B2B marketers vote LinkedIn most important social media channel

The majority (93%) of B2B marketers are engaged in social media marketing to some extent, with a particular focus on the quality audience served by LinkedIn, according to fresh research by ‘B2B’.

As well as LinkedIn, the B2B marketers surveyed are also embracing Facebook and Twitter marketing. 26% of respondents cited LinkedIn as their most important social channel, followed by Facebook (20%), blogging (19%), customer communities (14%) and YouTube (7%).

One of the study’s most interesting finds is the prominent role of social media for branding purposes.

However, while marketers find social sites are useful overall in supporting branding efforts, they tend to harness each channel based on its own unique strengths.

While LinkedIn is being employed primarily for lead generation purposes, Facebook is considered better for promoting products and events, and Twitter is gaining popularity for its potential to drive website traffic.

Further evidence of the growing role of social media within B2B marketing comes this week from a Forrester Research study, which predicts that B2B companies will spend $54m on social media marketing in 2014, up from just $11m in 2009.

The million-dollar question now is whether companies with relatively nascent social media marketing strategies can evolve beyond mere message distribution via online communities, to embrace the true ‘social’ nature of social marketing.