Social Media: Will Be Focus of B-to-B Marketers in 2010

According to a recent study completed by Alterian in their 2009 annual survey (get the full report here), social media will become the focus of marketers in 2010. This should come as no surprise to us in the B-to-B marketplace where budgets are still tight and management is continuing to demand accountability for marketing efforts.

The survey covered 1068 marketing professionals. The respondents came from Europe (36%), from North America (62%) and from Asia Pacific (2%). Here are the highlights:

  • 66% will be investing in social media in the next 12 months.
  • Of those investing in social media, 40%will be shifting more than 20% of their traditional direct marketing budget towards social activities.
  • 67% feel social media is either critical or increasingly important to their success.
  • 36% are investigating social media monitoring tools.
  • 51% are moving from a campaign-centric direct marketing to a model of multichannel customer engagement.

Commenting on the survey results, Alterian CEO, David Eldridge, said, “2010 marks the start of the digital decade for marketing. Untargeted and irrelevant marketing techniques are now redundant and the results of this survey show many in the industry recognise this. The one thing to remember, however, is that investment in Social Media Marketing is futile without adequate measurement.”

Eldridge concludes, “Engaging with customers is becoming paramount and the yardstick by which we measure those brands that survive and those that don’t. Marketers now need to appeal to the individual and engage with customers on a one-to-one basis. The easiest way to achieve this is by investing in Social Media Marketing and Social Media Monitoring, and by embracing the web.”

So what are your plans for 2010? Are you going to embrace social media? I’d like to hear what you’re planning on doing.

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