Social media most effective for achieving branding goals say B2B marketers

According to Marketing Sherpa’s B2B Marketing Benchmark Report 2011, social media is most effective at achieving branding goals, such as influencing brand reputation and increasing brand awareness. Marketers have also found social media to be an effective SEO tactic for improving search engine rankings and increasing website traffic.

Although the use of social media for lead generation is increasing rapidly (see FurlongPR blog 29.9.10) social media does not currently rank as high on the B2B lead generation scale in the Marketing Sherpa survey.

The report notes this could be because “most marketers are so accustomed to using quantitative metrics to measure effectiveness that they overlook the qualitative nature of social media.” citing that, “it’s not necessarily the number of comments about your brand on an industry blog that’s important — it’s the positive or negative nature of the commentary.”

Indications are that social media is undervalued by marketers in terms of its effectiveness, due to lack of experience in new online marketing channels. The report suggests that as B2B marketers become more knowledgeable in social media practices, the effectiveness of tactics will improve.

Other findings from the report show that the majority of B2B organisations are increasing their marketing budgets for inbound marketing tactics including social media, virtual events and webinars, SEO and PPC, mainly due to the cost-effectiveness of these channels.