Social media increasingly important in B2B communication
For the "State of Inbound"-report, more than 4,500 marketers and sales professionals were surveyed worldwide, including 1,288 participants from Europe. A spotlight on social media use shows where marketing and sales can still improve.
Social selling more important than ever beforeThe top priorities for sales in the coming year are again: closing more (70%), faster (31%) and more efficient (47%) contracts. This is followed for the first time by social selling in fourth place: for 28% of respondents, the use of social media in sales is high on the list of priorities, gaining 6% in importance compared to the previous year. This development can be quickly explained by taking a look at the sales channels: social networks are in third place among the most successful sales channels with 22% (Facebook 9%, LinkedIn 9%, Twitter 1 %, others 3%), only slightly behind email with 29% and telephone with 36%. At the same time, however, 22% of respondents find it more difficult to integrate social media into the sales process compared to two to three years ago - probably because more and more social networks are becoming relevant for sales and the complexity is therefore increasing.
Social media and messenger apps very popular for business purposesThe fact that social networks are becoming increasingly popular is also shown by the analysis of the preferred means of communication for business matters: 38% of survey participants actually prefer to use social media, while 24% prefer messenger apps. Although they do not yet match the popularity of email (55%), face-to-face meetings (45%) or telephone calls (43%), the rapid increase in importance of these still young communication channels is striking.
Opportunities for B2B marketing and sales: LinkedIn and FacebookSocial media are therefore not only relevant for B2C companies. Social networks are now firmly anchored in everyday life. In addition to genuine business networks, more and more originally private networks are also being used for B2B marketing and sales. However, companies need to identify suitable social networks for their own customer approach and implement appropriate marketing and sales measures there. The "State of Inbound" shows that most respondents use LinkedIn for business purposes (80% business, 56% private), followed by Facebook (73% business, 92% private) and Twitter (64% business, 60% private).
