You’ve heard of demographics (who people are) and psychographics (what they care about) but now, you must be aware of technographics (how people use technologies)
Forrester is known for it’s success with our consumer social technographics, how buyers use social media in their lives. Just this Monday, we released information on the B2B side, technology buyers and folks often within the enterprise lead by Oliver Young, and Laura Ramos (read their take)
I’m going to quote Josh who notes the following from the data:
Some highlights from this research (start by looking at the right two columns):
91% of these technology decision-makers were Spectators — the highest number I’ve ever seen in a Social Technographics Profile. This means you can count on the fact that your buyers are reading blogs, watching user generated video, and participating in other social media. Note that 69% of them said they were using this technology for business purposes. Only 5% are non-participants (Inactives). 55% of these decision-makers were in social networks (Joiners) — despite as mature businesspeople and not college students, you’d think they’d be participating a lot less. 43% are creating media (blogs, uploading videos or articles, etc.) and 58% are Critics, reacting to content they see in social formats. Again the numbers are very high compared to other groups we’ve surveyed, and again the level of participation for business purposes is also very high
Above: Oliver Young has created a slideshare deck, thumb through it to learn more.
If your boss isn’t sure if social media is right for you, forward them this data and check out the full report, or download a free copy after registration.
Data is a powerful tool (more than a panel of ‘social media gurus’) so use it to make business decisions –go beyond gut instincts and opinions.
Hey Jeremiah, thanks for the post on the research. Laura and I are very excited about the data and how it can be used. If anyone is interested in downloading a copy you can find it here: http://www.forrester.com/b2bsocialmediawebinar If you are interested in talking about the research at all drop me a note at oyoung AT forrester DOT com, or @OliverYoung on Twitter.
Thanks for sharing these insights – as a Director of Marketing for a professional services firm, I’ve had to do a significant amount of re-thinking lately about the relationship between corporate branding and personal branding, paticulalry in regard to allocation of ever diminishing resources. Your information is driving me to the conclusion that it’s time to devote a lot more time, attention and resources to using social media as a business development tool.
Oliver good work, thanks for all your labor on this long project.
Alan, hope this helps you in your decision making, I saw this topic fly around twitter.
This is interesting in that it reconfirms long standing studies on human behavioural patterns. What is interesting and not aligned with older studies is that creation is quite high. Usually only a small percentage actually creates most all of anything and the rest use it. However, with social media tools being so accommodating it is unclear on what exactly they are “creating”. It is always good to know how people behave —
Douglas White – it’s interesting that you asked that question, because it is something Oliver and Laura (I worked with them on this project) were also very focused on. The underlying research breaks each category down by specific activity so the data can target it more closely than these broad buckets.
The specific questions we asked are given on slide 8 of the embedded presentation. I hope that helps.
I think measurement is a great asset for brands to build relationships. Even more if you consider building them not through a website, but by reaching the consumer right where they are. The concept of “Architecture” allows to redefine “User Experience” by considering it with no limits to the website. And measurement plays a great role in this http://bit.ly/J0627
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I agree with those points. Seem highly concise and nice to see them supported by b2b data. Solutions like those seem feasible.
I agree with those points. Seem highly concise and nice to see them supported by b2b data. Solutions like those seem feasible.
interesting points. nicely supported by multimedia.
Social media become one of the very important aspect of B2B marketing and lead generation.
Social media become one of the very important aspect of B2B marketing and lead generation.
Social media platforms are not only for the communicators but also for the business professionals. With the platforms business can communicate with the customers and can know their opinion.