Social gives marketers something precious: people telling us, in public and in their own language, what they are trying to understand. Bring that evidence into the wider marketing and the next decision gets better.
I have spent more than twenty years watching people tell brands exactly what matters to them on social. They do it in comments and search, often with far more honesty than you would get from a focus group. It is one of the richest sources of customer understanding we have, and I still think Marketing underuses it.
That is the opportunity. Social can sharpen the proposition. It can reveal the question the website misses. Sometimes it confirms that the message is working, which is just as valuable when budgets are tight and somebody is itching to change everything. You should want social inside the marketing plan because it gives us a closer view of how people think.
Insight 1 | Social is now part of search behaviour
Ofcom found that 43% of UK adults use social media platforms to search online at least once a day.
I love this figure because it makes social search impossible to dismiss as a niche behaviour.
People search in the language they actually use, before our brand terms and approved messaging get anywhere near them. For Marketing, that is remarkably handy.
A repeated query can show where the category is confusing. It may expose a question the product page barely answers, or reveal that an important reassurance is buried halfway down the website. Sometimes it gives you the opening for the next campaign because the audience has already told you what they are trying to resolve.
A single query tells you very little. but look for the trends, the repeated asks.
The joy of this is that the evidence already exists. You do not need to manufacture another audience need or commission a mammoth study before acting. Look at the patterns and share them with the people shaping the proposition. Let social search make the next piece of marketing clearer and easier to choose.
Insight 2 | B2B buyers are using social before Sales knows they exist
Forrester found that social media is now the second most meaningful source of information for business buyers, behind generative AI search. The research draws on more than 17,000 buyers worldwide.
That gives social a cornerstone job in B2B marketing. Buyers are looking for signs that a company understands the problem they are trying to solve. The thing is that whilst a feed full of announcements tells them the company is busy it is the expertise and information they come for. they want the proof, so they can make a judgement.
The good news is that most businesses already have knowledge worth showing. It sits with the people doing the work. Social can bring more of that thinking into public view before Sales knows the buyer exists.Forrester also found that the typical B2B decision now involves 13 internal stakeholders and nine external influencers.
So expecting every useful social interaction to turn into a direct lead rather misses what is happening.
Some content needs to be useful enough to travel. It should give someone an explanation or piece of evidence they can take into another conversation without needing the brand there to finish the job.
That is a much more interesting brief than “we need another LinkedIn post”.
Insight 3 | Buying decisions travel through other people
Forrester says a typical B2B buying decision now involves 13 internal stakeholders and nine external influencers. The number grows again for more complex purchases.
The person reading your post may be gathering evidence for somebody else. They might share it with a colleague or use it to frame a question for a supplier. None of that appears neatly as a lead. That gives social a richer role. It can help a buyer make sense of the decision while they are still forming it.
Give them an argument they can carry into the next conversation, backed by evidence they can stand behind. If they have to translate it before sharing it, we have made their job harder.
Insight 4 | The signal often gets stuck between teams
EY’s 2026 research found that only 11% of surveyed consumer-products organisations said sales, marketing and ecommerce worked as a unified growth engine. Just 15% routinely used fully integrated commercial data across functions.
That explains why the same customer can look entirely different depending on whose dashboard is open. Social sees the question first; ecommerce sees where purchase stalls. Sales hears the objection later, while customer care knows whether the problem persists after purchase. The customer, naturally, has no idea they have crossed a departmental border.
Pick one recurring issue and follow it across the teams that see it. You will usually find a clearer answer than any one dashboard could give you.
Insight 5 | Public content keeps travelling
Once content is public, it can be searched, summarised, recombined and quoted elsewhere. AI answers are now part of that journey. A post may turn up without the surrounding conversation that made it make sense in the first place.
There is plenty to be excited about here. A strong explanation can keep working long after it was published. Expert voices can travel beyond their own following, while a well-supported point becomes part of how the brand is understood.
This asks more of the writing. Vague claims do not improve when repeated by a machine. A buyer should be able to find a credible answer and trace the proof behind it.
Insight 6 | Social can improve where the next pound goes
Social can give you an earlier read on whether the problem sits in the message or further along the customer journey. That matters when every pound has to earn its place.
If people are moving beyond the post and beginning the next step, commissioning more content may do very little. The blockage could sit in the buying journey or in the follow-up from Sales. Before increasing media, look at where the movement stops and what the customer meets there.
Sometimes the evidence points back to social. The audience may be wrong, or the message may not be strong enough to move anyone. That is still worth knowing. It gives you a reason to change course before the next tranche of budget disappears into familiar activity.
This is where social earns a place. It can show what deserves more investment and where fixing another part of the journey will do more. That gives Marketing better grounds for deciding where the money should go.
FIND THE GAP
Where is social leaking value?
Take the Rethink diagnostic and see where the biggest problems sit across strategy, proof, discovery and how social actually works inside the business.
