Facebook and Twitter top the list, but LinkedIn is right up there. As you can imagine, Consumer tracks higher (slightly) than B2B on Facebook (83% vs. 77%) and MySpace (23% vs. 14%), but B2B is outpacing Consumer on Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube (28%, 23% and 13% higher respectively). B2B marketers tend to often have smaller budgets, so social media is appealing as a low-cost tactic, lower-audience waste scores.
In pharmaceutical marketing, social media seems daunting and risky. Aside from the obvious B2B retailer potential (eg, promotions alerts), there are some less obvious ones. For example, clinical trial recruitment is essentially a B2B initiative, in that pharma co's recruit from referring physicians into trials. Patients generally get referred via physicians, although some are direct. Novartis' Twitter presence, while less active now, still provides a link to their web site for recruitment information and pull-through. A more straight forward example is Performics (Search specialist) and Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness, sister companies to Saatchi & Saatchi Healthcare Innovations. Performics uses their Twitter feed to push out Search trend updates and thought leadership promos for their white papers, etc.
For B2B, relevancy and purposeful, timeley updates are key, no fluff please!
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1 comment:
Amy...Great post! I wonder whether one of the reasons B2B is using social media is because it helps establish their personality. Historically, B2B has suffered from the kind of safe, dull neutrality required to help skittish corporate buyers feel more secure in their decisions. But as tech savvy upstarts capture market share precisely because of their personality, maybe more B2B's are recognizing the value of expanding their notion of "brand." Social media presents a unique opportunity to have their cake and eat it, too. They get a foothold in the personality-based social media world, and once tested, gradually integrate their mainstream marketing efforts to include the expanded brand.
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