How to find leads with intent on social media: what social intent is and where B2B buyers show it

TL;DR: To find leads with intent on social media, look for named people whose public activity ties them to the problem you solve, check that each one fits your ideal customer, and reach out about what they did. For B2B, LinkedIn is the main place this happens, because each post, comment and like comes with a name, a job title and a company. traxy works on LinkedIn: it finds high intent leads from social intent (what people post, comment and like, who views your profile, and who engages with the competitors, creators, posts and company pages you track, plus a plain-English search over 71M+ scanned LinkedIn likes, posts and comments) and keeps only people with a 50% or higher ICP match. traxy runs your entire LinkedIn GTM end to end, from finding those leads to enriching and researching each one, to running personalized LinkedIn and email outreach on autopilot once you approve the campaign, or you approve every message.

This guide covers what counts as social intent, where B2B buyers show it, a step-by-step method you can run by hand or in a tool, how to check fit, how to turn a signal into outreach, and which tools cover which networks. traxy wrote it, and we say so where we compare. The other tools are described from their own pages, checked November 2026.

How do I find leads with intent on social media?

Find people who say or do something in public that connects them to the problem you solve, such as asking for a recommendation, complaining about a current tool, commenting on a competitor's post or viewing your profile, then confirm they match your ideal customer and contact them about that specific activity. On LinkedIn, traxy does the finding, the fit check and the outreach in one place.

In short, the method has five parts:

1. Define who you sell to and who to keep out (customers, competitors, other vendors).

2. Write down the signals: the problems, phrases and situations that make someone relevant.

3. Pick where to look: topic posts, the people and company pages your buyers follow, single posts, your own profile.

4. Read the evidence and check fit before anyone gets a message.

5. Reach out about what they said, on LinkedIn and email, with a human approving the launch.

The sections below explain each part, with what you set up in traxy and what you can do without a tool.

What is social intent?

Social intent is what people show through their public activity on social networks: what they post, comment on and like, whose profile they view, and whose posts they engage with. In traxy's definition, social intent on LinkedIn covers four things:

• Posts, comments and likes about the problem you solve.

• Profile viewers: people who view your LinkedIn profile.

• Engagers with other people's posts: the people who like and comment on posts by your competitors, creators and influencers, company pages, or one post you paste by URL.

• The social intent database: 71M+ scanned LinkedIn likes, posts and comments you can search in plain English.

Social intent works at the level of a person. Most B2B intent data tells you a company is researching a topic somewhere, without saying who. A social intent signal gives you a named person, the post or comment, and the date, so you know who to contact and what to say. For how the search side works, see what social intent search is.

What counts as social intent, and what doesn't?

Not every interaction is a signal. A post asking for help says much more than a like, and a like on an unrelated post says almost nothing. From strongest to weakest:

1. A post or comment asking for what you sell. "Can anyone recommend an agency for this?" or "We're looking to replace our current tool."

2. A post describing the problem you solve. A founder writing that outbound stopped working, or a sales leader asking how others hire a first SDR.

3. A comment that adds a need. "Same here, we're looking at this for Q1" under someone else's post.

4. Engagement with a competitor's post or with a creator who writes about your category.

5. A view of your profile, often after you posted, commented or sent a message.

6. A like on a topic post. It shows the topic caught their attention, not that they have a need.

What doesn't count on its own: a job title without any activity, a like on a post that has nothing to do with your offer, and engagement from people who sell the same thing you do (other consultants, vendors, recruiters). Those need to be filtered out before outreach.

traxy labels each lead by how strong the evidence is. Its docs define the labels this way: Warm is "a direct signal relevant to your offer", Related is "contextual evidence related to your offer", Activity is "observed activity with a weaker connection to your offer", and ICP match is fit information without one of those signals (traxy docs: signals). The docs also add a fair warning: "A missing signal does not prove that someone has no interest."

Where do B2B buyers show social intent?

B2B buyers show social intent wherever they talk about work in public. The main places are:

• LinkedIn. Posts about problems and plans, comments under creators' and competitors' posts, likes on topic posts, reactions to company page posts, and profile views.

• Reddit and community forums. Practitioners asking for tool recommendations or comparing options in subreddits and niche forums.

• X. Founders, developers and marketers discussing tools and problems in short public threads.

