Recently, BtoB and the Association of National Advertisers updated a study they originally did in 2007 regarding the use of social media by b-to-b and b-to-c marketers.

57% of b-to-b marketers are now using social media as a marketing tactic compared to 15% in 2007.

When it comes to using current social platforms, here’s where they stand with b-to-b marketers:

• 81% say they currently use LinkedIn
• 70% say they use Twitter (compared to only 46% for b-to-c marketers)
• 60% use Facebook

It’s also interesting to note that the main objective for their company website and social media has shifted from “brand building” to “demand generation” with 47% now listing that as their main objective as opposed to the 39% in 2007.

The top concerns for both b-to-b and b-to-c marketers when considering newer media platforms is the inability to prove ROI (44% b-to-b, 56% b-to-c) and having metrics to properly allocate the mix of traditional and digital media (42% b-to-b, 49% b-to-c).

The full survey finding will be presented on the opening day of B-to-B Marketing in the New World, on Aug. 4-5 in Chicago.

BtoBonline.com recently released the results of a survey they did around marketing budgets for 2009 and 2010.  53% of the 495 respondents said that they expected their marketing budget to go up in 2010. You can download the study results here.

It’s no surprise that around 43% shared that their budgets in 2009 went down by a significant margin this year. Interestingly, 23% say their budgets actually went up this year.  65% said that their online marketing budget was increasing this year as well which shows the shift of marketing budgets from the more traditional methods over to online. 

In regards to where they plan on spending their online budget, 63.8% of respondents will increase spending on Web site development; 61.6% will increase e-mail marketing; 49.5% will increase search; and 46.2% will increase social media. the categories seeing The areas companies plan on focusing on in the second half of this year are Web site development (43.5%), e-mail marketing (44.1%), social media (35.2%), search (33.0%) and webcasts (24.5%).

When asked about social media, 50.6% of the respondents said their company uses it today as part of their marketing strategy. Those that said they use social media today stated that they do so in the following ways; Advertising (40.1%), Marketing Research (40.1%), Customer Feedback (48.9%), Generate Leads (51.9%), Thought Leadership (57.3%), and Other (11.8%).

It’s great to see that so many companies are using social media with the intent to generate leads and improve their inbound marketing via creating thought leadership content.  As marketers start to tie goals to their social media experience, we expect this area to continue to grow.