What’s trending this week in the B2B Twittersphere? As we do every week, B2B News Network, utilizing the cutting-edge social data analysis platform Nexalogy, sorts and sifts through B2B-related tweets to bring you news you can use about what’s hot in the world of B2B marketing, social media, big data and more.

This week, we look at the easiest and most effective methods for B2B content marketing, which brands are successfully utilizing social media to engage with customers and how your company can use predictive analytics in the Big Data era to boost business.

TRENDING TOPICS 

B2B Marketing:

In #B2B #marketing, what is most effective and easiest to implement via @EvolveCorp? #smm #contentmarketing pic.twitter.com/rSPY2Xqg1a

— Mark Fidelman (@markfidelman) May 29, 2015

Mark Fidelman, CEO of digital marketing agency Evolve and a columnist at Forbes, offers a simple diagram to explore the easiest and most effective methods his company uses in content marketing. While influencer marketing, social media and YouTube videos are highly effective, simpler B2B marketing tools like email, contests, blogs and case studies are equally effective but much easier to implement. On the other end of the scale, podcasts and mobile content are the most difficult—and least effective—tools, while press releases, Google and LinkedIn ads and Facebook updates are easy, but not very effective.

B2B Social Media:

5 Ways to Woo Your #B2B #SocialMedia Audience & 3 Brands That Are Doing it Well http://t.co/36TyIoU3uT #Marketing — Jose Javier Garde (@jose_garde) June 3, 2015

According to a recent IBM study, only 20 percent of CMOs are using social media for engagement. Here, Spanish social media manager José Javier Garde Lecumberri details five ways to woo your B2B social media audience. Understanding audience habits tops Garde’s list, followed by being a good storyteller, offering a variety of social media publishing, introducing fans and followers to their favorite celebrities and, finally, advertising on social media.

Garde then lists companies he believes are excelling at social media engagement, with HP harnessing Facebook effectively to reach both B2B and B2C customers, FedEx using Twitter to promote the #FedEx400 NASCAR race benefitting Autism Speaks and GE using LinkedIn effectively despite its wide range of products and services which could have just as easily overwhelmed consumers.

B2B Big Data:

#B2B #PredictiveAnalytics in the #BigData Era http://t.co/C3TLy18fip — Vineet Vashishta (@v_vashishta) May 22, 2015

V2 Consulting CEO Vineet Vashishta linked to this incisive article by Keke Wu (Avention) on B2B predictive analytics in the Big Data era. According to Wu, there are two major hurdles on the journey from adequate predictive models to ones that hit the nail on the head. First, B2B companies must find the missing pieces of the puzzle—gone are the days when businesses had a limited number of attributes to enter into their predictive models. Timing is also very important. Because company attributes don’t change very often in the B2B world, it is difficult for marketers to accurately forecast an event’s timing.

Wu argues that these and other challenges can be overcome thanks to the world of new possibilities opening in the Big Data era. There are thousands of new sources and more available information on businesses. Analyzing demographic data and real-time activities empowers B2B executives in a way that simply was not possible before, thus allowing for more just-in-time marketing offers and hyper-targeted sales calls.

 TOP MEDIA

B2B Infographics:

IDG sponsored research from @CMIContent. Check out this #B2B tech marketing #infographic http://t.co/7jGlXZSLlw pic.twitter.com/18jCmZMriD

— IDG (@IDGWorld) May 27, 2015

 Which content marketing initiatives are B2B tech marketers working on?

According to this infographic published along with a report from the Content Marketing Initiative, Marketing Profs and IDG, the average marketer today is working on 14 different initiatives, and implementing 7 more within 12 months. Fully 73 percent of B2B tech marketers are hard at work creating higher-quality content, 71 percent are working on website visitor conversions and 69 percent are trying to improve audience understanding. Meanwhile, at the low end, 34 percent of B2B tech marketers are working on content marketing strategy, with an identical percentage at work on implementing mobile strategy—a surprisingly low percentage given the ascendence and ubiquity of mobile.

B2B Infographics: 

How millennnials are reshaping #B2B #marketing – #infographic http://t.co/o6wktgJyZJ #IBMIBV pic.twitter.com/OvctMrBH5A

— IBM Software (@IBMSoftware) May 21, 2015

This IBM infographic examines how Millennials are reshaping B2B marketing. Millennials are the new decision makers, profoundly impacting their organizations and the B2B vendors who do business with them. So how are Millennials different from Gen Xers, Boomers and others? When researching B2B products and servers, they want to interact directly with vendors more than older generations. They also prefer to interact remotely with vendors during the sales cycle, even though they still have plenty of face-to-face time with them.

Millennials are also more eager to share positive B2B experiences, but are much more reluctant to share when they are disappointed. Finally, Millennials place equal weight on data analysis and the opinion of family and friends when deciding whether or not to make B2B purchases in excess of $10,000.

If you missed last week’s Hashtag Team report by Sarah Dawley, here’s the link.  

Related posts:

How to get your content in front of the right audience Pulse Conference 2015: Moneyball’s Michael Lewis on business data, Box’s Dan Levin on a winning CSM The guide to knowing the right metrics for B2B landing page success Hashtag Team: Converting data into content, inside B2B marketing case studies