The Uncertain Rise of B2B Social Media

Business-to-business players are facing increasing pressure to “get with the times.” Suppliers are encouraged to modernize their procurement processes, buyers are pushed away from the paper check and towards digital payments, and more technologically sophisticated services are available for the B2B industry than ever before.

The adoption of social media as a marketing tool for suppliers, and as a research tool for buyers, has emerged as yet another way B2B companies can progress towards more modern practices.

LinkedIn is one social media platform taking advantage of the increased interest and spending on such websites among B2B players. The company announced last Thursday (Feb. 19) the release of its new LinkedIn Lead Accelerator intended to take advantage of the migration of B2B marketers and buyers to the social media outlet. The product, LinkedIn says, allows marketers to target specific buyers, as well as design marketing campaigns based on analytics and then track the impact of those campaigns.

It’s unsurprising that LinkedIn would increase its efforts behind B2B services. According to an eMarketer survey released last September, the site outshines the competition for the B2B industry, with 78% of buyers said they use LinkedIn to share product research, compared with 59% using Twitter and 40% using Facebook.

On the supply side, Content Marketing Institute found that 91 percent of B2B marketers use LinkedIn to distribute content, compared with 85 percent using Twitter and 81 percent using Facebook. Both large and small companies, the research found, agree that LinkedIn is the most effective social media platform to market products and services.

Funds Pour Into Social Media Efforts

It’s undeniable that social media use among B2B companies is on the rise, with the Content Marketing Institute finding that respondents used an average of six social media platforms (up from five the year prior). What’s more, the study found that while marketing budgets for B2B firms are steadily decreasing, an increasing portion of those budgets are being spent on social media endeavors.

Forrester research released last month found that 51 percent of B2B marketers expect their social media spending to increase this year, and more marketers said they plan to spend more on digital marketing as opposed to content marketing.

Looking at long-term social media plans, a CMO Survey published last August met similar conclusions about increased social media spending among B2B companies. According to the findings, while an average of 9.5 percent of a company’s budget goes towards social media endeavors, B2B suppliers that offer a product say they will increase that percentage to 19.9, while B2B suppliers offering a service will hike the percentage to 22.2 over the next five years. Over the next 12 months, the study found, B2B firms are expecting to raise their social media budgets by between 12.6 and 13.3 percent.

The Unknown Impact of Social Media

In a recent interview, the CEO of B2B solutions provider Basware, Esa Tihilä, declared that “the use of social media…will play a significant role for suppliers,” and procurement officials should get comfortable with the idea of using social media to market products and services to other businesses.

But while experts and members of the business-to-business industry seem to agree that social media will play an increasing role in their operations, it is unclear what, exactly, that role will be.

The research shows that even as marketers are increasingly spending money on social media efforts, they are unsure as to why they are doing so. CMO Survey found that 45 percent of chief marketing operators claim they have not yet seen how social media impacts their business; 40 percent of CMO respondents say they feel they understand the qualitative impact of social media, but not the quantitative impact.

When breaking down the statistics by social media platform, the Content Marketing Institute found that 62 percent of marketers using LinkedIn find it effective, while 38 percent find it less effective as a marketing tool, despite the site’s position as the number-one social media platform used by B2B marketers.

For Twitter, those numbers of whether CMOs find the platform to be effective are drawn at 50/50.

The instance of social media in B2B operations is relatively new, so it is less surprising that companies would be unsure as to the exact impact of social media on business performance.

What some may find surprising, however, is how companies continue to invest more in social media even as data show it to be a less effective business tool than other methods.

For example, an Implisit survey published earlier this month found that while social media proved to yield higher customer conversion rates than marketing and advertising, paid search or webinars, customer employee referrals remain the most successful tactic in customer conversion – bringing in more than double the rate of customer conversation than what social media, or even a brand’s own website, bring.

The findings revealed in eMarketer’s research found that buyers still prefer email over social media when it comes to sharing product content and research as they make a purchasing decision. These results do not, however, imply that B2B marketers’ social media efforts are in vein. The industry is notorious for lagging behind B2C in the adoption of digital tools, and B2B suppliers’ funding of social media strategy and marketing suggests that the industry is finally looking to catch up with its B2C counterparts. Unfortunately, it may take some time for the B2B world to understand how social media – if at all – can help their business.