Zeno Group‘s 2012 Digital Readiness Survey revealed a striking truth: businesses are burned out on social media, too.
For all the lip service paid to social media marketing and all the “New Media Marketing” hires on LinkedIn, it seems that a lot of businesses are coming around to the idea that social media actually might not be very important. Generally, the survey found that smaller businesses (those with fewer than 10,000 employees) and business-to-business (B2B) companies were less likely to engage with their customers via social media. In fact, 43% of B2B companies admitted that their CEO ignores online reputations altogether.
On its face, the survey makes a certain amount of sense. If you sell to other businesses, you probably have fewer customers and a direct sales force, so you can just pick up the phone to reach them. Likewise, smaller companies probably have fewer resources to dedicate to a social campaign – and less ability to make a splash.
But the one-to-many push of social marketing is comparatively cheap, and there’s no reason to make your sales force perform damage control when they should be selling. Sure Facebook fatigue seems to be catching these days, but it seems like many businesses are missing an opportunity.
For all the details, check out Zeno Group’s infographic below: