May 30, 2025
B2B buyer shift
Social may have its label of being a Gen Z / millennial ‘thing’ – and that’s mostly true – but it’s also truer than ever for B2B key decision makers. In fact, over two thirds of buyers now fall into this category.
The shift we’re now seeing is the so-called younger people being moved into more senior roles faster than ever before. With that, comes their perception of marketing and how they absorb content in their day-to-day lives.
We’re not talking B2C/B2B here – we’re talking about what they consume daily. Social media is way WAY up there!
Forrester’s most recent buyer survey from last year predicted this – an influx of Gen Z’ers and millennials coming into senior positions that will turn the status quo upside down. So how do you adapt your social accordingly?
Leaning into TikTok trends and Instagram influencers is not the answer – but ensuring that content is relatable and pushes aside the corporate speak is crucial. Given these generations are most focussed than ever on aligning themselves with brands they connect with on a human level means you need to promote your good work in the company and community, while bringing forward your customer pain-point solutions in a more social-first element than ever before.
Ditch the white papers – bring forward the stats and the snapshots from it! Hit your audience front and centre. Video is absolutely key here – 57% of Gen Z prefer short-form videos for product discovery and entertainment.
It’s time to get your thought-leaders out, front and centre!
Elsewhere….
Instagram can’t seem to make its mind up… now it’s saying it will support content being uploaded in 3:4 format…despite the fact the grid is supporting 4:5 only. The idea is that Instagram will allow people to put up photos in the default phone camera setting – which is great, but there is still a bit of a muddle on presentation here, Meta!
LinkedIn expanding its insights
If you’ve just about got your head around LinkedIn’s additional insights and tracking capabilities, well it’s now taking things a step further.
Its new attribution enhancer aims to clear the muddy waters of the B2B buying journey. Available via the export area of the campaign manager, the revenue attribution report will allow advertisers to ‘measure revenue impact at different levels of granularity, uncover how target companies progress through the pipeline, and maximize ROI across their LinkedIn spend.’
It’s a smart idea – as LinkedIn itself reports – 87% of marketers feel it’s becoming harder to measure the long-term impact of their campaigns. And with revenue and cost effectiveness being grilled more than ever before, this new tool looks like a pretty good way to align other platforms and sales tools to get a clearer picture of the impact of social beyond that of itself.
BlueSky tick of approval
BlueSky started rolling out verification badges a short time back – but the roll out is wider now. It deems that ‘notable and authentic accounts can apply for verification’ – it’s another step in BlueSky’s attempts to become far more authentic than its cousin, X.
Although it does raise the question of genuine authenticity – ultimately a human is approving these ‘trusted’ accounts, right? How much will bias come into play – and, when paid advertising becomes possible (surely, soon) then how will that influence it?
That’s it for this week!