• Hacker News and developer communities. Technical buyers asking how others solved something or which tool to use.

• Review sites, newsletters and Slack communities. Comparisons, complaints and questions, often in semi-private groups.

traxy's sources are LinkedIn activity only. It does not find leads on Reddit, X, Hacker News or the other networks listed here. If your buyers mostly talk there, the tools in the table below cover them.

Why is LinkedIn the main B2B source, and where do Reddit and X fit?

LinkedIn is the main B2B source because the activity is tied to a professional identity. When someone comments on a post, you see their name, job title and company, so you can check fit and find a work email without guessing who they are. The conversation there is also mostly about work.

Reddit and X fit differently. Many Reddit accounts use handles instead of real names, and many X accounts don't list an employer, so a strong post there may still leave you without a person and a company to contact. They are useful for spotting the questions a market asks, for replying in the thread where the question was asked, and for categories such as developer tools where buyers talk in those places first. A common setup is a keyword alert tool for those sites and LinkedIn for named-person outreach.

A useful test: if you can't tell from the signal who the person is and whether their company could buy, it is market research, not yet a lead.

What are the three ways to find social intent on LinkedIn?

There are three ways: track the sources your buyers engage with, search the activity for people who describe your problem, and watch your own profile for viewers. Most teams use all three, on top of a Signal Brief that describes the topics they care about.

1. Track sources

Pick the people, posts and company pages your buyers already engage with, and qualify whoever engages. In traxy this is Tracking:

• People. Track a LinkedIn profile and traxy watches its posts and qualifies the people who engage. Each profile gets a relationship tag: competitor, teammate, influencer, investor or custom. You can track yourself too, so engagement on your own posts turns into qualified leads.

• Single posts. Paste any LinkedIn post URL (yours, a competitor's, a creator's) and get the engagers who fit your ICP.

• Company pages. Add a company by domain or LinkedIn company page, and traxy reads its page posts for engagers who fit your ICP. This finds people who engage with that page's posts, not every employee or every buyer at the company.

Each tracked profile shows the leads it surfaced, their ICP match and the posts they came from, so you can see which sources are worth keeping.

2. Search the activity

Describe the person and the need in plain English and search what people already posted, commented and liked. traxy's Social Intent Search runs this over 71M+ scanned LinkedIn likes, posts and comments. That number counts engagements, not people or buyers. A search reads like "find me founders looking for AEO help", and each person comes back with the post or comment behind them and their fit. You can run it in the traxy app, through trax (the traxy agent), or from Claude or ChatGPT through the traxy MCP.

Without a tool, the manual version is LinkedIn's own search for posts with phrases such as "can anyone recommend", "alternative to" plus a competitor's name, or "looking for help with". It works, but you have to read every result and check every profile by hand.

3. Watch your own profile

People who view your profile have already looked you up. In traxy, the LinkedIn activity card under Targeting > Signals has a "Profile views" switch ("Choose which activity becomes leads for your workspace"). In Leads, the LinkedIn activity filter offers "Viewed any profile" or "Viewed <your name>'s profile" for any time or the last 7, 30 or 90 days. In short, it turns your profile views into leads. Viewers who fit can go into a campaign through a saved shared lead view. LinkedIn does not reveal private-mode viewers, so no tool will show those. The traxy docs also list new followers and new connections as LinkedIn activity you can collect (traxy docs: LinkedIn activity). For the full workflow, see how to turn profile views into leads.

The base: a Signal Brief

Behind all three sits the Signal Brief: the problems, topics and situations that make a lead relevant, such as buyer pains, product mentions, triggers and keywords. traxy uses it to find people who like, comment on or write posts about the problem you solve, and you can describe a custom signal in plain English, for example "companies expanding into a new market and looking for an agency".

What is the step-by-step method?

Here is the full method, with what to do by hand and where traxy does the step for you.

1. Define your ideal customer. Write down roles, departments, seniority and locations for the people, and size, industry, revenue, funding and keywords for the companies. In traxy, enter your company website and it drafts your lead criteria (ICP) and signals and shows a lead preview; you fix anything that's off under Targeting > Lead criteria.

