B2B Goes Social; a White Horse Survey Report

B2B Marketing Goes Social: A White Horse Survey Report
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In March 2010, White Horse conducted a survey of corporate marketers of their companies' use of social media marketing. 104 marketers across a range of businesses weighed in on their brands' degree of social participation, social marketing staffing and resources, executive support, and success measurement. The results provide a snapshot of the current state of social media marketing and demonstrate its rapid evolution over the last three years.
Because White Horse maintains a specialized practice area in B2B marketing, we were especially interested in uncovering insights into Contrary to the widely how B2B marketers are approaching social media marketing in held perception that B2B comparison to their B2C colleagues. The results proved illuminating. marketers have been slow Contrary to the widely held perception that B2B marketers have been to adopt social media slow to adopt social media marketing tactics, our survey found high marketing, our survey rates of adoption or planned adoption of most common tactics, as found high rates of well as a general recognition of the importance and relevance of social adoption or planned media to B2B marketing. Yet the survey also showed that B2B
adoption of most marketers face greater internal obstacles to adoption. Many B2B
common tactics. companies remain fundamentally "handshake" businesses, reliant on one-to-one connections between sales reps and customers; consequently, B2B marketers have work to do convincing their organizations that social media is fertile ground for cultivating the kinds of leads that their sales forces thrive on.
The report that follows examines responses by B2B marketers mirrored against B2C marketer responses from the same survey.


1 ©2010 White Horse

Staffing Our survey found 40% of B2B companies devote one or more full time marketers to social media marketing, as compared to 54% of B2C companies. Given the relatively smaller size of marketing departments in B2B organizations, this level of representation is significant; it underscores the maturing role of social media as a core component of B2B marketers' arsenal.



2 ©2010 White Horse
Staffing, cont. The more illuminating finding is the prevalence of part-time social media management within B2B marketing departments: 71% of B2B organizations surveyed devote two or more part-time marketing resources to social media management, as compared to only 62% among B2C marketers. Broader ownership of social media in B2B marketing departments reflects the "many hats" approach of B2B marketers, with marketing roles defined by product groups or customer types rather than by marketing specialization, e.g., digital vs. traditional. We see broad ownership as a positive trend; companies' use of social media can be more authentic and more personal when multiple marketers participate within their area of focus. But it also highlights the need for governing strategy and a common set of best practices, which most companies still lack.



3 ©2010 White Horse
Staffing, cont. We feel strongly that B2B companies will benefit from engaging digital agencies to guide strategy and best practices for social media marketing, but our survey shows that this has not yet occurred. Only 10% of B2B companies have engaged an agency for help with social media, as compared to 28% for B2C companies. This is consistent with B2B companies' overall lower rates of agency engagement across all marketing activity, but it demonstrates that agencies offering social media services need to work harder to define their value to B2B organizations. Our survey asked respondents to identify in what capacity they used outside agencies for social media, and the sample size was too small to chart, but most indicated that strategic governance and planning were the primary roles. Most B2B organizations will manage social media effectively on their own if such strategy and planning is in place.



4 ©2010 White Horse
Engagement Consistent with other studies like Business.com's 2009 Social Media Marketing Survey, we found that B2B companies' overall engagement in social media was comparable to their B2C counterparts. Only 18% ... [download for more]