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Accenture Research: B2C vs B2B Marketers' Usage of Social Media

social media funnelWe already know that social media is just one piece of the B2B marketing puzzle, acting primarily as a distributor of content. We know it's part of the overall content marketing strategy which adapts to the new way buyers buy online. So why did Accenture's recent survey conclude that we lag behind our B2C counterparts? Are B2B businesses jumping on the social media bandwagon without any real understanding of how it actually fits into their marketing strategy

Social media's effectiveness when it comes to sales is more obvious for B2C companies, but it appears it's still a bit of a grey area in B2B markets. Accenture surveyed executives at over 200 North American B2B companies to shed some light on the issue.

Here's what they found:

  • Nearly two-thirds considered social media “extremely” or “very” important as a channel for customer interaction
  • Despite their perception of its importance, only 8% are heavily leveraging social media today
  • Only 5% reported having a strong and formal link between social media efforts and other strategic customer initiatives
  • Only 11% reported having the systems and analytics capabilities needed to measure and track the return on social media investments
  • Nearly 20% had little confidence in their companies’ ability to make the right social media investment decisions

So the problem doesn't lie in understanding, but in execution.

B2B marketers understand social media's role in benefiting the business, and some even set clear goals on what they want their social media strategy to achieve - they just aren't sure where to go from there; how exactly to implement it.

This gap is attributed to:

  • The belief that they aren't investing adequately in skills development, measurement capabilities and internal collaboration
  • The perceived need for new tools and technologies
  • A lack of confidence in their social media investments to-date

To remedy this, Accenture recommends taking your time to come up with a customer-focused strategy, measure the results of your efforts with analytics, and adapt your approach accordingly.

For more information on how to tackle the challenges faced by B2B marketers, check out our Resource Centre.

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What do you think about these conclusions? Do you agree? Could results vary with Australian B2B companies? Let us know in the comment section below.

Topics: b2b marketing build awareness social media