B2B & B2C Social Media

Both business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) companies have quickly taken to talking to their target audiences through social media.  According to research from Business.com, however, the two types of companies have different social site usage patterns for business purposes.

You can download the “2009 B2B Social Media Benchmarking Study” and read up on all of the useful facts that we found, but we’ll try to sum it up for you here.

B2B companies already using social media were much more active in the space than their B2C counterparts, especially when it came to microblogging, participating in discussions on third-party sites, blogging and monitoring company mentions on various social media. B2Cs were ahead in a few areas: social media advertising, user ratings and reviews, and online communities for customers and prospects.

60% of B2B respondents use Twitter search to monitor mentions of their company or brand, compared with just 35% of B2Cs. The difference in usage of Google Alerts was slightly smaller, at 59% of B2Bs versus 40% of B2Cs. B2C firms were most likely to keep tabs on mentions via Google search, at 61%, just edging out B2B companies, 60% of which used Google search for the same purpose.

Contact KEO Marketing for more information about social media for B2Bs and B2Cs.

Author Sheila Kloefkorn

With more than 20 years of hands on marketing strategy and operations experience, Sheila Kloefkorn is dedicated to developing marketing strategies and plans that help clients succeed. Some of the world's largest brands have depended on Sheila for marketing programs that delivered tangible and substantial results. Specialties: B2B marketing, lead generation, lead nurturing, sales strategy, marketing strategy, competitive marketing strategy, social media, search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), mobile marketing,, email marketing, website design, marketing plans.