Forrester Research is pulling out the proverbial crystal ball again predicting that overall spending within Social Media Marketing will hit an awe-inspiring 54 Billion USD by 2014. Not only is that number staggering, it’s also enlightening.
For annual spending to hit that level, that means businesses are falling into line with the concept of social media marketing and they’re opening their doors up to the possibilities of what it can do for branding, lead acquisition and growth overall.

It’s a solid commitment that takes time to work through and it’s pretty rare for a brand, lest they be a major one, to have a breakout in viral popularity overnight with blogging.

That’s what makes it difficult for B2B companies to take that first step.

Applying the right strategy to work smarter through blogging, content distribution and strategic planning, marketing promotional material, search engine optimization and search marketing and all other channels such as social networking saves a monstrous amount of time and delivers improved results.

I know there are a lot of B2B marketers and companies that are just unsure of where they should stand within the social web. Unfortunately one company can rarely use the success and position of another company as a model even when those two companies exist within the same niche and operate as a B2B entity.

With the unique methods and approaches that many companies take, simply mirroring the success of others isn’t enough to find your own success.  That’s why that strategy is a careful part of B2B integration in social media marketing, especially where blogging is concerned.

Do I favor blogging over other mediums? Absolutely, because it’s the one piece of marketing content that is scalable to almost every business.

Do I think that blogging should be applied to every single B2B practice? Not at all, but it’s worth investigation on your part.

According to the 2010 SEMPO Study, approximately 35% of B2B companies are utilizing social media marketing with their marketing practices on the web. There’s a lot of opportunity and room for growth there that’s necessary if businesses want to keep up with the explosive growth of social media.

Countless companies have seen their own amazing growth, keeping up with the expansion of social media, with the use of blogging and appropriate search engine optimization. The problem is often trying to decide how and why to start one and the strategy behind it.

For as many reasons why a company would start a blog, there’s an equal number of why they fail but just because a first attempt doesn’t work, that shouldn’t mean that it won’t work for your company at all.

B2B social media marketing is a different kind of beast, and one that warrants attention and strategy. If you network with individuals that see success in blogging, then get insight from them on what they do that is successful and what you might be missing.

Business.com shares some impressive info, presenting us with the most popular metrics that are being used to measure success in B2B social media marketing:

• Site Traffic – 68%
• Brand Awareness – 61%
• Prospect Engagement – 60%
• Customer Engagement – 52%
• Reputation – 47%
• Lead Quality – 40%
• Revenue - 38%
• Lead Volume – 37%
• Useful Feedback – 26%

With the right strategy in place, most B2B companies could utilize blogging as part of their social media marketing to have a positive impact on these KPI’s.

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