2011 Social Media Marketing and PR Report for B2B

Every Tuesday, Marketing Sherpa sends out a chart of the week. Social Media Tactics for B2B is this week’s chart. That’s what you see here. A pull out from the 2011 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report, a survey of 935 marketers, the complete report includes 167 graphs and charts like this one. You may purchase the report for $397. Or, download the free 2011 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report executive summary, which is the source of all stats in this post.

What do you think – how do these numbers compare to how your company’s 2011 social media plans?

2011 Social Media Marketing and PR Research Results

Marketing Sherpa asked businesses to rank nine social media tactics. Here’s an overview from the report . . .

“Participating on company-branded or -managed social networks is the most commonly used tactic, with 87% of study participants indicating that they execute it. This is likely because of the ease of setting up profiles on social networking sites. Creating a social networking profile on Facebook or LinkedIn may only take minutes, but without a strategy and consistent execution, results will likely suffer. Consistently creating and publishing blog posts requires significant resources, but since it is a highly effective tactic, more than half of B2B marketers participating in this year’s study indicated they were doing so.” Source: MarketingSherpa.com

87% participate on company-branded or managed social networks

64% microblogging on company-branded social networks

64% blogging on company branded or managed blogs

62% sharing content on social media sites

52% using social media to improve SEO

42% social media news releases

33% blogger and online influencer relations

30% sharing email content with social media sites

21% advertising on blogs, social networks and other social media sites

The greatest marketing challenge, for 78% of businesses, is generating high quality leads. In 2011, 69% plan on increasing social media spending while 40% plan on increasing PR investments.

How about you?