Gazing into the crystal ball of B2B in social: Google+ looks to be the next big event

Social media is a fast-moving, ever-evolving beast – for all marketers it’s a constant challenge to stay one step ahead of the game. We can’t be 100% sure of the future of social, but we can certainly have a jolly good inkling…

The results of B2B Marketing’s Social Media Benchmarking report nod to the growing importance of Google+ as a playground for B2B marketers; a platform that has received a lot of attention over the last year. The results of the survey found that although Google+ is the no. 1 social platform for a mere 36% at present, participants said that Google’s network would be three times as relevant in 2014 as it is now. The user statistics certainly back this view up, with Google+ being reported to be the 2nd biggest social network, behind Facebook and ahead of Twitter in January this year[1].

In my opinion, that’s not to say that the other networks used by B2B marketers will be pushed out of the limelight, marketers will simply have learnt to fully embrace yet another social network (and will hopefully have more resource to do a great job too, which is why I suspect the uptake has been a little slow for many).

B2B Marketing sums up the results of the study with this good-looking infographic. One thing in particular that I’d hope to see change in a year’s time would be more B2B marketers having a defined social strategy vs. adhoc (currently 38% vs. 61%).

 

 

This infographic is from B2B Marketing’s 2013 Social Media Benchmarking report.

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