Early adopters have proven Social Media to be viable for B2B marketers – the window of opportunity is now.

Social media marketing has traditionally been thought of as a tool of B2C marketers – capitalizing on a nation of consumers that were increasingly turning to social media to find products that met their demands.

However, as business buyers behave more and more like consumers, B2B marketers need to make sure they are appealing to them by incorporating social media into their overall marketing strategy. But they aren’t doing a good enough job.

Though industrial manufacturers are using social media at a much higher rate than they have historically, only about 30% of respondents in our International Marketing Survey reported making a real commitment to social media from a staffing perspective – either full-time staff, an external firm or a freelancer / subcontractor.

The majority are relegating social media to part-time staff or interns.

Furthermore, over 20% of respondents believe social media is not for them – or
for industrial companies in general – and the majority of respondents either don’t have a social media program or aren’t tracking their results.

These statistics are not particularly shocking for industrial manufacturers, who are typically slow to adopt marketing technology.

However, with so many manufacturers falling behind the times when it comes to their adoption of social media, an opportunity presents itself for industrial manufacturers to take even the simplest steps to get ahead of their competition.

Social platforms provide the opportunity for businesses to share fresh, quality information, as well as participate in conversations and gain likes, tweets and shares. All of this adds to your online authority and increases your relevance in the eyes of search engines.

Industrial marketers are officially late to the social media party, but appear to be catching up through the use of Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. As part of a complete content marketing plan, social media provides multiple platforms to connect with prospects.

Sharing the solutions to their problems has never been easier, as social media platforms and tools like HootSuite, SocialOomph and ManageFlitter have made it possible to manage multiple accounts at once and grow a following.

While your company may be late to the party, it would be foolish to continue with the mindset that social should take a backseat because “We haven’t needed it before, why do we need it now?”

Now is the perfect time to develop a social media marketing strategy, while you can still gain an advantage on your competition.