As expected, social media marketing results vary across the B2B space. The general theme, according to the latest study by MarketingSherpa, is that, in general, social media marketing has been somewhat effective. What’s most encouraging, though, is that for most categories, few respondents indicated that social media initiatives were not effective at all.

For brand-related, traffic and PR efforts, more than 40 percent of respondents for each category indicated that there social media marketing programs were very effective, with those indicating “somewhat effective” ranging from 47 percent to 54 percent. Respondents saying that social media had not been effective for them amounted to 5 percent and fewer.

In areas where a connection to the sales cycle was included, social media was not deemed to have been as effective. Customer support quality and cost initiatives were generally somewhat effective to ineffective. Social media-driven lead generation, sales revenue and the containment of new customer acquisition costs, on the other hand, were generally somewhat effective.

[Source: MarketingSherpa]