B2B Social Media Usage Skyrockets through Content Marketing

The latest B2B content marketing research from the Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs found that social media usage is on the rise. No big surprise, right? What is surprising is how fast B2B companies of all sizes are leveraging content creation as part of their social media programs.

74% of B2B marketers distribute content through Twitter, followed by LinkedIn at 71% and Facebook at 70%. These are significant increases over the 2010 numbers (Twitter 55%, LinkedIn 51% and Facebook 54%). Not to be outdone, the biggest gainer on a percentage basis was YouTube, which grew nearly 50%, rising from 38% in 2010 to 55% in 2011.

The Undiscovered Gem – Slideshare

Slideshare, the YouTube for PowerPoint presentations, came in at a lowly 20% of usage. This is clearly an opportunity for B2B marketers. Why?

• Slideshare is one of the fastest growing B2B search engines
• Slideshare is well indexed by Google, which means that properly tagging a presentation in
• Slideshare can garner your company more attention

For example, this presentation on Web Content Strategy, uploaded two years ago, has more than 40,000 views on Slideshare. In addition, it has been on the first page of Google for the term “web content strategy,” an increasingly popular term, for years as well. Because of this, we’ve been able to generate significant business from companies that found us here, simply because we uploaded the presentation to Slideshare.

The Story is Key

Yes, we are all publishers now, including B2B companies…and more B2B marketers are leveraging social media to distribute their content. But one thing is clear; without valuable, compelling and relevant content, the tools simply won’t work.

According to the same CMI study, 41% of B2B marketers stated that creating compelling content was their most difficult challenge. Since content marketing is a new muscle for most organizations, this makes sense…but the time is now to start organizing your marketing departments around your customer story.

Remember, first we need to figure out our customers’ pain points…then we can develop engaging content that speaks to those pain points. Then, and only then, can we leverage all these fancy social media tools.

Good luck.

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About the author: Joe Pulizzi is founder and executive director of the Content Marketing Institute, which includes Chief Content Officer magazine and Content Marketing World, the industry’s largest content marketing event. Joe recently co-authored Managing Content Marketing: The Real-World Guide to Creating Passionate Subscribers to Your Brand. Buy it now at Amazon.com. You can follow Joe on Twitter @juntajoe.

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