Study: Nearly All B2B Marketers Consider Social Media Critical to Campaigns

The “State of B2B Social Media Marketing 2015” report, released by Regalix, has found that 99 percent of B2B marketers believe social media is critical to their communication campaigns, with 94 percent indicating their key social objective is to build brand awareness.

Out of all of the social media platforms available to B2B marketers, LinkedIn and Twitter are the most popular, according to the report. Ninety-three percent of respondents said that Twitter was the most effective channel in terms of helping them reach their target audience, while 91 percent said LinkedIn allowed them to connect with their primary customers.

However, “The potential of social media to act as a platform for customer engagement post sales remains untapped,” according to Nimish Vohra, senior vice president of marketing at Regalix.

While 64 percent of respondents believe LinkedIn is the most effective platform for customer engagement at the pre-sales stage of the buying cycle, just 51 percent believe the same at the post-sales stage of the buying cycle. This trend remains unchanged with regards to Twitter, as 47 percent believe it is the most effective platform for customer engagement at the pre-sales stage of the buying cycle and 42 percent believe the same at the post-sales stage of the buying cycle.

Twitter Remains Effective for B2B Marketers

The “B2B Social Media Report” published by Brandwatch in May 2015 further highlights marketers’ extensive use of Twitter. The findings showed that Twitter is the top platform for B2B brand mentions, with 73 percent of them popping up on the network.

Approximately 47 percent of B2B companies using Twitter said that they have at least one account. Twenty-five percent of respondents said that they have numerous accounts on the social networking site.

Twitter notably surpassed Facebook in this report. Only 13 percent of B2B brand mentions were found on Facebook by researchers. About 6 percent were discovered on news sites, and 3 percent were on blogs.