Survey: Social Media ‘Indispensable’ for B2B Content Distribution

B2B marketers are increasingly turning to social media channels as a key tool for distributing content, according to recent survey results released by Regalix.

Specifically, more than a quarter (27 percent) identify social media as an “indispensable” channel for content distribution in 2016. This matches what have long been mainstays in content distribution: websites (26 percent) and email (28 percent).

The survey also identified the top three objectives for content marketing initiatives: lead generation (87 percent), creating awareness (76 percent) and nurturing prospects and influencing purchases (69 percent). Content’s potential as a tool for building brand loyalty and advocacy is not as prevalent; roughly half of the respondents indicated it as a key objective.

Similarly, marketers choose lead generation metrics (website traffic, conversion rate, downloads) to measure success, as opposed to customer engagement metrics.

“Social media is fast gaining traction as a channel for content distribution. And social is all about engagement,” the author of the study wrote. “Marketers need to get over their excessive focus on meeting pre-sale objectives with their content strategy and consider using content marketing to also engage deeply with customers.”

A look at content marketing as a percentage of overall marketing spend reveals B2B marketers are committed to content efforts in 2016. Just one in five respondents indicated they would spend less than 10 percent of their budget on content marketing this year. The data shows the budget sweet spot for the majority (57 percent) is between 11 and 25 percent of overall budget.

Content Marketing Crucial for B2B success

A survey published by TechValidate and the Spear Marketing Group in September 2015 found B2B marketers are now focusing on content marketing above all other marketing technologies. A total of 85 percent of respondents indicated content marketing was their top technology, with  SEO (70 percent), CRM (68 percent) and marketing automation (62 percent) following behind.

Looking forward, 60 percent of respondents claimed that content marketing will be the “most important” technology over the next 12-to-18 months. Within B2B marketers’ content strategies, blog posts (76 percent) are considered a vital component. White papers (69 percent) and webinars (61 percent) are also proving to be valuable assets.