2. List who to keep out. Existing customers, competitors, people you already contacted, and people who sell the same thing. traxy has a Blocklist for company domains and people, a Do not contact list for emails and LinkedIn profiles, and exclusions in Lead criteria.

3. Write the signals in your buyers' words. Use the phrases buyers use when they need you: "can anyone recommend", "looking to replace", "we're hiring our first", "how do you handle", "alternative to". Put them into the Signal Brief (Targeting > Signals).

4. Pick your sources. Five to ten competitors and creators your buyers follow, the company pages of target accounts, the posts that drew your buyers' comments, and your own profile and posts. Add them under Tracking.

5. Search for explicit demand. Run a few plain-English searches that name the person and the need, such as "heads of sales at SaaS companies asking about LinkedIn outbound". Keep the searches that return people you would want to talk to.

6. Read the evidence. Open the post or comment behind each person and check the date. Every traxy lead shows the post, comment, like or repost that put them on your list, in the lead's Signals tab.

7. Check fit (next section), then enrich and reach out (the section after).

8. Feed back what you learn. Mark leads Good fit or Bad fit with a reason, drop sources that bring the wrong people, and check Insights for the profiles and posts bringing in the most leads.

How do you check that the person fits before you reach out?

Check the person against your ideal customer first, then check the signal, and contact only people who pass both. A perfect signal from someone who can't buy is not a lead, and a perfect fit with no signal is a cold contact.

By hand, that means checking the job title, the company's size and industry, the region, and whether the person sells the same thing you do. Then read the post or comment: is it recent, is it about their own work, and does it connect to your offer?

In traxy, the fit check is built in:

• ICP match score. Every person is scored on fit, and only people at a 50% or higher ICP match become qualified leads. You can filter Leads by match band to narrow the list.

• Signal labels. Warm, Related, Activity or ICP match, by how strong the evidence is, with the source link on each lead.

• Your feedback. Good fit and Bad fit with a reason record your judgment. When you change your criteria, traxy can check your active leads and offer to move the ones that no longer match to Done.

An ICP match shows fit, not a decision to buy. Treat the signal as a reason to start a relevant conversation, and keep the message about what the person said. For more on what makes a lead warm, see how to find warm, high intent leads on LinkedIn.

How do you go from social intent to LinkedIn and email outreach?

Enrich the lead, research what you need to know, write a message about the signal, and send it from your own accounts on LinkedIn and email, with someone approving before anything goes out. In traxy that is the second half of the workflow, and it runs in the same tool where the lead was found (LinkedIn outbound).

1. Enrich. Look up a verified work email or phone number for a lead, or turn on Auto-Enrich so newly qualified leads get contact data. Auto-Enrich does not backfill old leads.

2. Save the audience. Filter your leads (for example Warm leads from competitor engagement, or profile viewers in the last 30 days) and save the result as a shared view. Campaigns use shared views, which update as leads change.

3. Create a campaign. In Outbound > Campaigns, or by asking trax, give the audience, the offer and the research you need. A campaign researches each lead for the facts you ask for before any message is prepared, such as whether the company is hiring for sales roles. Hiring, funding and job changes come from that research on each lead, not from a live event feed.

4. Group by signal. Leads are grouped by signal, and each group gets its own message variant, personalized with the evidence. Someone who asked for a recommendation gets a different opening from someone who commented on a competitor's post.

5. Build the sequence. traxy prepares personalized LinkedIn and email sequences. Waits can depend on events such as a connection request being accepted.

6. Test. Run the plan on sample leads to check the research and drafts. Nothing is sent.

7. Review the launch. Before launch you see who joins, who is skipped (held by another campaign or contacted before), the sender, the steps and the delivery mode (traxy docs: review and launch).

Sending needs connected sender accounts: you connect your own LinkedIn accounts and mailboxes, with limits, active hours, ramp-up and email signatures. Once you approve the launch, the campaign runs on autopilot and sends on its own. If you'd rather check every message, choose the approval mode and approve each one in the review queue. Replies, unsubscribes and hard bounces stop the sequence, and every conversation across LinkedIn and email lands in one inbox, where you can reply or pause a lead's sequence to take over. Campaigns run in priority order, so one lead never gets two campaigns at once, and you can run many campaigns on different signals side by side.

