B2B Social Media Participation Grows
Jinfo Blog

2nd June 2010

By Nancy Davis Kho

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According to a report released this week from eMarketer, B2B marketers may have been late in jumping on the social media bandwagon but are now making up for lost time. The report (http://www.emarketer.com/Report.aspx?code=emarketer_2000676), which aggregates research from Forrester and Business.com among other providers, points out that 73% of B2B respondents who were using social media as of November 2009 had less than two years of social media marketing experience. However, Forrester Research's figures predict that B2B firms will spend $54 million on social media marketing in 2014, a nearly five-fold increase from the $11 million spent in 2009. Those efforts might include establishing a brand presence in a social network, monitoring social reputation, and undertaking promotion and advertising efforts within a social network framework. The eMarketer report dovetails nicely with figures reported today by PaidContent: UK, showing that the growth rate of European online advertising fell to 4.5% in 2009, down from 20% in 2008 (http://digbig.com/5bbrnd) . A report by analysts Screen Digest said that the slowdown was due to decreased spending in digital display advertising. 'Display advertising was flat year on year across Europe, but most of the more mature, larger ad markets experienced a decline. The UK was down by close to 5% year on year, France was down 6% and Sweden was down 5%', according to the PaidContent article. On the flip side, search advertising spending grew in Europe in 2009 by 10.6%. The figures add up to a trend now firmly entrenched in the consumer world - social media as an integral part of a B2B marketing plan, no longer an afterthought. In his book 'New Rules of Marketing and PR' (http://www.davidmeermanscott.com/books.htm) author David Meerman Scott pushes the concept of brand journalism - using compelling, interactive content rather than static advertising to draw customers in and build loyalty and engagement, a goal facilitated by the interactive and personalised nature of social media technology. And nowhere is this more important than in the B2B world, where sales cycles and contract values tend to be higher than in the consumer world, and where relationships between vendors and customers really count. With all the money pouring into B2B social media marketing, the next few years should see some innovative, exciting new ways for companies and their enterprise clients to connect.

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