This document summarizes research on B2B social media usage. It finds that LinkedIn is the most popular and useful social media platform for B2B, used by 72% of B2B professionals for lead generation and branding. The document also describes a case study of Attunity, which saw a 9.62% increase in website visitors and a 15.34% increase in page views after integrating social media like LinkedIn, blogs, and ebooks into their marketing strategy.

1. BDI
Social Communications
Leadership Forum
March 15, 2012

2. Christopher Hosford,
East Coast Bureau Chief
BtoB | BtoBonline.com |
BtoB’s Media Business

3. BtoB essential research
‘B2B Social Communications:
Insights from the Field’

4. Favorite sites and forums, Feb. 2012
Source: Experian Hitwise

5. B2B use of social channels
LinkedIn - 72%
Facebook – 71%
Twitter – 67%
YouTube – 48%
Blogging – 44%
Customer community – 22%

6. Favorite channel? LinkedIn
LinkedIn – 26%
Facebook – 20%
Blogging – 19%
Customer community – 14%
Twitter – 13%
YouTube – 7%

7. Best uses by platform?
Lead Generation - 57%
Branding - 75%
Web site traffic-building - 69%
Branding - 64%
Branding - 72%
Customer Feedback - 79%

8. Forrester Research: U.S. interactive
marketing spend, 2011-2016

9. Attunity: Quick Case Study
Integrating social media with
other marketing exigencies

10. Attunity: December 2011
 Fairly Solid:
 2 – 3 webinars per month
 2 – 3 press releases per month
 LinkedIn community – 1300 members
 But Challenges Loomed:
 Content – too little and IT focused
 Website – complex, IT centric

11. Attunity: Content drives visitors
 Whitepapers and eBooks
 Augmented team with a contract writer
 Six papers written since January 2012 (2/mo)
 Each paper drives a 3 – 5 part blog series
 New Blog
 14 posts since mid-January
 Increased from 1 to 2 per week
 Consistent post days (Tue and Thu)

12. Attunity: An integrated approach
 Social media
 LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube
 Website overhaul
 Business messaging front and center
 Better navigation and taxonomy
 Calls to action
 Landing pages

13. Attunity: February 2012
Metric Dec 2011 Feb 2012 % Change
Visitors 14,963 16,403 + 9.62%
Unique visitors 12,136 13,067 + 7.67%
Page views 32,887 37,933 + 15.34%
Pages / visit 2.20 2.31 + 5.00%

14. Christopher Hosford
East Coast Bureau Chief
chosford@crain.com
@cfhosford
Thank you!