Business to business marketing has made LinkedIn its prime focus in marketing compared to Facebook and Twitter says a study. According to it 87% of B2B marketers build brand awareness through social media.
It’s worth noting that 83% of social B2B marketers used LinkedIn last year to share content with other professionals. While Twitter and Facebook at close seconds for B2B social engagement, with 80% a piece. The study shows that, marketers juggle among five social networking platforms for their brand presence. Interestingly, Google+ was used by 39% of B2B marketers, up 13% from 2011. This improvement shows that it’s the best place to get acquainted. While, Pinterest is used by 26% B2B marketers, and Instagram by 7%, which is less than one in ten.
According to the report, more than half (54%) of the B2B marketers plan to increase their content marketing budget over next twelve months. It can be easily predicted that in the next twelve months, marketers will invest more in quality content creation and in higher volumes. The prime focus will be to provide lots of valuable content for their target audiences. The average amount of marketing budget spent on B2B marketing is 33%, up from 26% in 2011. Most of the companies are shelling-a-bomb on B2B content marketing but, mid-size companies are exception.
Certainly, Brand awareness, customer acquisition and lead generation are the top goals for B2B marketers, says the report. Increasing figures of B2B marketers have opted for Content marketing to achieve these goals in 2012 compared to 2011. While, few used content marketing strategy to generate sales also.
The number of B2B marketing in-house has increased to 18%. It is noted that the companies are facing challenges to produce enough content and only fewer big companies are outsourcing the contents.
B2B content marketing strategies show a drastic change by adopting various tactics such as, videos, research reports, mobile content and virtual conferences. While, video tops the list by 70% followed by 44%, 33% and 28% respectively of the above list. The below Infographic highlights few other insights.
Infograph courtesy: Marketo
