B2B companies are ‘running blind’ into the social media world
 
Nearly 50% of B2B respondents to a PWC ‘social maturity’ survey are not undertaking any kind of measurement of the return on their investment or are only using very basic qualitative measures

PwC’s new paper ‘Uncovering B2B social media: Value, innovation and engagement’ surveyed companies attitudes to social media in order to show the levels of ‘social media maturity’. The survey revealed that, although B2B companies are investing financially in social media, they are not backing this up with clear strategies to their staff on the use of social media or by investing in the people resources necessary to make it work effectively.

Fewer than 12% of organisations surveyed have full time social media teams in place. Survey findings include

• Companies investing between $416,000 and $1.85m on social media, but not measuring the return on this investment effectively
• CEOs are still in the early stages of thinking how make the best of social media, while two-thirds of companies cultures do not support the use of social media or only provide basic rules and education to their staff leaving them open to reputational risk

Sean Mahdi, director in PwC’s digital transformation practice said: “Social  media is changing the way people work, shop, receive service and relate to one another. Businesses also need to change the way they engage with customers, whose trust is increasingly invested in their peers, rather than in the brands with which they interact. Business audience and buyers are people influenced by the same forces that influence retail consumers. In fact, they are those consumers.

“The results of our survey demonstrate that, although B2B is investing in social media, they appear to be doing so with limited strategies that don’t fully exploit social media in the way that B2C is doing. There is evidence that sectors you might expect to be proficient in this area such as Technology and Entertainment and Media have much better tools and processes in place, but the majority of B2B organisations have much work to do to effectively use this new medium to interact with their clients and customers.

The report examines the ways social media can be used not only as a tool to drive sales, but also as an opportunity to create loyalty to a brand, demonstrate transparency and responsibility in all aspects of the businesses operations and to use it as a way to participate in a two way dialogue as opposed to the traditional one way communication model.

Mahdi added: “The good news is that whilst social media adoption remains relatively immature in the world of B2B commerce, there are signs that this is changing and there are some great examples of firms who are successfully weaving social media into the way in which they engage with their customers. These organisations have learned from the B2C models and have social media as a central plank of B2B customer engagement strategies, driving real benefits for both customers and the organisation.

“Embracing social media represents a significant change to the way in which many organisations interact with their customers, a social media strategy is essential. Becoming a social business requires insight on many fronts: about your customers, about what your brand stands for; and about the additional value that you can provide your customers through social media engagement.”