In consumer marketing, the big shift isn’t louder. It’s smaller.
Brands are moving away from a focus on shouting into the void. While breadth activities go on, they’re also leaning into smaller, more intimate spaces. Discord servers, private Substack chats, closed Reddit threads, SMS groups—it’s what marketing strategist Sara Wilson calls “digital campfires.” These are invite-only, conversation-led spaces where communities gather, trust is built, and loyalty sticks.
It’s a far cry from the polished feeds of Instagram or LinkedIn. And that’s kind of the point.
So what does this have to do with B2B?
A shift worth watching
Right now, digital campfires are largely a consumer trend. But we think there are some powerful signals here for B2B marketers—especially as buyers expect more relevance, transparency, and value in how brands engage.
This isn’t about setting up a Discord for your enterprise product. It’s about asking: How can we create tighter, more human spaces for connection?
B2B crossovers to consider
Here are a few ways B2B brands could adapt the spirit of digital campfires:
- Private peer groups
Think curated Teams or Slack groups where customers, partners, or prospects can connect around shared challenges. For example, Microsoft has highly active partner Teams spaces where partners regularly interact with each other and community managers. - Small-format learning spaces
Exclusive roundtables, invite-only webinars, or small group workshops are all great ways to build powerful connections with customers. We’ve seen this first hand with workshops that our Inviso Data & AI leads have run to give customers hands-on experience with AI, building bots in just an afternoon (check out the fun here). - SMEs in the wild
Think about how powerful it could be for your firm’s technical specialists to participate in niche Reddit threads like r/dataisbeautiful, GitHub discussions, or LinkedIn comment sections. - Community-built content
Co-created resources from your most engaged customers—like template libraries, AMA-style videos, or “how we really use it” guides.
At the end of the day, B2B buyers are also consumers. And increasingly, they expect the same level of responsiveness and connection they get from the apps they live on in their personal lives to show up in their professional lives.
For B2B marketers, this means we need to be smart and think about new ways to create intentional opportunities for closer interaction. To not just build an audience, but to build a better, more connected one.