B2B Social Media Investments and Return Report

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Introduction
Executive Summary
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27
30
Social Media Presence
B2B Social Media Marketing Goals
Social Media Metrics
Social Media ROI
Table of Contents
Social Media Lead Generation13
32 Analyst Bottom Line
© 2016 Demand Metric Research Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
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17 Social Media Tool Usage
Staffing for Social Media23
34 Acknowledgements
35 Appendix: Survey Background
B2B Social Media: Investment & Returns – Benchmark Study Report – September 2016

INTRODUCTION
It’s unheard of for a B2B organization to not have a social media presence. Just three
percent of organizations studied for this report claim to have no social media
presence. For the other 97 percent, some level of commitment to and investment in
social media exists, and the overall effectiveness of this investment is mixed. This
report will share the goals that these organizations have for social media, how they’re
investing in it and what level of return they are getting from it.
As a marketing channel, social media has many applications, and the primary goal for
most B2B firms is either brand awareness or lead generation. While usage is high and
effectiveness is moderate, the perceived Return-on-Investment (ROI) for social media
is quite unspectacular, as this report will detail. Demand Metric in partnership with
Socedo set out to discover the current B2B social media practices, collecting over 475
complete and partial responses to the study survey. The data from this survey paints
the current social media landscape that this report shares, and the analysis of that
data provides best practice insights for improving the results B2B marketers are
getting from social media.
3B2B Social Media: Investment & Returns – Benchmark Study Report – September 2016

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
All of this study’s participants were from B2B organizations, most of which report
revenue growth during the past fiscal year. Over half of the respondents have
marketing job titles, and over one-fourth are specific to digital marketing or social
media. The respondents come from a diverse set of industries, technology hardware
or software being the largest. Over half come from companies with less than $10
million in annual revenue, while eight percent are with firms reporting revenues of
$500 million or more.
The analysis of this study’s data provides these key findings:
!  Three of the primary uses of social media in B2B environments are Brand
awareness, Lead generation, and Thought leadership, accounting for 75
percent of the primary usage.
!  34 percent of study participants rated their social media marketing efforts as
“Effective” or “Very effective,” while just 29 percent reported getting a
Return on Investment (ROI) in line with or above expectations.
!  Over half of study participants report having no integration between their
social media channels/social media management systems and their
marketing and sales systems. The study discovered that such integration is
a significant contributor to increased ROI from social media.
!  Over half of the study’s participants use social media analytics and content
marketing tools, while almost 20 percent indicate no tool usage at all. Study
participants reporting lower overall social media marketing effectiveness also
report much lower tool usage rates.
!  When any social media tools are in use, the effectiveness rating for social
media as a lead generation channel more than doubles, and when the top
three tools are in use – social media analytics, social media monitoring and
content marketing – the reported effectiveness almost triples.
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!  When any social media tools are in use, the ROI assessment of social media
almost triples, and when the top three tools are in use, the reported
effectiveness almost quadruples.
!  Just one in five organizations in the study assess their social media
marketing effectiveness favorably when they have no staff allocated to their
efforts.
!  The use of best practices identified in this report, such as integration with
sales and marketing systems, use of certain tools, and tracking of specific
metrics, results in ROI of social media marketing almost doubling. However,
just 11 percent of study participants currently use these best practices.
This report details the results and insights from the analysis of the study data. For
more detail on the survey participants, please refer to the Appendix.
5
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Demand Metric is grateful to Socedo for sponsoring this research, and for those who
took the time to complete the study survey.
About Socedo
Socedo’s mission is to bring social leads to every business in the world. Socedo
empowers B2B marketers to discover, engage and qualify prospects through social
media to generate revenue at scale. Socedo integrates with leading marketing
automation and CRM systems including Marketo, Hubspot, and Salesforce to help
marketers measure ROI from social media. Socedo was founded in 2012 by Aseem
Badshah and Kevin Yu and is based in Seattle, WA.
Learn more about Socedo at www.socedo.com
About Demand Metric
Demand Metric is a marketing research and advisory firm serving a membership
community of over 70,000 marketing professionals and consultants in 75 countries.
Offering consulting methodologies, advisory services, and 500+ premium marketing
tools and templates, Demand Metric resources and expertise help the marketing
community plan more efficiently and effectively, answer the difficult questions about
their work with authority and conviction and complete marketing projects more
quickly and with greater confidence, boosting the respect of the marketing team and
making it easier to justify resources the team needs to succeed.
To learn more about Demand Metric, please visit: www.demandmetric.com.

APPENDIX: SURVEY BACKGROUND
This 2016 Social Media Investment and Returns Study survey was administered online
during the period of July 29 through August 31, 2016. During this period, 482
responses were collected, 401 of which were qualified and complete enough for
inclusion in the analysis. Only valid or correlated findings are shared in this report.
The representativeness of this study’s results depends on the similarity of the sample
to environments in which this survey data is used for comparison or guidance.
Summarized below is the basic categorization data collected about respondents to
enable filtering and analysis of the data:
!  Type of organization:
"  Primarily B2B 66 percent
"  Mixed B2B/B2C 34 percent
!  Primary role of respondent
"  President, CEO or owner 24 percent
"  CMO 10 percent
"  Digital marketing 19 percent
"  Social media marketing 7 percent
"  Marketing operations 15 percent
"  Other marketing role 9 percent
"  Sales 5 percent
"  Other 11 percent
!  Annual sales:
"  Less than $10 million 57 percent
"  $10 to $24 million 13 percent
"  $1 billion or more 7 percent

APPENDIX: SURVEY BACKGROUND
!  Revenue growth environment in most recent fiscal year:
"  Significant increase 19 percent
"  Slight increase 44 percent
"  Flat 23 percent
"  Slight decline 10 percent
"  Significant decline 4 percent

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