Survey: Half Of All B2B Marketers Ignore Social Media
B2B marketers have a lot of questions about how and why to use social media. According to a recent study, however, relatively few of them are looking very hard for the answers.
As reported on eMarketer.com, a January 2012 Satmetrix survey of over 1,000 B2B and B2C companies found a surprising difference in how the two groups deal with social media. More than half of the B2C companies track and follow up on brand mentions on social media; another 25% at least keep tabs on social media mentions.
Among the B2B companies surveyed, just 27% track and follow up brand mentions, while another 22% do tracking only. Nearly half of the B2B companies basically ignore social media as a brand-management tool.
What’s going on here? My guess (the obvious one) is that B2B companies don’t pay attention to social media because they don’t think it’s a useful environment for engaging with their prospects and customers.
If that’s how your B2B marketing team operates, I’ll point to a couple of findings from our 2012 Content Preferences Survey:
- Half of the respondents said they attach great importance to “peer reviews and user generated feedback.” Social media is now a primary platform for sharing such feedback.
- Nearly a quarter said they typically begin their search for business solutions by using social media.
In other words, a significant number of your prospects turn to social media to inform their buying decisions. If you don’t even track how your brand fares on social media – never mind engaging with these people – how can you turn it to your advantage?