You can run all of this by hand in the app, through trax, or from Claude, ChatGPT, Codex, Cursor or Grok through the traxy MCP, where the AI asks for your yes in chat before anything sends or launches.

A good first message names the topic, not the surveillance. "You asked about replacing your outbound tool last week; here is how we handle the part you mentioned" works better than "I saw you liked a post". Keep it short and give the person a reason to reply.

Which tools cover which networks?

traxy covers LinkedIn and runs the outreach. If your buyers talk on Reddit, X or Hacker News, a multi-network listening tool covers those sites. We make traxy, so read this as a vendor's comparison. The criteria are the networks each tool lists on its own page and what it does with a match. Each competitor's page was checked November 2026; features change, so confirm with each vendor.

The difference is where the work ends. A listening tool tells you a conversation happened; you still decide who the person is, whether they fit and what to send. traxy starts from LinkedIn people with a name and a company, checks fit, and carries the lead through to the outreach. For more tools and how they compare, see the best social listening tools for B2B sales prospecting and social listening vs social intent search.

What are the limits?

• traxy is LinkedIn only. It does not find leads on Reddit, X, Hacker News or other networks.

• 71M+ is engagements, not people. The number counts scanned likes, posts and comments, not buyers or customers.

• Activity is not a decision to buy. A fit score is not a probability of purchase, and a missing signal does not prove someone has no interest.

• Private-mode profile viewers stay hidden. LinkedIn doesn't reveal them.

• Company page tracking finds engagers with the page's posts, not every employee at the company.

• Events outside LinkedIn come from research. Hiring, funding and job changes are checked by research on each lead, not a live event feed.

• Outreach needs your own sender accounts, and no tool can promise meetings or zero LinkedIn restriction risk. Sender limits and ramp-up help you send at a sensible pace.

FAQ

What is the difference between social intent and intent data?

Most intent data works at the account level: it says a company is researching a topic, without naming who. Social intent works at the person level: you see the named person, the public post, comment or like, and the date, so you can reach the right person about the right thing.

Is a LinkedIn like a sign of intent?

A like is the weakest kind of social intent. It shows the topic caught someone's attention. A post or comment asking for help, or engagement with a competitor's post, says much more. traxy labels leads Warm, Related or Activity by how strong the evidence is, and only people with a 50% or higher ICP match count as leads.

Can traxy find leads on Reddit or X?

No. traxy's sources are LinkedIn activity: posts, comments and likes, profile views, engagers of the people, posts and company pages you track, and the social intent search over 71M+ scanned LinkedIn engagements. For Reddit, X or Hacker News, tools such as Buska, Octolens or Syften list those networks on their own pages.

Do I need to post on LinkedIn myself to find leads with intent?

No. You can track competitors, creators, single posts and company pages, and search what people already posted, commented and liked. Your own posts and profile views add more leads once you have them.

Can I turn my LinkedIn profile viewers into leads?

Yes. Turn on Profile views in the LinkedIn activity card under Targeting > Signals, filter Leads by "Viewed <your name>'s profile" for any time or the last 7, 30 or 90 days, and save the viewers who fit as a shared view to use in a campaign. Private-mode viewers stay hidden.

Does traxy send messages without my approval?

No. Nothing sends until you approve the launch. You test on sample leads first, with nothing sent, then either let the approved campaign send on its own or approve every message in a review queue. Replies, unsubscribes and hard bounces stop the sequence.

Can I do this from ChatGPT or Claude?

Yes. Through the traxy MCP you can search social intent, list and research leads, and build, test and launch campaigns from Claude, ChatGPT, Codex, Cursor or Grok. The AI asks for your yes in chat before anything sends or launches.

Is social intent the same as social listening?

Not quite. Social listening usually tracks keywords and brand mentions across many sites and sends alerts. Social intent, as traxy uses it, starts from named LinkedIn people, checks their fit and shows the activity behind each one, so the result is a lead you can contact rather than a mention to read.

Related reading

• What is social intent search?

• Social listening vs social intent search

• How to find warm, high intent leads on LinkedIn

• Turn LinkedIn profile views into leads

• Best social listening tools for B2B sales prospecting

• Social intent search in traxy

• LinkedIn outbound with traxy

Try it: see how social intent search finds high intent leads on LinkedIn, and how LinkedIn outbound reaches them once you approve.