Social media trends: B2B versus B2C

The 2012 Social Media Marketing Industry Report discussed in-depth the state of social media today. One aspect it hit on was the way social media worked differently for B2B marketers compared with B2C marketers, Social Media Examiner explains.

Researchers found, for instance, that while more than 93 percent of B2B marketers use social media to market their businesses, it still lags behind B2C (95.2 percent). However, this is still a slight improvement for B2B compared to the 2010 survey (88 percent).

On the flip side, B2B outgained B2C in many categories involving social media. For example, they acquired more new business partnerships (56 percent B2B, 45 percent B2C), saw improved search rankings (60 percent B2B, 50 percent B2C) and were more able to gather marketing place insights as a result of their social media efforts (69 percent B2B, 60 percent B2C).

In terms of platform preferences, 87 percent of B2B brands use Facebook, 84 percent use LinkedIn, 65 percent blog and 44 percent utilize Google+.

A webinar held in December by Social Media Today that compared social media return on investment from the two sides noted that ROI is more likely to be realized on the B2B side via improvements in communication and collaboration, while B2C businesses must now meet the customer halfway.

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