A Baker’s Dozen of B2B Social Media Statistics for 2013
Wed, Feb 6, 2013
One of the challenges for any B2B company that adopts social media is to benchmark their success against other B2B companies. Statistics, like those collected below, are one way to spot trends in overall activity and spending. When you look at all the stats below in aggregate, you see that B2B companies are spending more on digital marketing and social media, they are dedicating resources to content marketing, but they are not driving traffic to their websites with social media.
If your first tendency is to shout that they are doing it wrong, you are not alone. But we don’t know what specific tactics these companies are using and what their goals are. If they are not creating compelling content or they’re not driving prospects back to their websites, then social media traffic will be small. If they are focused on lead generation, and the social traffic converts at a higher level than general traffic, they might be fine with how much traffic social drives. Start with trends that you may find in these statistics, but make sure you review your own social media metrics against your goals and other tactics.
Changes in Spending
49% of B2B marketers plan to increase their marketing budget in 2013. (Source)
9.5% of B2B marketers plan to decrease their marketing budget in 2013. (Source)
67% of B2B marketers plan to increase their digital marketing budget in 2013. (Source)
70% of B2B marketers plan to increase their spending on website development in 2013. (Source)
56% of B2B marketers plan to increase their spending on social media in 2013. (Source)
Content Marketing
93% of B2B marketers using content marketing use their website. (Source)
65% of B2B marketers using content marketing use social media. (Source)
58% of B2B marketers create their content internally. (Source)
35% of B2B marketers use personas to guide their content creation. (Source)
A B2B buyer will find three pieces of content about a vendor for every one that the company provides. (Source)
Traffic Sources
41% of B2B website traffic is driven by organic search. (Source)
40% of B2B website traffic is direct. (Source)
Only 2% of B2B website traffic is driven by social media. (Source)
Photo Credit: flickr
Jeffrey L. Cohen is the Managing Editor of SocialMediaB2B.com. Follow Jeff on Twitter at @jeffreylcohen or on Google+.
Tags: B2B Social Media, b2b social media spending, b2b social media statistics, budget, statistics, stats
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Please provide the details behind these statistics. Who provided these stats, how many companies were included in the survey, when the survey took place, etc. Thank you!
Debbie:
Thanks for the comment. Each one of the stats contains a link to the source where you can find more detail on each study.
Interesting post! I sometimes wonder if we’re not too busy trying to prove things with metrics to notice what it is we should be measuring (i.e. what really matters). I do agree 100% though that frequent review of metrics as they relate to goals is the best approach we have today. The evolution is exciting.
Jeff,
Very valuable stats.
Thank you so much for this post – it really spoke to me
Hi Jeffery, 93% of B2B marketers using content marketing use website and 67% of B2B marketers planned to increase on their digital marketing budget speaks itself a lot about what trends are being adopted by marketers in future. I would say these things would be more parallel in Future.