Social media for B2B marketers: why or why not?

At first glance, it seems a little surprising to see the seemingly low Social Media adoption by marketers. However, looking at the traditional adoption curve, it makes sense. 50% adoption puts us on the border of the "early majority" portion of the curve and moving to "late majority." Given that blogging has been around longer than Twitter, but that there's also a symbiotic relationship between blogging and Twitter, that could explain why blogging isn't further along the curve as well.

For anyone who is interested, you can download the B2B Marketer Skills Survey results overview here: http://gurl.im/1f9d6s - lots of interesting data to discuss!

Michael, as to "why"? I suspect it's a twist on the "time and money" phrase. B2B Marketers haven't yet seen the hard dollars come in from social and so they haven't made the time investment.

John, I think many B2B marketers having the same discussion you're having around blogging and social. The data suggests that.

While Genius does has a social media product (along with demand generation products) the impetus of the survey was a desire to understand B2B Marketers more clearly given the changes that have occurred over the past few years. And over 500 B2B Marketers responded, chiefly attained from BtoB Magazine sources.

Agreed. Getting 50% of businesses to blog/Twitter is a sign of strength, not weakness. Don't forget that this is a relatively recent phenomenon. What other technologies have seen a faster ramp to 50% penetration. Especially considering that included in that universe are very small businesses that are resource strapped and less likely to formally adopt social networking....the data is impressive indeed.

Scott and Nick: Do you both believe that the findings that 50% of B2B marketers are not blogging and 49% are not tweeting imply that 50% ARE blogging and 51% ARE tweeting? I am not at all sanguine about making that assumption in the absence of more survey details -- and the results overview says that the survey specifically asked respondents about technologies they AREN'T using. I can hardly wait for Scott and his colleagues to dig a bit more deeply into the survey results!

We have experience working with clients in the B2B space and have found that most are hesitant to take the first few steps. The whole social media initiative has assumed gigantic proportions in their minds and hence people assume that bandwidth will be a constraint. Yes, 50% on the bandwagon is good and I definitely think this will only increase.

Michael, that's a good point, but still, if someone is indicating technologies they don't use, I think it's safe to assume that the rest do use it. I am sure there are some clueless folks as always who just don't know or who just don't care to answer appropriately but even if the figure is 40% usage that's pretty impressive in my book. I don't know how many years it took for companies to cross the 40% penetration rate in mobile email (crackberries) but I'd bet it's longer than the twitter adoption curve due to the viral nature and low barriers of entry (vs what people had to go through to set up a wireless email server on prem back in the day..).

Excellent. Really looking forward to dig underneath these numbers. Thanks for sharing guys.

Excellent answers, all -- thanks, gentlemen. I'm also very interested in what we'll learn as Parker and his team dig further into "what lies beneath" the initial results. Meanwhile, though, my original question still stands -- why are those B2B marketers who aren't using social media not doing so, especially when consumer adoption is apparently so high and almost half of their B2B colleagues appear to be using social media? I understand and applaud the comments about where we are in adoption process, but I'm also really interested in any more specific or different reasons why the non-adopters haven't adopted yet. As always, your thoughts welcome, whether you're new to the discussion or not!

Hi and thanks Parker.

I understand and accept the impetus behind your firm's involvement in the survey, and I certainly wasn't trying to imply there was anything underhand or sinister about that involvement - it just unavoidably raises questions about the validity of the survey and resulting data simply because of the lack of independence. Nothing more.

I hope the Genius/B2B survey will appear in a peer-reviewed journal some time soon. I look forward to reading more about it in the months ahead if yes.

Michael,

I am going to suggest that the reason why they aren't using social media yet is because they don't know *how* to effectively integrate it with their existing marketing strategies to accomplish their goals. We are very much in a learning phase with B2B social media and content marketing.

Some companies are starting to get their feet wet and others are sticking with what they know.

Additionally, for approval at the CMO and CEO level, you need an answer to, "Can you make sense of what you are doing with a dollar sign attached?"

Measuring results is another core area that B2B marketers are still learning.

Hi guys, nice discussion. Many thanks.

I'm not entirely convinced of the value of social media (but particularly twitter and the true cost/benefit of Blogging) for many companies, including B2Bs. I also note the study you've identified Michael has been undertaken by two parties with a vested interest in the outcome. Its findings therefore are likely to be of compromised or questionable quality as a consequence.

Purely from my own personal experience I find it hard to believe the response rates quoted are anywhere near representative of the real world (they seem to seriously understate the proportion of marketers who don't Blog or twitter, and I'd therefore doubt they'd be reflected in any sound independent research). But yes, I could be wrong...

However, I do think the answer to your question Michael is far more likely to be found in the Journal of Marketing or similar rather than in an industry mag's own research.