B2B firms have embraced content marketing big time in 2013
A report by MarketingProfs and the Content Marketing Institute highlights some important findings:
- Nearly 93% of B2B marketers have incorporated content marketing into their overall marketing strategy.
- About 73% of these firms confirmed that they were creating more content today than the previous year.
- About 58% of the B2B marketers said that would be increasing their content marketing budget for 2014.
Pretty impressive stats, but what’s going on with specific platforms? Let’s have a look at what B2B marketers are up to:
LinkedIn – The preferred choice of B2B marketers
B2B marketers are also embracing more channels. LinkedIn has emerged as the platform of choice for B2B firm. Marketing Profs found that a whopping 91% of the B2B marketers used LinkedIn for content distribution, followed by Twitter with 85% and Facebook with 81%..
Forecasts show that LinkedIn will continue to rule the B2B arena. The popularity of this medium is due to the fact that it promotes like-minded user-groups to interact, seek and share information for serious business purposes.
SlideShare – Rising to meet user expectations
SlideShare recorded the highest increase in terms of usage as a content distribution channel, registering a rise from 23% to 40%.
SlideShare’s popularity is partly due to the fact that it is mobile-friendly and can be easily viewed on iPads, iPhones and Android devices.
Google Plus
Google Plus is giving stiff competition to LinkedIn and SlideShare – Marketing Profs found its usage had increased from 39% to 55% of B2B companies. B2B marketers are using Google Plus to connect with their audience, answer user queries, and create video content via hangouts.
Infographics
In case you missed it infographics are everywhere. Today, 51% of B2B marketers report using infographics in their content marketing, up from 38% last year.
In sum, if you’re a B2B firm, no matter what you do, you ARE a media company. Ignore this reality at your own peril.