Trends And ROI In B2B Social Media – Is There Still Room For Improvement?

The future has never been brighter for social media marketing.  New research shows that the biggest opportunities for marketers are in the B2B vertical.  Although, a  rather amazing statistic is that 75% of B2B marketers, who conduct social marketing, say that they do NOT measure the ROI of social initiatives.  As marketers, we must provide ROI statistics not only to substantiate budgetary spends, but also to prove what we all believe to be true - Social media is the future of marketing.

Some trends surprised me, while others are aligned with what I thought back to early 2010.

Despite anticipated increases in budges for digital and social marketing, only 30% of marketers say they have a strong understanding of social media conversations happening around their brands, according to a survey from Alterian.

What about marketing in the Age of The Customer? Few (11%) marketers say they tailor website experiences to individual visitors. Some 55% say they concentrate on campaigns to drive website activity, and 34% say they use their company website as a corporate brochure.  I hear that often in talking with company CFO’s and Marketing Directors. 

Email personalization is more advanced than other channels: 43% of marketers say they use some type of segmentation strategy to deliver specific email messages to each audience, although only a small portion (13%) deliver emails based on preferences at the individual customer level, monitored in real-time.

There Is Still Room For Improvement

Nearly one-third of surveyed marketers (31.4%) say they have little or no understanding about social media conversations around their brands, and 38.6% say they use a few ad-hock tools to track and measure social media conversations.

More than 93% of B2B marketers conduct social media marketing according to marketingprofs.com.  The use of social media is: 26% cite LinkedIn the single most important tool, 20% utilize Facebook, 19% use blogging, 14% leverage customer communities, 13% like Twitter and 7% prefer YouTube.   A glaring lack of leverage of YouTube.  I must believe that marketers know they must utilize more video and YouTube as an SEO tool in B2B marketing.

More than 66% of B2B marketers already use social media marketing and the main focus cited was brand building.  Though customer acquisition was the top goal from B2B marketers last year, less than 50% use social media as a lead generation tool.

More than 75% of B2B marketers plan to increase their budgets for online marketing efforts.  Social media is a more integral part of B2B company marketing, with most marketers planning to increase social media spending by more than 60% next year.

Most B2B marketers are focused on LinkedIn and video, while most B2C are more focused on Facebook.  Notably, B2B companies are using more blogs.  This is in-line with my perceptions in 2009, while there is still a wide gap between the companies that are using social media well and those that are even using digital marketing at all, the gap is narrowing! 

As expected, B2B mobile marketing spend will increase dramatically in the next 3 years, from an estimated $26 million in 2009 to $106 million in 2014.  Frankly, I believe that number to be a low estimate, based on internal trends and my own experience working with top global brands.  In my research and discussions with fellow marketers, B2C companies are more interested in ‘learning’ about Facebook (at least 70%), blogging (about 70%) vs. only about 65% for B2B companies. 

The latest research also shows that 100% of Fortune 500 Company’s have executives using LinkedIn.  Importantly, 50% of LinkedIn’s users are key decision makers in their company.  Also, more than 40% of individuals using LinkedIn for marketing have generated business with it.

The top obstacles for B2B marketers adopting social media marketing are:

-        Poorly defined success benchmarks, metrics and Key Performance Indicators: 57%

-        Lack of knowledge of social media: 44%

-        Management resistance: 22%

Social media is at the fore-front of marketers plans going forward, now, more than ever.  It is also clear that social media is still not where it needs to be.  The digital universe of social media continues to grow and expand in all directions. What do you think the social media landscape look like in 1, 2, or 5 years?  It is an exciting time to be a digital marketer, and better yet to be thinking about the road ahead.

Please comment, add your thoughts and insight.  Also, connect with me on Twitter - @RikWalters 

The 5 W's of Business Social Intelligence

The five W’s are fundamentally a part of how companies and their brands must comprehensively look at social network information.  Companies must analyze, gaining weighted insight into what is happening within the social media eco-system for their brand.  Social media has dramatically changed how companies communicate, market and sell their products and service. It has also changed the dynamic relationship between companies and their customers.   


Now, customers can play a major role in what's being said publicly about your products and brand.  This is a great challenge, however I believe it is the best opportunity to engage with customers in new and different ways, building stronger, longer-lasting relationships and enhancing loyalty and great sales.

Who is doing the talking and what's their influence?

Quickly identify the key influencers and get detailed information about their gender, age industry, Klout rating and interests.  Key influencers can work with you for a win-win situation.  Remember, the influencers are talking about others at a 15-to-1 ratio over talking about themselves.  Are you?

What are people talking about and what are the key conversations?

Monitor (listen) to buzz and key conversations to see what is being said about your brand, service and products.  Then identify the major themes and issues that are raised about you within the social media landscape.  Engage in those conversations as needed to show you are involved in an authentic way.

Why are conversations happening and are they positive or negative?

Discover why those conversations are happening. See whether what's talked about is positive, negative or neutral and determine the impact on your brand and business.  Don’t wait until it escalates; listen often for the best results.

Where did these conversations occur?

Access geo-demographic information to see where and when around the world conversations are taking place - drill-down to the country or city, as well as the age demographic to gain relational insights.  

When did these conversations happen?

Analyze the activity to learn more about when these conversations happened - both historically and in real-time.  Then, compare and contrast buzz generated over time vs. efforts and time-lines associated with related buzz and awareness.

Using this intelligence, it is then important to take next steps utilizing Social Media Best Practices:

Listen:  The social media eco-system has a lot of white noise.  Utilize tools to overcome this challenge.  Identify and monitor the conversations on social networks, blogs, forums & communities, news sites, etc.  There are millions of conversations about your company, your brand and your products.  Listen in real-time for effective engagement.

Engage:  Now that you have heard those voices about your brand, identify key people, drilling into those conversations and understand who they are, what interests them and how their authority or relevance applies to your brand.  Engage key influencers and thought-leaders to build, nurture and manage those important relationships.  Using tools to automatically secure authority measurement and Klout scores, you can work with these influencers based on inbound links, social bookmarks and mentions, comments and other important activities.

Measure:  This is where you need the right tools.  Using real-time analytics, you can track and measure your campaigns, products, as well as brand reputation and sentiment.  Analyzing this data over time garnishes your metrics with context, benchmarking and comparisons with competitors.

Understand:  By listening, engaging and measuring, you gain valuable understanding into the intelligence (IQ and EQ) of where the conversations are taking place.  You can then determine the impact on your company’s brand and products, and if needed, make adjustments to align your communications, PR, marketing or sales plans.


Look forward to your comments and thoughts.




Twitter: @RikWalters