance that they can’t quite grasp.
And it is a performance because it is social media. And the answer lies in the rhythm of your own organization.
- What do you want to say?
- How do you want to portray it?
That’s easier said than done when you’re at the mercy of an algorithm and low budgets. But there is a way forward, and no, brands, it’s not TikTok.
Social Branding is building a community and influencing culture.
What is Social Media Branding?
Let’s get nerdy for a while. Above is the sigil for House Stark from George RR Martin’s Game of Thrones series. To any watcher, it is clear what the Stark banner stands for – Honor, integrity, honesty, and ferocity. The brand of the Starks- a dire wolf on snow and land is a symbol that represents their ideals and their rule over the North.
This is branding- association with ideas. While many say it’s the logo associated with the ideals, in reality, the ideals are synonymous with the logo. The ideals aggregate and become the form. In this case, the perfect form for honor, integrity, and ferocity is the dire wolf.
There is a harmony of sorts. And this is what people respond to.
So by this, we can infer that social branding is a signal that defines you. And this signal is created through the process of existing and starts to display itself quite naturally. The form and the function of the brand represent the ideals your organization or the individual stands for. And this form is created by identifying the perfect representation of the ideals.
This has been known for quite some time.
Unfortunately, marketing, in a bid to secure itself as a science, has forgotten that it is a social program and people respond to ideas first and then logic. As social creatures, we want to belong to a higher ideal- even if it is an ironic one.
But why do businesses not get social media right?
Since this is in the context of b2b, we will go with examples from brands that sell to other customers. Okay, let’s run an experiment. How many b2b brands– except OpenAI, Palantir, Anthropic, or the ones surrounded by AI hype- can you name?
Take a minute to think.
At least get to five, without googling them.
Maybe your list looks something like this:
- Notion
- Zoom
- Clay
- Shopify
- SemRush
Are there any overlaps? There might be at least one. Because these brands are the ones that people actually know about. That is excluding your vendors, of course. You would know your vendors. But imagine, there are so many press releases and so many social media accounts- isn’t it weird that many B2B leaders won’t be able to name many?
We bet even your employees who research and work in the trenches don’t know as much as they have been exposed to. And the reason is simple: the problems they solve are generic, the way they solve them is generic, and their approach to social media, surprisingly, is generic.
The result is a failure. You want sales from social media, but you treat your audience like a wolf hunting sheep? Constant self-promotion and no thought given to audience and community building.
Those are the reasons most businesses fail to generate high-quality leads. They are systems first and people second.
What are the b2b brands that are doing it right?
Let us explain with an example that might not date very well and is a low-hanging fruit. But hey, anything to make a point.
OpenAI released an ad campaign at the end of September 2025; it’s the organization’s first campaign. It shows no business deals or AI taking jobs (would they show it even if that is the intention?) But it does show a couple planning a dinner date, a brother and sister on a road trip, and a boy learning pull-ups.
Right now, OpenAI is in a precarious situation. Its tools are being used to automate humans away- when maybe that is not what Sam Altman wants to do (or shows that he doesn’t want to). OpenAI created this ad entirely with people and the creative agency Isle of Any.
Cementing the fact that human connection makes these tools, not the other way around. And guess what? The campaign was a monumental success. And it didn’t talk to business owners; it spoke to the people actually using AI.
The campaign is still being talked about on X and LinkedIn as this piece is being typed.
The brands that do social right aren’t just espousing values, they are infusing their creatives with what the need of the moment is: human values and less transactional interactions. But many leaders and organizations are very late to this party.
How can businesses grow their social media and improve branding?
That’s the question. And if anyone’s giving you a 10-step program to follow. Chances are, either they are fooling you or they don’t know how to do social.
Instead, if you ask an influencer what they do, they’ll give you a whole different story. And that is part of the answer: storytelling.
Business owners and their brands lack any semblance of a story. Go to any about page of a company, and all you will see is their funding rounds or some vague information about the organization. They think social media is a place where they can meet the buyers without any hassle.
But the buyers are not using social media to buy- they are using it to assess and understand the type of company you are. Your website does this, too, by the way.
So what can businesses do?
There are a few answers. But the one that sits at the core is this: It depends on the context.
Your context shapes the story you will tell. Here are some cheat codes: –
- Social Media is fun when your culture is.
- Social media branding is possible when you solve a real problem and can talk about it.
- Social media is a tool to propagate the knowledge your business has encountered and solved.
But what do businesses do? They undermine their own capabilities and relegate little to no creativity to social media. There is no style- something your audience wants.
But can all of this be translated to ROI?
The short answer is yes. But not in the traditional sense. See, MQLs are gone. SQLs, too. They aren’t cutting it anymore.
They don’t capture complexity or emotional nuance. The declining sales are a direct reflection of this. You’re worried that storytelling and context-driven social media marketing are just a gimmick that requires more money.
But why are you in business? Yes, revenue and the creation of jobs are noble. But so is building relationships with an audience who looks to you as increasingly inauthentic.
They aren’t going to think that what you’re doing is that you’re doing to keep your business afloat and avoid mass lay-offs. They will, with their limited perspective, believe you are hoarding money- that’s another effect of the current world economy.
But here is where your business can outpace competition.
With current B2B trends, there’s a high chance that your competition’s social media is not really good. Very few do it right- FatJoe is a strong example of B2B marketing, and it has a complete Gen-Z vibe.
But it got people talking in different circles. Different industry leaders keep commenting on FatJoe’s page because they have a knack for storytelling. Just imagine being one of these leaders and getting a call from fatjoe- even if they are skeptical, they will respond with something like: –
“Hey, yeah. I know you guys.”
They’ll be more receptive to conversations. We can bet money that fatjoe brings high-quality leads from their LinkedIn page, especially when LinkedIn pages are having a weak moment right now.
Social Media Branding is a strategy.
Michael C. Porter defines strategy as unique activities to get a desired outcome and outwit the competition [Paraphrased].
But what is the unique strategy here? Its personality. And most marketing leaders know that personality and differentiation are driving branding forward. But they are hesitant in adopting it because they aren’t quantifiable.
Historically, businesses have always been run on goodwill and communication (ethical ones, that is.) Why would today be any different? Our tools evolved for mass communication, but the needs of the people still remain the same.
They want to align with a strategic partner that helps them grow- and your social media doesn’t show that. How does something grow? Through nurturing, correct?
But if you aren’t nurturing a single component of your own business and use it for thoughtless exercises, people think that’s how you do things.
They will immediately associate you with low effort. Yes, promote your event. Promote your people. Promote your services.
But why don’t you promote your ideas and opinions? Social media branding isn’t promotion. Your buyers are doing the same thing as you; why would they be impressed by your event when theirs is so much better?
What will impress them is the content of the event. What conversations did you have? What did you learn?
What did the presence feel like?
Branding is a story. Make yours something people want to listen to.
