Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Why Social Media Makes Sense for B2B Marketers
Consumer-oriented social media marketing represents the lion’s share of the discussion these days, but business-to-business (B2B) firms have been making inroads as well.
Probably the biggest advantage B2B firms have in the social realm is that they tend to focus on outcomes that actually mean something to their bottom line. They are more apt to hone in on leads than softer metrics such as brand awareness.
Forrester Research forecasts that B2B social media marketing spending will grow from just $11 million last year to $54 million in 2014. That’s still tiny compared to the total $2.3 billion Forrester said B2B companies spent on interactive marketing last year and the $4.8 billion they are expected to spend in 2014.
As more B2B marketers get involved in social media, there will be new tools to help them. I recently met with Optify, a Seattle-based startup that helps B2B marketers with drive leads and maximize ROI from search and social media. The company’s Twitter for Business application automates Twitter campaigns and reports on results. Leads are scored based on how often they interact with a company, whether in social media, via search or on the company’s Website.
Adopting the right tone in social media will be critical for B2B companies. Mashable offers a list of tips for B2B firms looking to use social media more effectively. Probably the best tip: Cultivate a social voice. Because B2B firms talk to other businesses, not consumers, they may not think this is important, but as Mashable’s article says, “Just because your clients are other businesses doesn’t mean that the “social” aspect of social media needs to disappear.”
[...] via Why Social Media Makes Sense for B2B Marketers – The eMarketer Blog. [...]
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by georgedearing: Why Social Media Makes Sense for B2B Marketers [Via @debrawilliamson | eMarketer Blog] http://bit.ly/dlU9OP...
I was hoping this article might convert me. Maybe I missed something, but this article seems to say that social media marketing makes sense for B2B because companies are spending more and more on social media marketing for B2B.
All that tells me is that maybe other companies are idiots.
I want to see more. How do I know that my SMM is generating B2B leads?
[...] Tweets about this great post on TwittLink.com [...]
I know it is working because I can see the traffic it is generating to my website through my Webtrends analytics. We are now getting RFQs from our Facebook page and Twitter followers. Is it huge no, but you can see the momentum building in the number of B2B users.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by David Manzer, Mollie Nothnagel and Digital-Economics, TwoFive Media. TwoFive Media said: Find your voice/define your goals and Social Media can make sense for B2B Marketers http://bit.ly/9dQyMf [...]
This article also seems to be counter intuitive from what the data presents. “They (B2B) are more apt to hone in on leads than softer metrics such as brand awareness.”
However, when looking at the data, the opposite seems to be true. B2C is 5% more effective in revenue when compared to B2B, which is a pretty hard measure. While B2B is 9% more effective in brand awareness when compared with B2C, which is ‘soft’.
Am I missing something here?
[...] Why Social Media Makes Sense for B2B Marketers (from @emarketer) Consumer-oriented social media marketing represents the lion’s share of the discussion these days, but business-to-business (B2B) firms have been making inroads as well. Probably the biggest advantage B2B firms have in the social realm is that they tend to focus on outcomes that actually mean something to their bottom line. They are more apt to hone in on leads than softer metrics such as brand awareness. [...]
Ryan B, yes, there are other datapoints showing what B2B companies are doing in social media and whether they are having success. I’ll make a point to look into that for a future blog post. @peekan has some great anecdotal evidence but I know you are looking for more.
joeymitch, you raise a good point. What I wrote didn’t exactly express what I wanted to say. What I meant to say was that while both B2C and B2B companies look at a wide range of metrics (both hard and soft), B2B companies not only were more likely to look at soft metrics (such as brand metrics) but also more likely to look at hard metrics such as lead quality, lead volume and useful product feedback. Their focus on hard metrics as well as soft metrics does give them an advantage, in my opinion. Thanks for your comment!
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This post was mentioned on Twitter by diginomics: RT @DavidManzer Why Social Media Makes Sense for B2B Marketers http://bit.ly/93S9XJ...
SM makes a lot of sense and when someone says that B2B marketers will find it harder then a B2C marketer I get annoyed. B2B is P2P at the end of the day and once they have that in mind then the formulation of SM strategies are endless.
. You might be interested in some successful social media case studies over on the main B2B Website or similarly this will direct you straight to them http://www.b2bm.biz/knowledgebank/social-media/ – Really indepth and an overall worthy read if you want some additional tips because from these case studies you’ll see that the theory behind SM has in fact been put into best practice
[...] – Why social media makes sens for B2B marketers [...]
[...] studies have shown that B2B marketers are more effective at measurement because they focus on outcomes that matter to their bottom line, such as lead generation. Filed [...]
[...] studies have shown that B2B marketers are more effective at measurement because they focus on outcomes that matter to their bottom line, such as lead generation. Share [...]
[...] studies have shown that B2B marketers are more effective at measurement because they focus on outcomes that matter to their bottom line, such as lead [...]
[...] studies have shown that B2B marketers are more effective at measurement because they focus on outcomes that matter to their bottom line, such as lead [...]
[...] separate survey from eMarketer said that the biggest “advantage” b-to-b companies have in the social-media [...]
[...] good news for B2B marketers is that they tend to be better at measurement. eMarketer reports that “other studies have shown that B2B marketers are more effective at measurement because they [...]
[...] via Why Social Media Makes Sense for B2B Marketers – The eMarketer Blog. [...]
[...] Website traffic, brand awareness, engagement with prospects and engagement with customers are the leading metrics used to measure the success of social media for B2B companies. (Source) [...]
[...] Website traffic, brand awareness, engagement with prospects and engagement with customers are the leading metrics used to measure the success of social media for B2B companies. (Source) [...]
studies have shown that B2B marketers are more effective at measurement because they focus on outcomes that matter to their bottom line, such as lead generation.