There are two rivers of content at conferences. One is the river of planned content-the conference theme, the presentations, etc.; the other is the river of conversation that flows through the event at breaks, meals and receptions. This is where you get the dope on the shared challenges of the attendees.
We just wrapped up our ITSMA Annual Marketing Conference this week and the strongest current driving the river of conversation was social media. Specifically, frustration over how to use social media to reach the C-suite. Most of ITSMA's clients are B2B marketers from big technology companies that sell big, complex products, services, and solutions. That means that the people buying those services-or at least playing a key role in the decision-tend to be high up on the corporate food chain-the C-suite or just below.
These are not the people we imagine Twittering about their need for complex enterprise IT services. In fact, it's hard for most of us to imagine these people using social media at all.
CEOs Use Social Media More than Other Buyers
And yet our latest annual survey of 355 buyers of complex IT solutions, How Customers Choose Solution Providers, 2009: The Importance of Personalization, Epiphanies, and Social Media, shows that the door to the C-suite is opening up. (You can download an abbreviated summary here.)
We found that usage of social media among IT and business buyers of technology rose 50% over last year and finally pushed to majority status-55% said they use social media as part of the technology buying process in 2009 versus just 37% in 2008. More importantly, we found that executives in large organizations use social media more than in smaller organizations, and that C-suite executives actually use social media more than their lower-level buying peers. Just 15% of CEOs and directors said they did not use any form of social media at all, while 34% of manager/directors and 26% of VPs/Assistant vice presidents said they ignore the stuff.
This has big implications for marketers. It means that social media is taking hold within your biggest, most valuable accounts at the highest levels. Sounds like a business case for investment to me.
Another surprise was that the big shots use all of the different social media tools pretty evenly. However, CEOs did show a specific preference for the range of social networking sites-LinkedIn, Facebook, and Plaxo-over Twitter or blogs.
Use Social Media to Drive Peer Connections
This makes sense when you consider what our IT buyers have been telling us for years: that their peers are by far their most preferred and trusted choice for information during the buying process. This year, our research showed that most buyers go to colleagues inside their own companies for referrals of people to talk to about a purchase. No doubt, they would like to expand that circle beyond the company-30% say they rely on peers from councils and communities they belong to, and 29% say they speak to colleagues at other companies for referrals.
Right now, I have to believe that the biggest potential for social media within this elite audience is as a tool for expanding the circle of trusted peers that they can call upon when they're about to make a big purchasing decision.
What do you think?
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