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?

How Social is B2B?



This InsideView infographic highlights the growing usage of social media among B2B marketers. A majority (61%) of B2B marketers use social media to increase lead generation, while organizations with a blog report a whopping 67% more leads per month than those who do not have one. This is in line with preliminary findings from DemandGen Report’s Content Preferences Survey, which found that blogs are an increasingly significant source for business executives considering a purchase.