Wednesday, March 4, 2009

B2B Marketers Need To Keep Up With Business Technology Buyers On Social Media

Despite the fact that 77 percent of business technology decision-makers engage with social media on the job, most B2B marketers are not effectively using social technologies to influence the purchasing decisions of their customers, according to new research from Forrester Research, Inc. According to the Forrester survey, technology decision-makers actively participate in social media as it relates to their job. The Social Technographics Profile segments buyers into six categories based on their social activities:

Creators -- 27 percent publish a blog, publish Web pages, create/upload video or music, or write articles and post them online.

Critics -- 37 percent post reviews of products or services, comment on someone else's blog, or contribute to online forums.

Collectors -- 29 percent use RSS feeds, vote for Web sites online, or add tags to Web pages or photos.

Joiners -- 29 percent maintain a profile on a social networking site or visit social networking sites.

Spectators -- 69 percent read blogs, listen to podcasts, watch video from other users, or read online forums and reviews.

Inactives -- 23 percent do not participate in any social media activities for work purposes.

Despite these activities, social media has yet to effectively influence a large part of the technology buying process. Fifty-one percent of survey respondents feel social media doesn't play an important role in the purchasing process, and 60 percent of survey respondents don't find blogs more valuable than editorial content for informing purchase decisions. More than three-fourths of respondents said peers influence their purchase decisions more than any other media or information source.

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