FreshNetworks Blog

According to a recent report by emarketer, business-to-business (B2B) spending on social media is set to increase dramatically over the next few years.

Outsell, a company who provides business intelligence for publishers and information providers, estimates that B2B marketing on social networks will grow by 43.3% in 2010.

Perhaps even more interesting is Forrester Research’s prediction that B2B firms will spend $4.8 billion on social media marketing by 2014 – an increase of $2.3 billion in comparison to 2009 spend.

Emarketer’s Evelyn Jung, author of  a new report called “B2B Social Media Marketing Heats Up“, believes that B2B marketers will realise they can use social media to generate quality leads and to position themselves as thought leaders in their industries.

Currently B2B marketers tend to spend their money on customer communities, podcasts and blogs. Paid advertising on social networks—banners, text ads and search advertising, as well as the more targeted advertising on Facebook and MySpace— accounts for just a small proportion of B2B marketers’ social spending.

The expectation is that when companies budget for social media marketing in 2010 and beyond, a substantial portion of their money will go on social initiatives like creating and maintaining a branded profile page or online community, managing promotions or public relations outreach and using social media monitoring to check the impact of social media on a brand or business as a whole.