The social media preference for business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) companies not surprisingly is different. While B2C companies like Facebook and YouTube, B2B organizations prefer LinkedIn and Twitter. Even though their preference differs, the new survey conducted by Clutch revealed social media has a positive influence for most companies.
New Survey: How Businesses Use Social Media for Marketing
For B2C companies, Facebook was chosen by 96 percent of the respondents, with YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram getting 82, 77, 74, and 74 percent respectively. As for B2B’s, LinkedIn came in first at 93 percent, followed by Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram at 83, 82, 81 and 40 percent respectively.
Clutch and Smart Insights, a publisher and learning platform that helps companies plan, came together to conduct this survey in order to determine the value of social media. They surveyed 344 social media marketers from around the world to find out the most engaging content to share, social media resources businesses invest in, and the challenges they will face. The report of the survey was written by Kristen Herhold, content writer and marketer at Clutch.
Impact of Social Media
The data in the survey reveals businesses of all sizes benefit from social media. Fifty two percent of social media marketers said social media has helped increase revenue and sales for their clients.
This is achieved using different types of content to engage with consumers, all of which are within the reach of small businesses.
First it is important to have original content, and 80 percent of companies said they share mostly original content on social media. The three most engaging types of content are broken down into written articles (27 percent), videos (26 percent), and images (24 percent).
Once the content is posted, engagement (36 percent) and conversion rates (35 percent) are the most important metrics for tracking success. But such tracking is not always easy to implement without the right approach.
The Challenges of Social Media
According to the survey, not having enough human and financial resources (26 percent), lacking a formal strategy (24 percent), and building a community of followers and influencers (24 percent) were the top three challenges social media marketers face.
Achieving Success in Social Media
More than half of the marketers in the survey said they used outside resources. These include management software, digital marketing or social media marketing agencies, or freelancers and consultants by 44, 28, and 9 percent respectively.
Similar solutions can be used by small businesses to get their social media presence off the ground. And once it is up and running, it can be managed in house or with freelancers and consultants at affordable rates.
Mark Zuckerberg Photo via Shutterstock
This article, “Facebook is the Most Popular Social Media Site for B2C Small Businesses, Survey Says” was first published on Small Business Trends