- 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.
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.